From the creepiest toy collection in ancient history to the disturbing remains of the victims
of Pompeii, here are ten of the creepiest recent discoveries!
10: Creepy Ancient Dolls Archaeologists working in Siberia have made
a very disturbing discovery involving a child's grave and some of the creepiest toys known
to exist anywhere on the planet.
The grave and the toys date back to the Bronze Age, left behind by members of the Okunev
culture.
These people are related to Native Americans and are famous for their skills working with
bronze and copper to make all kinds of weapons and tools.
The artifacts discovered inside the child’s grave site include the heads from dolls and
a mysterious animal figurine, all of which have been dated at 4500 years old.
The heads of the dolls were crafted from a type of soapstone, which is naturally soft.
According to one of the archaeologists working with the project, Andrey Polyakov, the facial
features were carefully carved into the doll’s head which might be why they look so creepy.
As for the animal figurine, it was carved from a different material, either antler or
horn, but which animal the figurine was supposed to represent is unclear.
Also unclear is what the toys were supposed to be used for.
The child was buried as a commoner, without any other artifacts of value indicating that
the child was not part of an elite social class.
The toys may have held some kind of symbolic purpose, or they may have even just been used
as ordinary children’s toys, though by today’s standards they are pretty ghoulish.
9: Elite Mutilations Archaeologists have discovered something strange
and very creepy involving an ancient culture that lived near the Iroungou Cave in what
is modern Gabon, in Africa.
Researchers investigated 28 skeletons dated back to between the 14th and 15th centuries
AD, buried inside the cave.
What they discovered was that elite members of the culture purposely mutilated their faces.
The expedition involved a team of French scientists and Gabonese researchers.
They found evidence of what is known as cultural tooth ablation, or the modification of the
face through the removal of the teeth.
In other words, the people buried in the cave had ripped their own teeth out in order to
change the way their faces looked.
By removing certain teeth, facial characteristics could be dramatically altered.
Mostly, these people removed the upper incisors, or the front teeth.
Just imagine how painful it would be as an adult to rip out perfectly healthy front teeth
with no drugs or anesthetic.
It would be excruciating.
And yet the top members of society did it just to have a unique look, probably with
some sort of ceremony.
At least, that's what archaeologists believe.
They don't know the exact reason for the self-mutilations and it's unclear if all the members of society
did the same thing, especially because the skeletons found inside the cave hadn’t really
been buried.
They were either thrown into the cavernous underground or slowly lowered into its darkness
as part of a ceremony.
8: Mass Ritual Sacrifice Archaeologists have uncovered evidence of
a mass ritual sacrifice from 15th century Peru.
This is one of the largest ritual killings known to historians.
Evidence from the site in Peru shows that at least 140 children along with 200 llamas
had been brutally sacrificed at the exact same time.
To date, this is the largest known mass sacrifice of children, and indeed of llamas, anywhere
in the Americas.
What makes the discovery so strange is that there hasn't been a lot of evidence of child
sacrifice from the northern coast of Peru.
This was a bit of a shock to researchers, who were investigating the Huanchaquito-Las
Llamas site in the Chimu state, named after the Chimu culture that lived in the area from
between 900 and 1470 AD.
The excavations went on from between 2011 and 2016, with almost every human skeleton
found being that of a child.
The animals were almost all juveniles as well, and included some alpacas along with the llamas.
The oldest child sacrificed here was 14 years old, with the youngest being only five.
Researchers still aren't sure what the point of the mass sacrifice was.
Perhaps there had been a great environmental disaster and the Chimu were desperately trying
to appease the gods.
During this time there was heavy rainfall and flooding, indicating the area was going
through a major natural disaster.
The researchers said this archaeological discovery was a surprise to all of us -- we had not
seen anything like this before.
An important theory is that the leaders were so afraid they decided to sacrifice their
most precious things to the gods to plead for them to stop.
7: Roman Slave Collars There have been some disturbing archaeological
discoveries coming out of Rome recently.
