As a whole, the human race has a pretty high opinion of itself.
That's partially because we build all kinds of incredible things, from buildings that
are incredibly tall to buildings that are super high-tech.
Sure, machines do all the heavy lifting for us now, but what about those who came before
us and didn't have the help we take for granted today?
Buildings like the pyramids are a reminder that we're not nearly as cool as our ancestors
were, but we're probably all still equally weird.
How weird?
Just check out some of this stuff archaeologists have found in ancient pyramids.
More pyramids
Chichen Itza's Kukulkan pyramid is probably the most famous Mayan ruin, but we barely
know anything about it.
How little are we talking?
We're not even sure how many pyramids it is.
The strange discoveries started in 1930, when an excavation revealed Kukulkan was built
over another pyramid.
That pyramid was found to contain a red jaguar throne decorated with jade, but it was almost
another century before we figured out that pyramid had itself been built over another
pre-existing pyramid.
If you're familiar with the idea of Russian nesting dolls, that's what Kukulkan actually
is… only it starts with an exterior pyramid that's 100 feet tall and made from hundreds
of thousands of limestone blocks.
Archaeologists have some rough guesses at when these nesting-doll style pyramids were
built, and say the outer shell is only about 1,000 years old.
The pyramid found in 1930 dates back to around 900, and the innermost pyramid is old enough
that it's likely in the "pure Maya" style… which means you can probably bet there's a
bit of a skull-and-sacrifice motif going on in there.
The Lady of Cao
Sure, you expect to find a mummy inside a pyramid.
But archaeologists definitely didn't expect to find a mummy like the one dubbed the "Lady
of Cao", for a few different reasons.
First, the mummy was buried with all the grave goods and military weapons befitting a ruler
in Peru's Moche culture.
Ordinary enough, but it's the "lady" part that's pretty shocking.
No one knows too much about the Moche, but finding the remains of a female ruler, buried
with full honors in a Peruvian pyramid… that's extraordinary, especially considering
she was only in her early 20s when she died.
The other extraordinary thing about her is the amount of ink preserved on her centuries-old
skin.
Her extensive tattoos are one of the few examples we have of Moche tattooing practices, and
include stylized depictions of cats, snakes, crabs, catfish, and spiders, along with a
supernatural creature archaeologists simply call the Moon Animal.
They're not sure what the tattoos represented, but she was obviously of high standing, had
the respect of her people, and was likely nobility or religious elite.
Hopefully, she's eventually allowed to just rest in peace, because everyone knows what
happens next.
Ancient graffiti
There's plenty we don't know about our ancient ancestors, and it's easy to turn them into
distant, enigmatic figures.
But deep down, they were people just like us, and we know that because even ordinary
citizens left their mark on the world.
Literally.
Egyptologists have found traces left behind by the builders of the pyramid at Giza in
the form of ancient graffiti, scrawled in red paint on some of the giant stone blocks.
It included the names that pyramid work crews gave themselves, handles like "The Friends
of Khufu Gang" and "The Drunkards of Menkaure".
That's important for another reason: it doesn't really mesh with the idea that slaves were
forced to labor away on the pyramids.
Subsequent centuries of graffiti has been found etched into the pyramids, too, and a
lot of it dates from Imperial Rome.
Giza was a destination holiday even then, and the Romans?
They were terrible tourists, who used the pyramids as a sort of massive guestbook.
One Roman tourist even left behind a bit of ancient pop culture that reads, "I looked,
I investigated, I arrived, I marveled."
At least they appreciated the sights.
A 100-foot-long chamber
The Great Pyramid of Giza is the pyramid everyone thinks of when they think "pyramid," and the
ScanPyramids project has been using some super high-tech gadgets and gizmos to look inside
Khufu's massive tomb for some time now.
In 2017, they hit archaeological paydirt with the discovery of a massive void at least 100
feet long.
Even cooler, it's positioned directly over the long hallway leading to the pyramid's
main burial chamber, and it looks like it was intentional.
So, what is it?
No one really knows, but there are a few guesses.
One Cambridge archaeologist suggests the void's alignment with the massive stone blocks forming
the top of the King's Chamber makes it likely the space was just left behind by the stage
of construction that moved those huge blocks into place.
Unfortunately, some researchers were quick to point out there's probably not a connection
to anything super mysterious or occult-ish, which pretty much ruins everyone's idea of
archaeology.
Unless…
"Once you started up this power plant it would've gone on for years, decades, even hundreds
of years without stopping."
Chinese skeletons in a Peruvian pyramid
In 2017, the Peruvian Ministry of Culture announced they'd made a strange find: the
remains of 16 Chinese laborers, buried on the top of an adobe pyramid.
It makes even less sense when you know the pyramids were built by a pre-Incan people
who thrived around 1,000 years ago, until their ultimate destruction at the hands of
the Spanish conquistadors.
Researchers finally did piece together what happened, and it comes from a bit of history
you probably didn't cover in school.
At the turn of the 20th century, around 100,000 Chinese immigrants were lured to Peru under
false pretenses... or just outright kidnapped.
Peru outlawed slavery but then needed another way to get cheap labor, and someone stumbled
on the idea that immigrants and slaves could be pretty much the same thing.
The immigrants' outsider status continued even after death, and the community wasn't
allowed to bury their dead in Peru's Catholic cemeteries.
They had to look elsewhere, and this particular group looked to the past.
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