Ancient Manuscripts That Should Never Have Been Opened

chances are you've heard of The Voyage

manuscript the mysterious book that

seems to be written in an unknown

language that nobody's ever been able to

translate it features drawings of plants

and animals that don't exist and nobody

knows who made it I've done a video

about it here it's super famous but it's

not the only mysterious manuscript

that's ever been found there's actually

a lot of them in fact I got a lot of

comments on that Voyage video requesting

that I talk about some of them but yeah

all around the world we've found

documents that challenge what we think

we know about history stir up

controversy and sometimes

just make no sense so today let's take a

look at some of the most mysterious

ancient manuscripts that have ever been

found in my episode about the world's

weirdest form of writing I talked about

how we're in a bit of a language crisis

I mean nine languages a year are stop

being spoken worldwide it's so bad that

they predict that by 2080 we'll be

losing a language every two weeks and

this is important because we we lose

ideas that are specific to cultures when

a language dies we lose records of time

periods and people we lose stories that

that were important to them at that time

and could still have meaning in our

lives today and then there are the

languages that we come across from our

past that we can't understand that um

even though we found them its meaning is

lost to us but what might be even

weirder is when we find manuscripts or

documents and languages we do understand

where we can decipher the information in

it but that

information is weird weird or out of

place or out of time or it's made in a

way that we can't figure out by people

who we don't know who they are now some

of these I'm about to talk about are

still being studied uh so we may find

out that they're not for real at some

point in the future but some of these

have been studied thoroughly and are

super legit which only brings up more

questions so let's start our treasure

hunt where else ancient Egypt in 1868 an

Egyptian mummy made its way to the

Museum of Zagreb in Croatia it was of an

ordinary woman nobody of any royalty or

a priest or anything like that but what

was interesting was what she was wrapped

in it was linen strips with writing on

it which isn't that big a deal but it

wasn't Egyptian hieroglyphic

it actually was something unknown at the

time about 20 years later the museum

officials sent the rappings to Vienna

and there the Austrian egyptologist

Jacob CRA looked at them and he figured

out what the language was it was

actually Ausin yeah weirdly for some

reason this mummy had been wrapped with

strips from an at truscan linen book

this was an incredible Discovery first

of all because at truscan was not spoken

in Egypt it was an early kind of Roman

language but also no surviving examples

of at truskin linen books had ever been

found I meant to say at truskin not at

there usually a linen book like this

would have dissolved way over time but

Egypt's area climate and the materials

that were used to dry the mummy helped

preserve it this wasn't just the first

atesin linen text that was found

completely intact it was also the

longest at truskin text ever found the

book was originally a sheet about 3.4 M

long before it was torn into strips for

bandages it contained 12 Columns of text

written in black and red ink and it's

thought that about 60% of the original

text is still on there they also found

Papyrus from the Egyptian Book of the

Dead wrapping the mummy's body which

could give us a clue as to who she was

so we found this linen it's in at

truscan we can read it what was this

thing actually about well basically it

was just a calendar about which rights

and sacrifices should be done throughout

the year there are certain Gods

mentioned like nethuns who was an at

truscan Water God related to the Roman

god Neptune and some of the words and

names in the text lead the experts to

believe that it was composed near the

modern day Italian city of perusia now

the linen itself was dated to the 4th

Century BCE but the writing is from much

later like the word January is used as a

start of a ritual year which means that

it was probably written between 200 150

BCE meaning whoever wrote this found

linen that was literally like 3

centuries old and then wrote stuff on it

and then later it got ripped up and was

used on a

mummy this linen has had quite the

journey like to me that's a huge mystery

right there like who goes and finds 300y

old linen and then writes on

it this doesn't even make sense but then

there's the obvious question of how did

this you know linen with a tresen

writing on it make its way to Egypt so

so the theory is uh since the mummy was

found in the in the city of Alexandria

which is a port city it's a big trading

Hub um one theory is that she was

basically just wrapped in whatever

material was available which again um

we're going to bury this person Let's uh

let's just let's just find that book

over there just tear up that book and

just wrap let's just do a papier-mâché

around yeah that's one way to do it now

if that's the case then it would just

happen to have a truskin text on there

and there's no connection between that

and the Egyptian Book of the Dead stuff

