10: Qilakitsoq Mummies The eight best-preserved mummies ever discovered
in North America are called the Qilakitsoq Mummies, and they were uncovered in Greenland.
To be completely honest, calling them mummies is a bit of a stretch.
They actually look more like petrified skeletons with a thin layer of skin left.
Rather than looking like the image of a mummy you might first imagine, these bodies were
never wrapped in bandages, but instead buried in the very clothes they were wearing when
they died.
These ghoulish bodies were discovered by a pair of brothers hunting for birds in 1972.
They found the ancient and abandoned Inuit settlement of Qilakitsoq, untouched for hundreds
of years.
Inside the settlement were piles of stones, burial cairns with the bodies of the mummies
underneath.
The Inuit had never intended to mummify their dead.
It's the cold climate and perpetual ice that kept them immaculately preserved, looking
as if they'd only died weeks ago.
There were six female mummies, one of a young boy, and one of a very young baby.
All of them died around the year 1475.
The women were heavily tattooed across their faces and foreheads, dressed in clothing made
from reindeer and seals.
But the most disturbing thing is that the infant mummy had been buried alive!
In Inuit tradition, when a mother passed away, any small child she was caring for had to
be buried with her even if it was healthy.
It was practical at the time because babies couldn't survive without the mother to take
care of them.
In this case, it looks like something happened to the child’s mother, and the little baby
was buried along with her, ultimately succumbing to the same mummified fate.
9: The Viking Blood Eagle The Viking blood eagle was one of the most
horrific tortures ever devised.
It was just brutal!
But did it actually happen?
If you've seen the show Vikings you'll know what I'm talking about!
For those who don't know the blood eagle, it was allegedly practiced by the Nordic people
during the Viking Age.
The problem scholars have had with this form of torture is that it's so barbaric and painful
it’s hard to believe it was ever performed on a person.
It was so excruciating and extreme that many scientists have doubted it was even possible
to pull off.
I don't want to go into too much gory detail but it involved opening a person's ribcage
and bending it upwards, and pulling out the lungs, hanging them over the ribs so it looked
like a pair of demonic bloody wings.
Clearly, this tortuous death would be excruciating.
But the only evidence we have of it happening comes from poems from the 11th to 13th century.
The victims were always caught in battle, but only the worst of the worst were said
to have been given a blood eagle.
No actual blood eagle victims have ever been found by archaeologists.
However, that doesn't mean they didn't exist.
Scientists now say it was definitely possible.
A recent study had researchers evaluating the practice of the blood eagle one step at
a time.
They found that yes, knives the Vikings used would have been able to peel back the skin
and muscle.
They found the Vikings could have used a barbed spearhead to unzip the ribs from the spine.
As gruesome as it is, the Vikings may very well have actually tortured people by pulling
their lungs out of their back.
The only thing that changes between the myth and reality is that scientists say the victim
would have been dead long before their ribs were even broken.
Do you think this horrendous practice actually existed, or was just a frightening tale?
Tell me your thoughts in the comments!
8: The Lords of Mayan Hell In Maya mythology, Xibalba is Hell.
At least, it was the closest thing the Maya had to Hell.
It was more like the underworld, translated from the Maya language to mean “place of
fright.”
It was ruled over by the death gods and their helpers, with its entrance once believed to
be located in the country of Guatemala.
Hundreds of years ago, the Maya actually believed they could walk into the depths of the underworld
by strolling through the mouth of a cave in what is now the vicinity of Coban, in Guatemala.
There are also cave systems in Belize that may have been seen as back entrances into
Xibalba, the place of fright.
But just what exactly did the underworld look like to the Maya?
It was a place of death, ruled over by twelve lords of Maya hell, called the Lords of Xibalba.
There was Hun-Came, the “one death”.
Then there were the death lords beneath him, each one responsible for a particular form
of human suffering.
These lords were somewhat like demons, who worked in pairs in areas such as sickness,
starvation, pain, destitution, and even fear.
