9.
Chamunda
Chamunda is a fearsome personification of the Hindu Divine Mother Pavarti.
She is actually quite terrifying, shown with a skeletal body that looks like she is starving
or emaciated, an angry or ferocious face and veins popping out of her legs.
Chamunda is often shown wearing a garland of severed heads or skulls and having either
4, 8, or 12 arms.
She uses them for holding a drum, a trident, a sword, a snake, a thunderbolt, a severed
head, a wine cup, and a few other things.
She’s described as having flaming eye sockets that burn the world, and is surrounded by
various beasts, as well as ghosts and skeletons.
Her huge headdress is made of matted hair and is tied with snakes and a tiara of skulls.
As the Metropolitan Museum of Art says, the goddess is always depicted in stark and horrific
sculptures all throughout india.
She’s also one of the seven Matrikas, or mother goddesses, and one of the chief Yoginis,
which are a group of Tantric goddesses who attend to the warrior goddess Durga.
She is famous for decapitating the demons Chanda and Munda, and is known for being the
destroyer of Evil although she looks quite evil herself.
Chamunda is traditionally worshiped with offerings of wine and through ritual animal sacrifices,
although the latter has become less popular in modern times.
The goddess originated among tribes in central India who used to sacrifice not only animals,
but humans as well.
Thankfully, that doesn’t happen anymore.
She also drinks the blood of her defeated enemies and has snakes and skulls all around
her decaying flesh.
Images of the goddess appear on ancient temples dating back thousands of years.
8.
Burke & Hare Murder Dolls
Edinburgh, Scotland was a leading center of anatomical study during the 19th century.
But this led to a shortage of cadavers for students to learn from, and two men named
William Burke and William Hare saw an opportunity to profit from the skyrocketing demand for
bodies.
In 1828, the pair sold 17 corpses to an anatomist named Robert Knox, who dissected bodies during
his lectures.
Their first sale was the body of a lodging tenant who had died from edema, a condition
that causes the body to swell.
After realizing how much money they could make per body, Burke and Hare murdered 16
people and split the profits.
They eventually got caught.
Hare received immunity in exchange for his testimony and managed to avoid jail time.
Burke, on the other hand, was hanged for his crimes the following year.
But the twisted tale didn’t end there.
In 1836, a group of boys playing in a park found a strange collection of 17 dolls.
They were packed into miniature coffins and stuffed into a hole on a hillside.
People initially assumed that the dolls were toys, or that they had something to do with
witchcraft.
But many saw similarities between the dolls and Burke and Hare’s victims, and suspected
that there was a connection.
Modern scientists performed DNA tests to see if they could prove that the killers created
the dolls, but the results were inconclusive.
Still, many researchers believe that the dolls have something to do with the murders.
One theory suggests that Burke made the dolls to ease his guilty conscience.
Eight of the dolls survive today and are on display at the National Museum of Scotland,
where they serve as a curious mystery of the past.
7.
Demonic Ancient Jar
Last year, archaeologists were excavating a Neolithic farmhouse in Poland when they
found a 7,000-year-old jar fragment that was shaped like a human face with horns.
The team doesn’t know the meaning of the figure depicted on the jar, but they believe
that it may have had spiritual or religious significance to the people who created and
used it.
Similar objects have been discovered further to the south, but this is the first artifact
of its kind ever found in Poland, leading experts to believe that the prehistoric villagers
had contact with people who lived in what are now Hungary and Slovakia.
The jar is made from obsidian, which was not locally sourced, further indicating that it
was imported.
The people who lived at the site were from the Linear Pottery Culture.
They lived in Europe from 5500 to 4500 B.C. and are known for the distinctive way they
decorated their pottery.
The settlement contains several longhouses, with each measuring around 36 feet (11 meters)
long, as well as pits filled with broken ceramics and flint objects.
Excavations are being carried out after the site was narrowly spared from destruction
ahead of construction plans.
Researchers scrambled to secure funding to complete the dig, and are just now learning
about what life was like for the Linear Pottery people who lived in the region.
