Amazing Treasures (UK Blad)

AMAZING Treasures 100+ Objects and Places That Will Boggle Your Mind

Giant gemstones, pirate gold, ancient tombs, meteorites from outer space and more!

DAVID LONG & MUTI

NATURAL WONDERS

Rainforests, such as the Amazon, are made up of layers:

Some of the most magnificent treasures aren’t man-made but come from the natural world. These are beautiful and extraordinary places, and their survival is important for all of us and the planet. Something which has taken millions of years to form or grow can’t be replaced when it’s gone, and if we damage our planet too much we’ll have nowhere else to live.

Harpy eagle

At the top is the emergent layer, where a few exceptionally tall trees stick out. These are home to large birds such as eagles and vultures.

Next is the canopy, which forms the leafy ‘roof’ of the rainforest.

Many animals live here, including monkeys and sloths.

Black howler monkey

Toucan Jaguar

AMAZON RAINFOREST

Below the canopy is the understorey. Smaller animals such as frogs and bats live in this damp, shaded layer.

South America Spanning nine different countries, the world’s largest forest covers 5.5 million square kilometres. That’s 17 times larger than the whole of the British Isles. It’s home to an incredible 1,300 bird species, 3,000 types of fish, hundreds of different mammals and an enormous 2.5 million different insects. There are also more trees here than anywhere on the planet – as many as 390 billion of them. These trees make oxygen, which we breathe, and soak up some of the gases that are dangerously warming our planet.

Scientists estimate that this leafy green landscape produces a fifth of all the oxygen in the world.

At the bottom is the forest floor, which swarms with insects, centipedes and spiders. Large mammals are on the prowl too, including anteaters and jaguars.

Deforestation The Amazon Rainforest is under threat from logging. Trees are cut down to clear space for growing crops or raising livestock. The wood is used for building or made into furniture.

Leatherback turtle

GREAT BARRIER REEF Australia The world’s largest coral reef lies off the coast of Queensland, Australia, and is more than 2,500 kilometres from end to end.

Parts of it are half a million years old, and the whole thing was made by vast numbers of tiny creatures called polyps. These produce the limestone shapes we call coral, which are home to hundreds of thousands of colourful fish and ferocious sharks.

The polyps themselves are usually no larger than a pinhead, but over thousands of years they have built a reef which is so massive it can be seen from space.

Leopard shark

Don't touch!

Coral comes in lots of beautiful shapes and colours, but is fragile.

Even touching the coral can seriously damage it. To protect the reef, the Australian government has made taking coral home illegal in most cases.

Clown fish

Stalactite

Ancient rocks The amazing rock formations in mammoth cave have formed over millions of years. Stalactites hang from the ceiling, and stalagmites rise up from the ground. The most unusual of all are ‘gypsum flowers’ – twisting crystal formations that resemble flowers.

MAMMOTH CAVE USA Mammoth Cave is the perfect name for the world’s longest cave system. It’s around 280 million years old and stretches for more than 600 kilometres beneath the American state of Kentucky. That’s at least twice the length of its closest rival (an underwater cave in Mexico) and no one has ever explored the whole of it. In fact it’s so long that visitors on even the longest tours, which take around six hours, will only ever see a tiny fraction of this natural wonder.

Stalagmite

MYSTERIOUS TREASURES Sometimes archaeologists and explorers find things they can’t understand. Ancient writing can take decades or even centuries to decode. A piece of machinery can be impossible to operate if a part of it has broken off and gotten lost. Even a statue can be confusing to someone who doesn’t understand the civilisation that created it.

ANTIKYTHERA MECHANISM Greece

Studying the sky The Antikythera Mechanism may have helped early scientists to predict solar eclipses, which were important events in many ancient civilisations.

MOAI HEADS Easter Island (Chile) Around a thousand giant stone heads are the most visible reminders of the Rapa Nui people who lived on Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean from 1250 to 1500 AD. The heads – called moai – were probably produced to honour the Rapa Nui’s ancestors, but nothing was written down to confirm this. They weigh up to 165 tonnes each so must have required hundreds of people to carve and move them into place. They show that this was once an advanced civilisation that mostly disappeared. Some people think the Rapa Nui chopped down so many trees to make way for farming that their island eventually became mostly uninhabitable and populations collapsed.

