From the legendary Aztec death whistle to a book bound in human skin, here are ten of
the scariest and most grotesque discoveries ever!
10: The Aztec Death Whistle The Aztec death whistle is one of the most
terrifying musical instruments in the world. Back in 1999, archaeologists were investigating
the Temple of Tlatelolco when they came upon a skeleton. This skeleton was a sacrificial
victim, holding in its hands two peculiar figurines shaped like skulls. At first, archaeologists
thought the strange figurines were nothing more than toys. But recently someone decided,
for whatever reason, to blow air into the clay figurine. When a disturbing and blood-curdling
scream then emerged from the skull, archaeologists realized they were dealing with something
far more sophisticated than a simple toy. It was a death whistle, and this simple artifact
would go on to change the way historians understand the rituals and instruments used by the ancient
Aztec people. Interestingly, archaeologists have found similar
instruments across other Aztec sites and even in the Mayan kingdom. They have found instruments
made of clay, seashells, and even animal skins. But they've never been entirely sure what
purpose they served. The skull whistles found in Tlatelolco were
likely used to mimic the screeching and howling of the wind. This makes sense because the
temple they were found in is dedicated to Ehecatl, the wind god. Historians now believe
these whistles of death were used to help when guiding victims of sacrifice to the afterlife
and the great beyond. Of course, another theory is that Aztec death
whistles were used in the hundreds during battle, combined together to create a deafening
sound like a thousand screeching ghosts to terrify enemies during battle.
Imagine fighting the Aztec warriors when the sound of death itself started approaching?
You’d have a hard time not just dropping your weapons and running away, I bet!
9: A Book Bound in Human Skin At Harvard University, a book was recently
discovered to be bound in human skin. And a s disturbing as that sounds, it's apparently
not as rare as you might think. The book is titled in French, Des Destinees de l’Ame,
which means destinies of the soul. Staff at Harvard University believe the book was likely
bound using the skin of a female mental patient who passed away of natural causes. Isn’t
that just totally insane? The binding was done in the 1880s but researchers only recently
tested it to confirm that yes, it is indeed made of human flesh.
But here's the deal. Binding books in human skin was allegedly quite popular during the
19th century, though the practice does go back to a much earlier time. Covering books
using human skin is known as anthropodermic bibliopegy.
There are a few surviving examples of books bound in human skin, though it’s highly
likely the majority of them have already been tucked away inside of private collections.
There is one surviving book in the United Kingdom currently owned by the Bristol Record
Office. The book was crafted using the flesh of the first man ever to be hung at Bristol
Gaol. His name was John Horwood. He was only 18 years old when hanged for the murder of
Eliza Balsum. Even more bizarre is that following Horwood’s execution, the surgeon who dissected
his corpse took a piece of skin from him and then used it to bind papers detailing the
case. The book was even embossed with a skull. 8: The Toraja Funeral Rites
There is a place in Indonesia where their funeral rites are so scary to an outsider
that you would be left in shock. This place is in South Sulawesi, where the Torajans behave
very oddly with their dead relatives. To them, death is just a part of life. When someone
dies, they are treated not as if they've left the world, but as if they are merely sick.
These people offer food, water, and for whatever reason… cigarettes to their recently deceased
because they believe that the spirit stays in the body and continues craving even after
physical life has left. But here's where things get strange – at
least, from an outsider’s perspective. The lifeless bodies of the Toraja are kept and
cared for in a traditional house, where they remain from anywhere between a couple of months
to a couple of decades. The bodies are kept relatively stink-free by using dried plants.