that was in there and there's not really

any big mystery as to how it would have

made its way to Alexandria like I said

it was a port city there was a lot of

trade there and there was plenty of seaf

fairing trade that went on in the

Mediterranean way way back when so

that's one theory that they just found

the book and wrapped her up in it

because that's what was available

another theory is that she was actually

of a truscan ancestry so she was buried

to the customs of her ancestral and

adoptive cultures but either way it's a

book that was found wrapped around a

mummy and if that is not worthy of a

spot on a list of mysterious manuscripts

out of I don't know what is Here's a

thought instead of being a traitor could

Judas scariot have been Jesus's best

friend according to the controversial

Gospel of Judas that's exactly the

situation written on Papyrus and dating

to around the 2 Century ad it tells a

story of Jesus asking Judas to betray

him so that he can fulfill his prophecy

and Rise To Heaven the Papyrus is

actually what they call a codex that was

translated from ancient Greek to the

Coptic language around 300 ad it was

discovered in the 1970s in a cave near

elmina in Egypt and it just kind of got

past along between Antiquities dealers

before finally winding up in a safe

deposit box on Long Island New York he

wound up in the hands of Antiquities

dealer frieder newberger chakos who

bought the manuscript tried to sell it

couldn't sell it and then shipped it to

the meus foundation for Ancient Art in

basil Switzerland in 2001 there the text

was reconstructed and translated by

Rudolph CER or caser sure it was a 66

page manuscript that not only contained

The Gospel of Judas but also the first

Apocalypse of James a letter from Peter

to Phillip and a fragment of a text

called The Book of alyes okay so this

came out hundreds of years later it

clearly wasn't the actual Judas who was

the author of this text it was most

likely written by a gnostic by the way a

gnostic is someone who believes that

salvation is achieved through knowledge

instead of Faith um they also believe

that the world's Creator is not perfect

so the Gospel of Judas shows Judas as

being Jesus's favorite disciple and he

would actually give secret messages to

Judas that he didn't tell the other

disciples things like the creation of

humans and angels and other Celestial

beings and the nature of the Universe

the text also includes conversations

between Judas and Jesus in the week

before Passover all of that's

controversial but its biggest

controversy by far is the idea that

Jesus actually asked Judas to betray him

because he wanted if somebody were to

betray him he would want that to be his

best friend rather than an enemy this of

course challenges the roots of

Christianity um some Scholars have even

gone so far as describe it as fiction or

heretical forgery it also offers up a

different understanding of God which you

know in a perfect world would be okay

different different viewpoints in

all we don't really live in that world

so yeah the the the veracity of this

document is still very much under debate

uh obviously it's very old but how

accurate it

is as yet to be determined another Bible

related manuscript is the messet Kellum

or the tretis of the vessels it claims

to reveal what happened to the Ark of

the Covenant in King Solomon's Treasures

I mean don't we know what happened to

the Ark of the

Covenant feel like I've seen that

before

it lists items like 200,000 talents of

pearls 77 gold tablets from the walls of

Eden 1,000 liars and 7,000 loots all

these items were hidden in different

locations before the Babylonians

conquered Jerusalem and these locations

are purposefully obscure but also kind

of specific like in a tower or in the

spring of zedekiah Professor James deila

from St Andrew's University translated

the text but its age authorship and

origin are still uncertain there are

also two different versions of this the

first version was put into composite

Hebrew volumes between the 17th and 20th

centuries this version says that the

treasures are stashed away around

Babylon between the Euphrates and Tigris

Rivers the other version appears on two

ancient plaques and it says that the

treasures were stored in the Holy Land

either way Dila believes that U both of

these are basically fiction based on

different Legends as he told Live

Science in 2014 quote the writer draws

on traditional methods of scriptural

Exodus to deduce where the treasures

might have been hidden but I think the

writer was approaching the story as a

piece of entertaining fiction not any

kind of real guide for finding the Lost

Temple Treasures there are also some

similarities to The Copper Scroll which

is one of the Dead Sea Scrolls dating

back more than 1900 years for example

both texts refer to vessels and include

listings of gold so where do these

documents say that the arch of the

Covenant actually is

um well of course it's mysterious uh in

its own obscure way the text says that

the location won't be revealed until

quote the day of the coming of the

Messiah son of David So if you're

watching this and your name is David and

you have a child um please chime in in

the comments let us know if your child

is the Messiah cuz uh then we might

actually find out where this thing is in