Archaeologists have found a total of 45 surviving slave collars that date back to Rome during
the 4th and 5th centuries AD.
Several slave collars have been found in Italy, and a handful from some cities in North Africa
where Rome held great influence.
This is a grim reminder of how brutal the Roman Empire really was.
Each collar was engraved with the name of the slave owner and their address, kind of
like a modern-day dog collar.
These were used by the Roman slave masters in case somebody ran away, was captured, and
needed to be returned.
The Zoninus collar is the most important Roman slave collar ever discovered because it is
the only surviving example of a tag still hanging through its neck ring.
The collar is made from iron and bronze, with the pendant tag cut from a sheet of bronze.
On the collar is written, “I fled, hold me.
Bring me to my master Zoninus and you will receive coin as a reward.”
It’s unclear exactly where the collar came from, who was forced to wear it, or who exactly
the master Zoninus was – but it’s the best example of the Roman slave obsession.
Roman slave masters would either use collars like these as punishment or they would tattoo
a person’s face with the same instructions.
6: Egyptian Book of Spells A mysterious book of spells from Egypt has
finally been deciphered, revealing some very creepy information about how ancient Egyptian
priests went about their business.
Researchers have called it the “Handbook of Ritual Power,” not unlike the legendary
Necronomicon.
The book has spells that can teach a person how to fall in love, how to get rid of evil
spirits, and even how to treat the bacterial infection known as black jaundice, something
that's actually still around today.
The Egyptian book of spells is about 1300 years old and was written in Coptic, one of
the oldest Egyptian languages.
Don’t want to disappoint you but contrary to popular belief, the book was NOT actually
made out of human skin.
Instead, it was bound normally with its pages being made of parchment.
There are only 20 pages in the book, but according to the researchers from the University of
Sydney in Australia, it was one of the most important tools for any ritual practitioner.
First of all, the book details a series of invocations, complete with drawings, to summon
power.
Next, spells and cures, how to deal with possession and spirits, and then how to have a successful
life in love and business.
Theres a fine line between a scam-artist’s self-help book and a mysterious tome of powerful
spells.
It’s important to note also that while this book was written in coptic, it was made at
a time when much of Egypt was becoming Christian, a few hundred years after Christ’s death.
Many of the spells actually invoke the name of Jesus, creating a mysterious spiritual
book combining ancient egyptian mysticism with Christianity.
5: Ritual Snake Heads In Ukraine, archaeologists have discovered
some creepy artifacts and they don't quite know what they mean.
Two weirdly shaped rocks have been identified as carved serpent heads that were likely used
in some kind of weird ritual.
At first glance, the rocks just look like any other rocks.
It wasn't until archaeologists from the National Academy of Sciences in Ukraine took a closer
look that they realized an artist in the Stone Age had carved them to look like the heads
of serpents.
The stone snakes were found in 2016 during excavations at an archaeological site called
Kamyana Mohyla I.
They were found near flint tools and ancient bones from the Mesolithic period, right in
the middle of the Stone Age, or about 8300 BC, nearly 10,000 years ago.
The snake heads are small, only about 5 inches long.
Each stone head was found by a fireplace, suggesting whatever they had been used for
required fire.
Unfortunately, the archaeologists don't even know much about the Stone Age residents of
the area.
These are prehistoric people who left nothing behind except for creepy rock carvings and
their own worn bones.
It was a society of hunters and gatherers – though the presence of ritual snake heads
says they had cultural traditions that were more complicated than just picking berries
and killing deer.
Archaeologists just can't figure out what exactly those traditions were or why they
had such an obsession with snakes.
And now for number 4 but first wanted to give a big shout out to Amanda Via and Angel Evan!!
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4: Greek Curse Tablets An ancient grave was discovered near Athens
that contains one of the creepiest collections of artifacts in history.
When archaeologists excavated the mysterious grave, they found the cremated remains of
a young girl along with five lead tablets which look like they were used to curse people.