What this means is that if you were to ever find yourself in this part of Indonesia, you
could discover an entire village filled with mummified dead bodies, sleeping in houses,
being propped up in the streets, and wearing clothes and smoking cigarettes as if they
weren't even dead. Creepy, right? 7: Ancient Bones
4000 years ago in what is now northern Vietnam, a young man grew profoundly ill. His body
was recently found at the Man Bac archaeological site near Hanoi. The way in which he was buried,
curled sadly in the fetal position, suggests he suffered lifelong paralysis. What this
means is that as far back as 4000 years, human beings were at least makin g some kind of
effort to care for their sick and dying. Out of all the skeletons buried at Man Bac,
his is the only one curled in the fetal position. All the other skeletons are lying straight
in their graves. But it wasn't until archaeologists examined the skeleton that they saw why he
was curled in such an unusual way. His vertebrae were fused and he had weak bones. It was then
obvious that the way the man was positioned in his grave was the same contortion he would
have suffered during his life. He was bent and crippled in life and in death.
Further tests showed that the man probably had no use of his arms. He was unable to feed
himself. He would not have been able to keep himself clean. He also probably became paralyzed
just before adolescence. But the shocking thing is that a group of primitive hunters
and gatherers took the time out of fishing, building, and surviving to care for one of
their own who was so hopelessly afflicted. 6: The Tomb of the Sunken Skulls
Archaeologists excavating a prehistoric lakebed in Sweden just a couple years ago stumbled
upon one of the strangest archaeological discoveries the country had ever seen. Researchers found
what is known today as the Tomb of the Sunken Skulls. The tomb consisted of skulls left
behind 8000 years ago. Even more gruesome is that the skulls had been mounted on stakes.
Nobody knew why the skulls had been staked – but recently, one of them has been reconstructed
to showcase the actual face of the man who met his grisly fate at the site, with his
head at the end of a stick. Researchers took the guy’s broken skull
and combined his genetic information to make a realistic bust of who this person was. He
was named Ludvig by the researchers and has long brown hair, blue eyes, and is in his
50s. He was reconstructed by a forensic artist named Oscar Nilsson. But perhaps the scariest
part of the recreation is that the man, 8000 years old, doesn’t look much different than
people today. Hairier and angrier, maybe, but not much different. He looks like he could
be your great-uncle! 5: The Lloyds Bank Coprolite
The Lloyds Bank coprolite is not as scary as it is disgusting. It's actually one of
the best-preserved pieces of feces anywhere on Earth. Specifically, it's Viking poop.
It's also fossilized and has been referred to by paleontologists as just as precious
as the crown jewels. The fossilized waste has been dated back to the 9th century when
the area of York, today in England, was ruled by ruthless warrior kings from Norway.
The fossilized feces itself was discovered in 1972 under what later became a bank. This
is why it's known as the Lloyds Bank coprolite. The human who deposited the fantastic specimen,
which by the way is a whopping 7 inches (18cm) long, had a diet mainly of meat and bread.
Scientists also know that this individual had quite a few intestinal problems. The coprolite
was found filled with worms and worm eggs, which had probably caused the person great
distress and excessive gastrointestinal issues. In other words, cramps and gas.
The majestic piece of excrement is now on display at the Jorvik Viking Center, stashed
safely inside a glass box for all the world to see. In 2003, some touchy tourists dropped
the fossil on the ground and it shattered into three pieces. It’s since been fixed,
and now nobody is allowed to hold the ancient poop.
What would you think if your greatest contribution to the world turned out to be a piece of poop
that got preserved for hundreds of years after your death!? Would that be funny to you, or
just sad? Let me know what you think in the comments below, and don’t forget to subscribe
to American Eye if you haven’t already! 4: 800 Mammoth Bones
Archaeologists in Mexico found a rare trove of extinct giants’ bones. They discovered
at least 800 bones belonging to 14 extinct mammoths in central Mexico, making it one
of the largest boneyards ever found in North America. Even more fascinating is that archaeologists
believe they found a trap used by humans 14,000 years ago to capture and kill mammoths. If
true, this would be the first ever mammoth trap discovered by modern archaeologists.