1965 a team of looters Unearthed a few

items in a cave in Mexico they found

things like a wooden mask and a knife

with a handle shaped like a fist sounds

like some James Bond billain stuff they

also found a manuscript but because they

were looters they had trouble selling it

because people didn't think it was

authentic it was an 11-page manuscript

on bark paper that included images of

pre-colombian death Gods a calendar for

tracking Venus in Mayan images and

symbols it eventually found its way to a

book collector named hos Sans I think

I'm saying that right uh who had it

displayed at the groer club in New York

which is how it got its name the groer

Codex now when I first read that I

thought wow that's amazing and they

found this at some dance club in New

York no it's the groer club is a book

club they have exhibitions of rare books

and stuff like that

so not as interesting of a story it's

not as out of place there as it sounds

but because it was found by lutter and

because uh it kind of made its way to a

book club where it was on exhibition and

not quite you know in an academic sense

uh it was still considered by many to be

um inauthentic but in 2016 it was

officially determined to be genuine a

team of anthropologists archaeologists

and cultural experts examined the

document closely they looked at things

like its content its physical structure

and its style they used everything from

ultraviolet Imaging to X-rays and

microscopic analysis they even

radiocarbon dated it to the 13th century

so it's legit they were also able to

prove that the pigments and ink in the

manuscript contain no modern materials

that they were consistent with pigments

that were used in three other Maya Cotes

in fact the blue pigment found on one of

the pages is from Indigo die and

something called P gorite I think I'm

saying that right that's a clay mineral

that Mayans used for their blue pigments

and this material was only identified in

1964 and wasn't synthesized until the

1980s so yeah there's no way that the

looters could have made that ink back in

the' 60s there also images in the Codex

of the forger in the 1960s wouldn't have

known about like on one page uh there

was a mountain God picture with a Clift

in the center of his head that contains

maze kernels now that wouldn't mean

anything except that in 1974 a similar

image was found on a wall painting so

the forgers would have had to known

about that wall painting before faking a

book with that image in it and there's

no way they could have done that as for

what's in the groia Codex it's thought

that it has information about Venus's

role in Mayan astronomy and religion

also its drawings are really gnarly and

according to some places that I saw it's

considered the oldest manuscript in

North America today when we think of

spells and incantations and stuff like

that we think of witches and the dark

arts it's kind of frowned upon it's got

some you know Sinister motive to it but

there was a time in the ancient world

when you know incantations and spells

weren't frowned upon at all because

everybody believed in Magic and that's

where the Coptic Handbook of ritual

power comes into play it's also called

the Egyptian Handbook of ritual power

just amazing Name by the way but it was

only deciphered recently in 2014 by two

Australian researchers an antiques

dealer sold it to mcquary University

University in Australia in 1981 and yeah

researchers took a look at it and they

figured out that it's a handbook for

rituals and spells some of the Spells

include spells for love spells for

curing black jaundice and instructions

for performing an exorcism overall there

are 20 pages of parchment offering 27

spells and several incantations and

illustrations and at one time it may

have actually been two documents that

were combined into one later on Scholars

are unsure of exactly where it was

originally found but they believe that

somebody wrote it in pre-islamic Upper

Egypt around 1300 years ago there are

several references says to Jesus and the

sethians in the manuscript uh the

sethians were religious groups who

identified with Seth which is Adam and

Eve's third son the groups also

identified with a Godlike being named

bacoa uh this figure opens up the Codex

with these lines I give thanks to you

and I call upon you the bacoa the great

one who is very trustworthy the one who

is Lord over the 40 and the nine kinds

of serpents the translators think the

person who wrote this was not a priest

necessarily but maybe a scholar who was

writing this as a way to help people

achieve their goals like for example

there are spells in in there to help

someone do better in business or to get

along with other people in a way you

could say this was like the first

self-help book but with

magic and before we get to the last

manuscript there are some honorable

mentions we want to throw out there some

other mysterious items that are worth

checking out the colonial era Jamestown

slate was found in an old well in

Jamestown Virginia and has overlapping

scratched inscriptions and drawings of a

man dressed in a ruffle collar the lands

of the pur rise map is a 1513 document

that shows mountains in South America

that were unknown at the time in a det

deted Antarctica without ice even though

it's been covered in ice for 6,000 years

easter island has wood tablets that

