From bear skulls with holes to a hidden portrait of a hated woman, here are 10 bizarre archaeological
artifacts recently discovered!
10.
The Thames Treasure Trove
Have you ever been “mudlarking”?
In case you don’t know this is when you go looking for artifacts and goodies in the
mud!
Treasure hunters and mudlarkers will often go poking through the mud along the Thames
River in London during low tide.
This river has seen a lot of history and is a favorite place to throw your unwanted items
so it makes sense that mudlarkers like Steve Brooker and Lara Maiklem can be found there
looking for valuable artifacts.
Nicknamed the “Mud God,” Brooker has spent time sifting through the river’s eroding
banks several times weekly for over 25 years.
He’s found coins, buttons, Roman shoes, Medieval pins, 18th-century witch bottles,
voodoo dolls dating back to the 20th century, live bombs, and more.
Brooker even once recovered actress Helen Mirren’s missing ring after she accidentally
threw it into the water with some grass clippings from her yard!!
One day in 2019, a Spitalfields Life blogger known only as “the gentle author” accompanied
the seasoned treasure seeker during one of his routine hunts.
They uncovered an array of artifacts, including a tudor brick, decimal coins, bullets, marbles,
a spur, an 18th-century fork, clay pipes, and this peculiar 200-year-old statue of a
woman found facedown in the riverbed.
Lara Maiklem has also been fascinated by history and loves to go larking along the shore of
the river looking for little bits of history.
She has found everything from a human jaw to Venetian glass to Tudor money boxes to
pewter medieval pilgrim badges.
Mudlarkers have been exploring the Thames since at least as far back as the late 18th
century, when the river served as the world’s biggest port.
At the time, they were simply scavengers who looked around for valuable objects that were
dropped or left behind by criminals who looted ships.
While mudlarking is now considered a respectable hobby, many of the discoveries that are made
date back hundreds of years, proving that the original collectors missed more than a
few items while they scoured the riverbed for anything they could try to sell.
Now mudlarkers are amateur archaeologists, professional historians, and regular people
who love to find things!
If you are interested in learning more, Maiklem wrote a book called: Mudlark: In Search of
London’s Past Along the River Thames which is an award-winning Sunday Times bestseller!
Have you ever done this before?
Let me know in the comments below!!
9.
Hole-Y Bear Skull
Located in Russia’s mysterious southern Ural Mountains, Imanay Cave is filled with
the bones of over 100 small cave bears (Ursus rossicus) and other Pleistocene-era animals
who died around 35,000 years ago.
Most show no signs of violence and appear to have died while hibernating through the
harsh Siberian winter.
But a team of scientists noticed a small, narrow hole through the back of one skull
that looks like it may have been inflicted by a spear or some other weapon.
If their suspicions are correct, it would be the oldest known example of prehistoric
humans hunting cave bears, or perhaps engaging in some sort of postmortem ritual.
The bear died out during the last ice age, shortly after humans first migrated into northeastern
Russia, and the animal’s skull was discovered near evidence of human occupancy within the
cave.
While it’s well known among experts that ancient people hunted mammoths and other huge
mammals, this would be the first indication that they hunted small cave bears.
Study co-author Dmitry Gimranov conceded that the hole could be natural or artificial, but
he said it’s likely that humans either killed the bear or mutilated the skull as part of
a ritual.
The rest of the skeleton lacks any signs of people removing meat from the bones, so it
doesn’t look like they ate them.
There is much evidence that sacred practices were common in the region at the time
Either way, a recently published study detailing the discovery leans strongly toward the belief
that one way or another, ancient humans were piercing the cranium of prehistoric bears.
8.
Mysterious Extinct Humans
Researchers at the Nesher Ramla archaeological site in central Israel recently discovered
an array of ancient artifacts, including stone tools; horse, deer, and wild ox bones, and
the remains of what they believe may be a previously unknown species of extinct humans.
Dating back between 140,000 and 120,000 years, the remains contain a distinct mixture of
Neanderthal and early human characteristics that differ from the features of Homo sapiens
who lived in the area at the time.
The discovery adds to a growing collection of evidence that Neanderthals did not originate
in Europe, as scientists long suspected, but that they evolved from a mysterious group
of ancient hominids from somewhere else.
Dubbed the “Nesher Ramla Homo,” the group may represent this obscure population.
As Dr. Yossi Zaidner from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem pointed out, experts are quickly
learning that the history of human migration is much more complicated than we originally
assumed.