The strangely named Antikythera Mechanism could be a rusty remnant of the world’s first computer. Discovered on a shipwreck at the start of the 20th century, this ingenious clockwork device is more than 2,000 years old.

It is thought to have used 37 individual bronze wheels to calculate the movements of the Moon and the Sun. Sadly it doesn’t work after so long underwater but it has become one of the most popular exhibits at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.

PHAISTOS DISC Greece In 1908 an archaeologist found a disk of fired or hardened clay while excavating Phaistos, a palace on the island of Crete. It is decorated on both sides with dozens of strange symbols. To this day, no one has managed to explain what these mean. Some experts think they may spell out a prayer; others suggest it is a sort of early calendar. Most agree, however, that the disc’s secret code probably won’t be cracked unless other, similar discs can be found elsewhere on the island.

Palace culture The Phaisos disc was discovered at Phaistos, one of the cities of the ancient Minoan civilization.

This culture flourished in Crete, in Greece from 3000 to 1000 BCE. Minoan rulers lived in grand palaces, the largest of which was at Knossos.

Mystery scripts After lots of study, historians can learn to read many texts from ancient cultures or civilisations that have vanished, but some still remain a mystery. Here are a few more that are still waiting to be deciphered:

There are 45 different signs on the disc

Turning the disc over reveals more writing on the back

Zapotec The ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica, such as the Aztec, Maya and Zapotec, built large cities and had complicated systems for writing, counting and keeping track of the days. Zapotec writing may be the oldest, but it is also the most poorly understood.

Rongorongo Like the Moai Heads, this script from Easter Island shows that an advanced society once lived on the island. The script is written using pictures and symbols.

Some of them look like animals or plants from Easter Island.

Indus Valley The Indus Valley civilization that used this script existed for 2,000 years along the Indus river between India and Pakistan. Some of the world's oldest cities were built by this civilization which developed around 3500 BCE.

AMAZING Treasures

100+ Objects and Places That Will Boggle Your Mind Author: David Long Illustrator: MUTI Ages: 7+ years Price: £14.99 Format: Hardback Extent: 64 pages Trim size: 280 x 260 mm Pub date: 4th February 2021 ISBN: 978-1-9129204-9-5 Description Discover 100+ of the world’s most remarkable artefacts, most stunning artworks and most intriguing ruins in this beautifully illustrated book about Earth’s treasures.

Treasures both natural and manmade make an appearance in a tour which stretches across thousands of years and all around the globe. Discover sunken wrecks loaded with pirate gold, the abandoned tombs of the world’s most powerful rulers and even meteorites – treasures from outer space!

A central gatefold offers a foldout map of treasures from around the world, while Blue Peter award-winning author David Long also addresses contemporary topics such as our threatened natural wonders and the ownership of cultural treasures.

Author information David Long’s engaging, imaginative and well-informed books reflect an unquenchable thirst for those events and personalities that illuminate the past.

An author and writer since leaving a first class university, his work has appeared in the Sunday Times, in countless magazines and London’s Evening Standard.

Selling points • Explore history, culture, geology and the environment through treasures ancient and modern, manmade and from nature • Part of the Our Amazing World series, which also includes Amazing Islands.

Two more titles are to come in 2021: Amazing Rivers and Amazing Animals • Includes rich illustrations, world map, lavish double gatefold spread, glossary and index • Incredible facts and bite size information about all sorts of treasures, from priceless artworks to meteorites and moon rocks • Written by 2017 Blue Peter Book Award winner David Long

Illustrator information MUTI is a creative studio founded in 2011, based in the city of Cape Town, South Africa. Their team of illustrators and designers are passionate about producing original and inspiring artwork, from lettering to icons, digital painting to animation. MUTI have worked with various companies and publishers across the globe including Google, Time and Nobrow Press.

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