For example, Xiquiripat and Cuchumaquic worked together to sicken people’s blood.
Ahalmez and Ahaltocob worked together by hiding in dirty areas of people’s houses and then
stabbing them to death!
All kinds of bad things happened here so you didn't want to get anywhere near this place!
7: Ancient Human Burial According to scientists with the Max Planck
Institute for the Science of Human History, the grisly remains of the oldest human burial
in Africa were just found in the back of a cave.
The bones belonged to a child who died 78,300 years ago in East Africa.
The investigators found her in a deep, sheltered part of a mysterious cave that was occupied
for 80,000 years.
Human beings actually lived in the darkness of this cave until as recently as 500 years
ago, when they finally stepped out into the light.
Researchers have named the girl Mtoto, which means “child” in Swahili.
She and her people lived in what is now called the Panga ya Saidi cave site, about 10 miles
(16.09 km) from the coast of Kenya.
The girl died about halfway through the Stone Age, which lasted from 320,000 to 30,000 years
ago.
The dig revealed that her bones had been put in a shallow pit on purpose.
And while that may not sound like a big deal, it is.
This is the oldest example of humans purposely burying someone, regardless of how shallow
the grave or how deep the cave.
6: Ancestral Human Remains In 2021, the city of Surrey (Vancouver) was
spending $29 million to upgrade their sewer systems.
Work had to stop when the contractors accidentally started digging up human bone fragments.
Within just one day of work, the contractors had found 25 traces of human remains and 4000
indigenous artifacts near a pump station in Surrey.
They uncovered bones, spear tips, arrowheads, and all the telltale signs of a cemetery.
In fact, this wasn't even the first time human remains were found in the area.
According to the manager of archaeological services, Don Welsh, the ancestral remains
of at least 700 people have been dug out of the ground around Crescent Beach.
Clearly, the whole area was once a graveyard.
The problem is that 40 years ago, there were no archeologists on construction sites to
stop the work.
During that time, people weren't that interested in preserving cultural history.
But now, it's a much more serious matter.
The project stopped for 100 days and cost the city another $1 million to do additional
archaeological screening.
Even more human remains were found, but the First Nations asked that they be kept in the
ground.
5: The Monk & the Alien A monk named Hsu Yun was one of the most famous
Buddhists of the Han Chinese in the 1800s and 1900s.
He was born in 1840 and lived to the ripe old age of 119.
He wrote poetry, had two Buddhist orders named after him, and he once met an alien.
At least, that's the way his story goes.
The great Buddhist claimed that at the end of a prayer meeting, he climbed to the top
of Mount Lushan and witnessed what he described as the lights of wisdom floating in the sky.
It was described as a large sphere of light that came in from the central peak, dipped
down, and then split into ten separate spheres of all different sizes.
The description sounds remarkably similar to modern UFO sightings.
He didn't know what these balls of light were, but believed they probably had some spiritual
value, so he offered his thanks at the temple for what he saw and left it at that.
These days, there are some who are convinced he accidentally stumbled upon a group of UFOs
entering our atmosphere.
The problem was that Hsu Yun was so enlightened he didn’t even think about them being anything
to fear or be surprised by.
What do you think the monk really saw that night?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
And now for number 4 but first wanted to give a big shout out to
Heather Privett and Leesa Shriber
YOU guys are the best!!
Thanks so much for spending time with us and if you are new here, don't forget to subscribe
if you havent already and join the OE family!
4: Journey to the Afterlife A burial field in central Sweden, just outside
Uppsala, was found to contain over 90 graves from the Iron Age.
The site is called Valsgarde, famous for its boat graves left behind just before the Vikings,
during the Merovingian period.
Two of the ancient boat graves, made around 1400 years ago, were found to contain everything
a dead warrior would need to make the stressful journey into the afterlife.
Some of the things are a little disturbing, and some are unexpected.
For example, researchers from Norway found decapitated eagles, dead horses, and other
slaughtered animals.
They also found five pairs of oars in each boat to help paddle through the underworld.