The grave dates back to 2400 years ago, but nobody can figure out who the dead girl was
or what happened to her that she would be able to curse people in death.
The tablets were found engraved with curses that were to be cast on four different tavern
keepers in the city of Athens.
These were mom & pop shops, owned by a husband and wife.
The curses were meant to destroy these people’s businesses and bring them great misfortune,
maybe even death.
But how did cursed tablets work?
Written upon the stone were the names of gods of the underworld.
Since the young girl was buried with the tablets, the gods of the underworld would have no choice
but to look at them once she passed through to their domain, then hopefully curse the
living.
There was even a blank tablet which someone had likely spoken an incantation over as a
verbal curse that would become stuck inside the stone.
Unfortunately, we don't know what happened to make somebody so furious with the local
tavern owners in Athens; and we also don't know if the curses ever worked.
So far, this is one of the most extreme examples of somebody trying to beseech the gods of
the underworld for their help in destroying the living.
3: Kindergarten Burial Grounds A group of kindergarten students turned into
unlikely archaeologists when they came across a disturbing discovery on the playground.
These unlucky toddlers in France accidentally dug old human remains out of the dirt, causing
a bit of a panic.
After all, it's not every day that kids find dead bodies on the playground.
As it turned out, their school had been built over an ancient burial ground.
A real ancient one, not one from urban legend.
It’s unlikely any of the kids are going to be cursed for uncovering the bones, but
it was still pretty freaky.
According to Live Science, the bones were dated at over 5500 years old.
After the initial discovery, archaeologists descended on the school in droves.
The mound was quickly excavated and 30 bodies were exhumed.
Amazingly, they were less than two feet deep, meaning the children had been playing overtop
the remains for years with nothing between them except a handful of dirt.
The remains are so old and span such a long period of time that it looks like many cultures
would come to this place year after year to bury their dead.
2: Ritual Bowls An ancient ritual bowl was just discovered
inside of a tomb in China dating back 3100 years.
The bronze bowl looks extraordinarily strange, more like a collar with spikes coming off
its side that are pointy enough to stab through a person's skin.
The bowl is also decorated in curious geometric patterns and unknown symbols.
It was found beside a decomposed body that likely belonged to a warrior chief.
The bowl and the tomb were part of a much larger discovery made near Baoji City, in
which archaeologists uncovered roughly 57 tombs from the Zhou Dynasty, which came before
the more popular Qin Dynasty.
Archaeologists aren't quite sure what the ritual bowl was used for, and there were actually
dozens of them found in various graves.
They say the bowls could have been spoils of war taken after the Zhou brutally defeated
the Shang Dynasty.
Archaeologists also say the bowls weren't for eating or drinking out of, but were instead
used for some kind of ritual.
1: Pompeii Victims In August of 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius erupted
and destroyed the ancient Italian city of Pompeii.
For 1700 years, the unfortunate citizens of the city were buried under 30 feet of mud
and ash.
Until excavations began in the 1800s, they remained entombed and in perfect condition,
exactly the way they had been when the volcanic blast cooked them alive.
But here's something most people don't know about the victims of Pompeii.
When excavators began uncovering the human remains, they realized that their skeletons
were covered in compact ash, and that by pouring a plaster mix into the hollow spaces of their
ashen armor, they could preserve them like statues in their final poses.
Roughly 1150 bodies have been discovered so far in Pompeii, with only about three quarters
of the site being fully excavated even after 200 years.
The plaster casts were only made in the 1800s, as scientists eventually realized that the
plaster was damaging the fragile corpses.
In that short time span, the archaeologists created their very own creepy Pompeii mummies.
Many of these plaster citizens are still at the Pompeii site, enclosed in glass boxes
for the world to see.
With their faces hardened in plaster, forever stuck in the soundless screams of their final
moments, these are some of the most ghoulish mummies anywhere in the world.
Which of these disturbing discoveries freaked you out the most?
Let me know in the comments and thanks for watching.
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