In piecing together the confusing hominid family tree, it’s becoming increasingly
apparent that our ancestors and their relatives did not leave Africa in a single cut-and-dry
episode of migration.
Researchers are now revisiting past discoveries of ancient human bones found at other sites
in Israel to determine whether they, too, may be part of this suspected lost lineage.
7.
Laptop Lady Statue
In early 2016, an anonymous YouTuber who goes by the name StillSpeakingOut released a video
alleging that an Ancient Greek funerary statue dating back to around 100 B.C. depicts a woman
holding a laptop with USB ports on its side.
Everyone freaked out!!
Conspiracy theorists and armchair experts typed furiously, claiming that it was proof
that people in ancient times must have had technology.
StillSpeakingOut said that he perceived the artwork as a prediction, citing the sacred
Oracle of Delphi site where priests went to “connect with the gods and retrieve advanced
information.”
The statue is located at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, California.
Jeffrey Spier, a curator who works at the museum, admitted that the object in the statue
does resemble a laptop.
Speaking to Live Science, he offered the far more reasonable explanation that it’s a
jewelry box, a hinged mirror, or a box containing incense.
University of Oregon art history professor Jeff Hurwit said that the so-called “USB
ports” are actually drill holes for attaching a bronze or marble object.
There was something probably attached but it was not a USB.
Officially titled “Grave Naiskos of an Enthroned Woman with an Attendant,” the statue shows
a wealthy woman sitting on an armchair and touching the lid of a shallow box in the hands
of a servant girl, according to the J. Paul Getty Museum’s website.
Known as a “naisko,” it’s one of many funerary reliefs that were crafted between
the sixth century B.C. and the first century B.C., and which were used for marking graves.
If you ask the experts, this is just another case of someone creating a mystery where one
doesn’t exist.
But at least it brings attention to artifacts!
6.
Extinct Goose
Earlier this year, researchers announced that a trio of geese depicted in the artwork of
the 4,600-year-old tomb of Ancient Egyptian ruler Nefermaat I and his wife Itet represent
an extinct species, offering a rare glimpse at an animal that unfortunately no longer
exists.
The painting, a famous piece of artwork known as “Meidum geese” and nicknamed the “Mona
Lisa of Egypt,” is also unique because it features a real creature, unlike many ancient
Egyptian depictions of mythical deities and animals.
Currently housed at Cairo’s Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, the fresco was discovered in
1871 at a site in Lower Egypt called Meidum, hence its name.
Experts were puzzled about the birds for quite some time until evolutionary biologist Dr.
Anthony Romilio recently examined the animals and spotted what he believes is a speckled
goose that is no longer seen in the modern world.
Romilio said that it’s possible that “artistic license” could explain the differences between
the geese in the fresco and modern geese, but because the other birds depicted in the
artwork are extremely realistic, the images are probably accurate representations of a
species we are not familiar with today.
The birds were previously thought to be a red-breasted goose species, which are found
in Europe -- not North Africa, where no such remains have ever been found -- and do not
exactly match the geese in the painting.
This is the only known documentation of the suspected extinct species which, in Romilio’s
words, “appears now to be globally extinct.”
Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that researchers will ever know what caused the animal to fade
from existence.
5.
Roman Ruins Under Theater
During the second century, a fire tore through a Roman building in what is now Verona in
northern Italy, causing the roof to collapse and leaving charred furniture in its wake.
The destroyed structure was forgotten about until recently, when archaeologists discovered
it beneath an abandoned cinema that has sat vacant for the better part of two decades.
To everyone’s delight, the building’s interior, including its “magnificent frescoed
walls,” are remarkably intact, earning it the nickname ‘Miniature Pompeii.’
It’s unusual to uncover a site that is in nearly as good condition as it was thousands
of years ago, but that appears to be the case here.
Researchers believe that the building was too big to function as a private residence,
leaving them puzzled about what it was used for.
It’s located just blocks away from the Verona Arena, a Roman amphitheater that was built
during the first century and is still in use today.
Founded in the second century B.C., Verona became a Roman colony during the first century
A.D. and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
It is known as one of the most romantic cities in the world, home to Romeo and Juliet and
you can still visit the famous balcony today.
The discovery of the building comes on the heels of the discovery of a shockingly well-preserved
mosaic just north of Verona last year.
4.
Oversized Early Hieroglyphics
While working near the ancient Egyptian city of Elkab in 2017, a team of archaeologists
led by Yale University Egyptologist John Darnell noticed some unusually large carvings on a
cliff face at a site called El-Khawy.