Helmets and weapons were included in case fighting needed to be done.
Even provisions and hunting tools in the event that the dead warriors needed to fend for
themselves.
They were equipped with everything they could have possibly needed to fight their way through
the underworld.
But here's what's really unexpected.
Sleep was one of the most important things for these dead warriors.
Archaeologists found bedding made up of a lot of different animal feathers, but mostly
goose feathers.
The ancient people of Scandinavia believed that by sleeping on a bed of goose feathers,
the soul would be released from the body.
It was believed that if less desirable feathers from birds like chickens or pigeons were used,
the deceased would have a much more difficult time rising out of their body.
3: Headless in Siberia A massive grave has been found in Russia from
5000 years ago, and discovered inside the grave were the remains of five people, all
missing their heads.
Archaeologists believe the headless corpses belonged to the Odinov culture, a group of
head cultists.
Unlike headhunters from other parts of the globe, head cultists revered the human head.
They decapitated people and then kept their heads to worship.
The burial site, located near Novosibirsk, was found with one headless adult and two
headless teens.
However, researchers can't say what happened to their heads.
They believe that after death, the heads were either taken to a sanctuary where locals could
pray to them, or they were buried separately.
This means that somewhere, still undiscovered, there may be more of these headless bodies
and the skulls themselves as a result of the Odinov people and their unusual practices.
Because the Odinov culture lived during the Bronze Age, up to around the 16th century
BC, they didn’t keep written records of their beliefs and practices.
All we know is that they lived in the forests of Russia, alongside rivers and creeks.
They clearly buried their deceased without heads, taking them back to sanctuaries to
worship.
What happened to the heads after that?
It remains a total mystery.
2: Mummified Llamas In Peru, archaeologists found the elaborately
decorated remains of mummified llamas that were sacrificed hundreds of years ago.
It was the Inca who killed these llamas, perhaps as offerings to appease local tribes after
they invaded their land.
As you probably know already, the Inca didn't dominate huge parts of Peru and the Andes
Mountains peacefully.
They invaded, they killed, and they took land by force.
But when they conquered a certain area, they still had to deal with the surviving locals.
To do this, sacrifices and ceremonies were often held.
The favorite animal for the Inca to sacrifice was the llama.
It held great meaning to the Inca people, and so they saw it as one of the most valuable
life forms they could kill ritualistically.
Researchers with the University of Calgary uncovered the remains of the sacrificed llamas
at Tambo Viejo, an old Incan administrative center from which they oversaw the people
in the Acari Valley.
These are now the first naturally mummified llamas ever discovered, likely buried alive
about 500 years ago.
There was no sign of slaughter, so the animals probably died slowly and terribly beneath
the dirt.
1: A Tormented Witch In the small village of Lehedzyne in Ukraine,
archaeologists unearthed the bones of a woman who was 25 years old when she died.
The experts believe she was a witch, burned alive 1600 years ago!
Of course, archaeologists don’t believe she was an actual witch.
It was the villagers who accused her of witchcraft.
She was discovered face down with her left hand tied behind her back, something typical
of witch burials in the medieval period.
This was so the witch couldn't return from the dead to terrorize the villagers with her
supernatural powers.
The unusual thing about the burial is the age of the woman.
Normally, it was older women accused of witchcraft.
The only time a young woman was accused of being a witch was when she got in a romantic
relationship with the wrong man.
When a man committed adultery with a younger woman, or when a man of influence abused a
younger woman, they often fell back on claims of witchcraft.
They would say the younger woman had bewitched them by using love potions.
This cleared the man of all wrongdoing, while ensuring the young woman was sentenced to
death for using magic.
But in reality, it was really just the man who couldn’t keep his desire in check and
needed a scapegoat to clear his name.
How many witch burnings do you think were motivated by revenge, spite, or abuse rather
than actual belief?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments and don’t forget to subscribe!
Thanks for watching today and I’ll see you again soon for another shocking archaeological
video!
Bye!