Whether the ongoing project will uncover the meaning behind the demonic-looking jar remains
to be seen.
6.
A Saint’s Heart
In 2012, a sneaky thief entered the Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin, Ireland and made
off with the 800-year-old heart of Saint Laurence O’Toole, the city's patron saint.
Investigators believe that the intruder may have stayed in the church overnight before
snatching the relic and taking the time to light two candles at the altar before leaving.
St. Laurence was born in County Kildare 1132.
He was appointed as the archbishop of Dublin in 1161.
While he did many noteworthy things during his time there, he became most famous for
acting as a peacekeeper during the Anglo-Norman invasions of Ireland.
The pious priest passed away in 1180 during a peacekeeping mission in Normandy, France.
He was declared a saint in 1225.
St. Laurence’s heart was kept on display at the cathedral inside a wooden heart-shaped
box inside an iron cage.
The thief who stole it in 2012 is thought to have used wire cutters to pry the cage
open and get to the heart.
As an object that was priceless to the church but had little monetary value, the relic was
a strange choice for such a carefully plotted heist.
To make things even weirder, six years after O’Toole’s heart vanished, Irish police
found it undamaged in Dublin’s Phoenix Park.
An intelligence investigation determined that the thief may have returned it because they
thought it was cursed.
A new, and perhaps more secure, enclosure was built for the heart, which went back on
public display in November 2018.
Why do you think the thief stole the heart of St. Laurence O’Toole?
What do you think prompted them to abandon it in a public park?
Let me know your theories in the comments below, and while you’re at it be sure to
hit that subscribe button if you haven’t already!!
5.
Coffin Birth & Brain Surgery
Around 1,300 years ago during the 7th or 8th century, a pregnant woman died in the town
of Imola, Italy weeks before she was due to give birth.
In 2010, archaeologists found her buried with a hole in her skull and a collection of small
bones beneath her pelvis.
In what’s known as a “coffin birth,” decomposition gases expelled the woman’s
fetus from her womb after she died.
Archaeological discoveries of this phenomenon are extremely rare.
A 2018 study determined that the hole in her skull was likely caused by a primitive brain
surgery technique called trepanation, which involved drilling a hole into a person’s
skull to relieve pressure.
It was used for treating numerous ailments, but apparently did little to help the pregnant
woman.
The researchers who conducted the study wrote that they think she experienced either preeclampsia
or eclampsia, which are potentially deadly pregnancy-related high blood pressure conditions.
Doctors may have performed a trepanation in a last-ditch effort to save her life.
Experts have admitted that they could be wrong with this theory, especially since the discovery
is so unique and they have nothing to compare it to.
While signs of trepanation have been found in some 1,500 skulls dating back to the Neolithic
period, this is a first for a medieval burial in Italy.
It’s doubtful that the hole in the woman’s head resulted from violence, given its precision
and placement.
Signs of healing show that the procedure was performed at least a week before she died.
4.
Han Urn Burials
In 2016, archaeologists working in northern China’s Hebei province found 113 ancient
burial urns among the ruins of the ancient fortress city of Fudicheng.
They date back to the country’s Period of the Warring States, which lasted from 475
to 221 B.C.
Each tomb consisted of two to three clay vessels with human remains inside.
A small hole was drilled into each urn to let the deceased individual’s soul come
and go as they please.
Interestingly, nearly all the burials contained the remains of children -- just six containers
were filled with bones belonging to adults, all of whom are believed to be civilians rather
than warriors.
The discoveries at Fudicheng are surprising because experts previously thought that urn
burials were only practiced on children, rather than adults.
Excavations are ongoing, and researchers hope that the findings will teach them more about
the Western Han Dynasty’s burial customs.
They believe that there may even be more adult urn burials waiting to be found.
3.
A Mass Death
During a severe drought around 9 million years ago, dozens of giraffes, rhinos, horses, and
saber-toothed cats went to watering holes in what is now Spain, desperately seeking
relief from the deadly dryness and heat.
Sadly, they perished from dehydration, starvation, and getting stuck in the mud.