According to Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History, this is the biggest
discovery of its kind ever made in Mexico. The bones of the mammoths were found in Tultepec,
Mexico City. They had probably been living in the area for thousands of years. This was
at a time when the region was rich with wild camels and horses. Researchers have identified
at least five individual mammoth herds that populated what is today Mexico City – one
of the largest cities in the entire world. However, researchers still aren't sure why
so many mammoth bones were deposited in the area. There is still a lot of research to
do, especially because the bones were found during construction of a new airport. As construction
progresses, paleontologists are confident that they will find even more bones – and
hopefully, answers too.
3: The Sonora Alien Skulls The Sonora alien skulls are some of the strangest
skulls ever excavated in Mexico. Of course, they didn't actually belong to aliens. They
were the skulls of people who had gone through cranial deformation. This was a practice once
common throughout many parts of the world, for North America to Central America, and
all the way to the old cultures of South America. Evidence of cranial deformation has even been
found in Europe. But the Mexican skulls were particularly fascinating.
They had been warped on purpose to form bizarre, alien-like shapes – and they were found
inside of a cemetery from 1000 years ago. The cemetery yielded 25 human corpses, with
13 of them being people with deformed skulls. The skulls were elongated, pointy at the back,
and many of them even had strange and mutilated teeth inside their jaws. This is known as
dental mutilation, and it's even more disturbing than cranial mutilation. As if squeezing your
head with pieces of wood to grow oblong wasn't disturbing enough, they also filed and grinded
their teeth into strange shapes. Another thing that was really fascinating
about these particular skulls is that they were found in Sonora, which is very close
to the American Southwest. It's the farthest north that such deformations have been found
in the Americas, suggesting at one point the practice had been spreading through the region.
It makes you wonder what the world might look like today if people had kept on doing this.
Maybe all of us would look like coneheads!
2: A Shamed Nun The remains of an immoral nun have been found
in Oxfordshire after 900 years buried in shame. The woman was found inside of her grave lying
face down. This is an important part because being buried with your face in the dirt was
a common punishment back then for nuns accused of engaging in what was seen as immoral behavior.
This discovery has led experts to speculate that the nun must have been involved in some
kind of scandal and was subsequently shamed in death.
The excavation itself uncovered at least 100 skeletons near the Oxford United Football
Stadium. The skeletons are all somewhere between 600 and 900 years old. Archaeologist Paul
Murray, who was the lead on the dig, said they were shocked by just how many burials
they found. The place they were excavating had once been a church. A nunnery, actually
– called the Littlemore Priory Nunnery. Nobody had any clue when the excavations started
that so many bodies were hidden under the surface.
The nunnery was founded in 1110, then shutdown in the 1500s because the nuns were involved
in questionable activities. Nobody knows exactly what the nuns were doing that made them such
social outcasts. Nobody knows what the face-down nun had been doing to earn her a punishment
usually reserved for sinners and witches. But it could have something to do with the
baby found alone inside a casket nearby. What do you think?
1: The Oldest Human Burial In a spectacular archaeological discovery
like no other, the oldest human burial in Africa has just been found. According to the
report from The Guardian, the burial dates back 80,000 years. Older human bones have
certainly been found, but this is the earliest incidence of a person being buried ritualistically
in Africa. The person who had been buried was a child, only three years old at the time
of death. She had been placed with her legs tucked against her chest, probably wrapped
in a shroud, and then gently covered over with soil.
Archaeologists found the young child's bones while excavating near a sheltered overhang
at the mouth of a Kenyan cave where ancient humans had once congregated. As of right now,
our entire species can trace the ritual of burying a dead person back to this very cave
and this one little girl's bones. It's both fascinating and scary – as well as creepy
and definitely mystifying. But what's even more fascinating is that according
to Professor Nicole Bovin, an investigator associated with the project, this may have
been a time in which human beings were starting to develop a complex system of beliefs surrounding
death. This is one of the things that greatly separates us from chimps. Humans understand
death, we want to know more about it, and 80,000 years ago, we began inventing rituals
to come to terms with it.
Would you read a book made of human skin? Let me know in the comments and thanks for
watching! Be sure to hit that subscribe button for more crazy videos from American Eye!