Included among the depictions are a bull’s head on a pole, two storks, and a type of
bird called an ibis.
A closer analysis revealed that the oversized etchings date back roughly 5,500 years to
sometime around 3250 B.C. and constitute the oldest known example of hieroglyphics during
their early, formative stage.
The images date back to a period known as Dynasty 0, when ancient scribes were just
beginning to master the hieroglyphic writing system.
Unlike other Dynasty 0 carvings, which are typically less than an inch tall, the inscriptions
at El-Khawy are 27 inches (69 cm) high.
They predate other large hieroglyphics by roughly 300 years.
The images resemble characters that were eventually used to convey a pharaoh’s power..
Darnell believes that the carvings acted as a boundary marker of sorts, which identified
a particular king’s jurisdiction over the area.
It was, in his words, a way for travelers to know that they were “entering an area
under official authority.”
He also sees the early hieroglyphics as evidence that the writing system was established much
more quickly than experts previously believed, and that its use for publicly declaring royal
rule began early on in its development.
3.
A Hidden Portrait Of A Hated Woman
While living in Scotland in 1589, Dutch-born painter Adrian Vanson concealed a highly controversial
portrait and took the secret to his grave.
By all appearances, the artwork bears the image of a Tudor aristocrat named Sir John
Maitland.
Fast forward roughly 450 years to 2017, when experts x-rayed the painting as part of a
research project and discovered that Maitland was not the intended subject.
Beneath his image are the traces of what was originally meant to be a portrait of Mary,
Queen of Scots, a widely despised royal who was eventually beheaded for her participation
in a plot to kill Queen Elizabeth I and who was suspected of murdering her husband.
This is one of few contemporary images of the detested monarch that are known to exist,
even though it’s invisible to the naked eye.
The cover-up portrait of Maitland is dated to two years after Mary’s execution in 1587,
a time when it was especially risky to create an image of the queen.
It’s likely that Vanson realized this after he started the painting, and once he came
to his senses, he hastily covered it with Maitland’s portrait.
It was probably a smart decision.
2.
America’s Oldest Outhouse
You know what they say!
One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.
Over 14,000 years ago in what is now Paisley, Oregon, an ancient group of people used a
cave as their bathroom.
Not only did they leave their waste behind, they also left a number of other artifacts,
including stone tools.
A few years ago, archaeologists discovered a collection of fossilized fecal matter, known
as coprolites, at the lowest excavation level at the site, now known as Paisley Cave.
This might sound gross but finding ancient organic matter is extremely exciting to a
lot of people!!
Their age adds to a growing pile of evidence indicating that people arrived in the Americas
before the so-called Clovis people, who came here around 13,000 years ago and were long
believed to be North America’s first human inhabitants.
Some experts have challenged the findings, claiming that the prehistoric poop was deposited
by animals and contaminated with human DNA.
Study co-author and chemist Ian Bull admitted that this is possible, but unlikely.
Working with feces sounds wildly unpleasant to most people, but experts were thrilled
at the opportunity to learn more about the everyday lives and diets of the people who
answered nature’s call inside Paisley Cave.
The specimens contained traces of mammoth and other large game, as well as seed coatings,
rodent bones, organic plant compounds, and outer shells from insects.
Unlike coprolites found at sites where waste was deliberately managed, the feces from the
cave reflects a nomadic population and could prove useful to better understanding the movement
and day-to-day habits of ancient people throughout the continent.
1.
Human Bone Instruments
Humans have memorialized the dead for thousands of years, and we’ve come up with infinite
ways of doing it along the way.
During the Bronze Age in what is now Britain, people were buried with bone fragments from
other deceased family members, and they even kept the bones of lost loved ones on display
in their homes, according to University of Bristol archaeologist Joanna Brück.
There are numerous theories about why people engaged in these practices.
Researcher Tom Booth proposed that the bones were seen as relics and were associated with
religious or mythical figures from hundreds or thousands of years ago.
On the other hand, a study published last year found that people crafted keepsakes out
of their dead relatives’ bones within decades of a person passing, rather than centuries.
Bones were made into amulets, ornaments, and other decorative objects that most modern
humans wouldn’t dream of showcasing in their home.
In one grave, archaeologists found a whistle carved from a thigh bone.
Speaking with The Guardian, Thomas Booth, who radiocarbon dated the remains used in
the study, said that these practices, which are macabre by modern standards, reflect a
more blurred line between the living and dead than we have in today’s society.
I won’t disagree there!
Thanks for watching!