contain an undecipherable rango rango

script that runs left to right and then

right to left when turned upside down

and then there's the feos disc which has

242 symbols that show things like an

arrow a beehive a cat a tree and a

tattooed head that may be phonetic

groups but since there aren't that many

of them they can't be deciphered if any

of those sound interesting enough for

its own video let me know down below now

last but not least we have the book of

soyga and according to 16th century

scholar and Mystic John D the book of

SOA was actually transcribed By Angels

for Adam while he was in Eden it was a

medium named Edward Kelly that told him

this U even though D was a man of

science he was also interested in the

occult so of course it makes sense that

the book of sorga was part of his

Library it's a 200 Page book written in

Latin and seems to be about Renaissance

magical practices and beliefs uh now

part of the book includes sections on

astronomy the identification of specific

Angels summoning demons and of course

magic so de understood the Latin text

but the book's 36 Pages were confusing

to him because each page contains a

square of 36 rows and 36 Columns of

seemingly random Latin letters that's a

total of

46,656 characters D couldn't decode it

and that's why he asked the medium

Edward Kelly for answers and he was told

that only the Archangel Michael could

translate it or if anybody did figure

out how to translate that section they'd

be cursed to die within two and a half

years so you guys just stay away from it

now the text itself does post some some

problems like some of the the Latin

words appear written backward for no

apparent reason uh in fact the word SOA

may actually be the reverse of agios

which is a Greek word for sacred or holy

the book was auctioned off in 1608 after

d died and then was just basically lost

for about 400 years but two copies were

found in 1994 one in the British library

in London and another in the bodland

library at Oxford but then in 2006

mathematician and cryptologist Jim Reeds

figured out that code not to get too In

The Weeds about it but each table is

based on a magic word of six letters

this is the seed word and it's different

on each page he discovered that the

first 24 tables are named after

constellations in the Zodiac two tables

for each sign and then there are seven

tables named after planes four after

natural elements and one after the

figure of Magister or master so even

with the code correct we still don't

really know what it all means now one

theory is that it's a representation of

the universe oh and remember that curse

well Jim Reeds is still alive

so but then again he only cracked the

code he didn't figure out its meaning so

the book of SOA is definitely ancient

and it's definitely weird uh it's got a

lot of mysteries around it but uh maybe

maybe we'll figure out its meaning as

time goes on so what do all of these

mysterious codes and manuscripts have in

common um outside of the fact that like

we're just look we're humans we we love

a good mystery we love making sense of

the world and and and you know figuring

out patterns and whatnot we're just

wired that way but something that I

always wonder whenever I run across

these stories about like mysterious

ancient documents and stuff like that

was um how do we know they're not just

people being creative because yes we we

love a good mystery and we love solving

Mysteries and whatnot but we're also

creative people we're artists the very

first things we did was put art on the

walls of caves and stuff like that so

how do we know that this isn't just

people being creative you know like we

tend to treat everything that's written

in the past like it's some kind of pure

document but most of what we write today

is fiction or some kind of you know

creative thing so who's to say that they

weren't just making up stories back then

like we do today like I've joked before

that if people from the future applied

the same logic to today as we ascribe to

the Past then they might find a Harry

Potter book and think that we all had

magical powers so yeah what if these

manuscripts and codes were just people

having fun what if the book of Judas was

a kind of fanfiction or alternative

history exercise I like to consider that

but there's also the other side of the

coin which is that you know way back in

in that time the ability to write was so

rare and the process of creating

documents was so labor intensive um it

was probably unlikely that people would

have gone through all that just on a goo

but think people do some crazy stuff in

the in the spirit of just being creative

so who knows either way I find all of

these just fascinating and I'm curious

to see what else comes up these ancient

documents might not ever fully be solved

but the search is still worth doing

these documents were how we shared

information back in the day it was it

was how we learned today of course we

learn most things online from news sites

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for today uh go check out the voyage

manuscript video which is right here you

can go check that out and uh or just go

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uh you guys have an eye opening rest of

the week stay safe and I'll see you next

Monday love you guys take care