Rain soon returned to the region, burying the animals quickly and leaving their bodies
undamaged by scavengers and the elements.
Miners discovered one of the ancient bone-filled holes in 2007.
Since then, archaeologists have identified 9 similar sites near modern-day Madrid.
Researchers recently examined a collection of 9,000 bones found inside an ancient watering
hole known as Batallones-10.
They identified dozens of species, including at least 15 large mammals such as extinct
mastodons, sabertooth cats, badgers, rhinos, cattles, horses, and musk deer.
The team also discovered a previously unknown extinct giraffe relative called Decennatherium
rex.
At roughly 9 feet (2.7 meters) tall and weighing around 2.2 tons (2 metric tons), it looked
more like a gigantic moose than a giraffe.
Experts identified the site as a watering hole based on the presence of amphibians and
tortoises.
They found that the animals died throughout three distinct episodes of drought.
During those times, wildlife flocked to the watering hole and refused to stray far from
it.
Consequently, the creatures ate all the vegetation.
Unwilling to leave the dwindling watering hole in search of food, they began to suffer
from starvation and dehydration.
As the water supply shrank, animals ventured into the mud to drink, got stuck, and died.
Each period of mass death lasted weeks or months until rain came and buried the remains
in sediment.
Sadly, it appears as though more tragic discoveries are to come.
Study leader David Martín-Perea told Live Science that the next step is for the team
to dig deeper and further examine the death that occurred at the site.
2.
Bizarre Ancient Burial
While working at the Ofuka-Cho archaeological site in Osaka, Japan last year, archaeologists
unearthed a series of strange circular holes filled with the remains of 1,500 people and
animals.
The bizarre burials, which contain pigs, horses, and at least one cat, date back to the mid-to-late
19th century, during Japan’s Edo Period.
Officials discovered the graves near a busy train station during the early stages of construction
on a new skyscraper.
There aren’t any valuable goods in the tombs, suggesting that the people who were buried
there were commoners.
Some of the remains show signs of disease, so it’s also possible that the deceased
perished during a 19th-century epidemic that swept through the area.
Archaeologists also uncovered coffins filled with several bodies each, which supports the
theory that the burials contain victims of a deadly disease.
City officials said that the graves likely belonged to young people and children who
lived locally.
At the time of their deaths, the area was a farming region.
It was the first discovery of a historical burial site in Osaka, and researchers are
continuing to study the findings in hopes of learning more about what killed the graves’
occupants.
1.
Bog Bodies
Denmark’s Bjaeldskovdal bog is creepy in its own right.
Situated on the country’s Jutland Peninsula, the sparse, flat, mossy environment is eerily
still, containing just a tree here and there.
The discovery of over 500 remarkably preserved Iron age bodies and skeletons within this
region makes it even spookier.
Known as bog bodies, these human remains date back between 800 B.C. and 200 A.D., and they
are discovered fairly regularly.
Many of them are found with their hair, skin, clothes, and even the food in their stomach
intact owing to the oxygen-poor and highly acidic conditions of the layers of dead moss
in their watery graves.
One of the most famous bog bodies is the Tollund Man, who had visible stubble on his face when
he was discovered in 1950.
Researchers have spent decades trying to learn about who the bog people were and why they
died.
Some bodies bear signs of extreme violence, including cuts to the throat.
It was also unusual for the people of the time to bury their dead instead of cremate
them, suggesting that the individuals were sacrificed as criminals, slaves, or even just
for being commoners, according to National Geographic.
A 2014 study challenged this notion after determining that some of the bog people showed
signs of having traveled great distances and wore elaborate clothing from foreign lands,
indicating that perhaps the opposite was true: that maybe they were sacrificed because they
were highly regarded in their villages.
There are no written records of Danish Iron Age people’s religious beliefs, so it’s
possible that scientists will never know who the bog people were or why they were killed.
Many experts do agree, however, that the victims were likely selected because they were seen
as unique among the population.
Bog bodies have been found elsewhere in northern Europe, including in Germany, the Netherlands,
the United Kingdom, and Ireland.
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