10. GOLD MONK
Fu Hou was a Buddhist monk who spent most of his life at the Chongfu Temple in Quanzhou,
China. He began practicing Buddhism at age 17 and never looked back, and remained at the monastery
until his dying day in 1994. The devout monk was 94 years old when he passed. His body was washed,
mummified, and placed inside a large pottery jar in a seated pose. Three years later, the vessel
was reopened. Fu Hou’s skin had dried out, but other than that, his body was surprisingly intact.
Only a truly virtuous monk’s body can resist decay, according to traditional
Buddhist beliefs. So when Fu Hou’s remains were discovered in such a well-preserved state,
it was a big deal. His corpse was washed, then wrapped in gauze and gold leaf. The gilded statue
wears a robe and sits on display in a glass case, where people can come and worship him.
Encasing monks in gold is “a practice reserved for holy men in some areas with strong Buddhist
traditions,” according to the Associated Press. Given his nearly lifelong dedication to the
religion, Fu Hou certainly fit the profile for someone who might receive this treatment.
9. BOTTLED WINE & URINE
A report from back in 2000 details the discoveries of two sealed 17th-century bottles
containing vastly different substances. One was a vintage Portuguese wine that
was found on a Dutch warship that sank off the Netherlands coast. The incredibly rare
onion-shaped vessel is 350 years old, making it one of the oldest corked bottles ever found,
and the vino inside was intact. It was a very fine wine for its time and may have been part
of a naval officer’s booze stash, according to historians, who actually sampled the wine.
Another corked bottle described in the report was found in 1993 in the foundation of a demolished
home south of London. Experts initially thought that the bottle contained wine.
They encountered an unpleasant surprise when they opened it and discovered a
putrid concoction of hair, urine, and tiny brass pins. Good thing they didn’t taste it!
These mixtures, known as “witch bottles,” were popular in England between the 16th and 19th
centuries. Their purpose was to ward off evil spirits and fight back against witches’ hexes.
Around 200 witch bottles have been found throughout the country, but the ones that
were discovered prior to this had leaked, and researchers struggled to identify their contents.
This artifact proved to be a game changer because it enabled experts to perform a
chemical analysis on the liquid inside. And we now know that for three centuries,
people protected themselves against spells and malevolent spirits with a
substance we tend to avoid coming into contact with at all costs.
8. DEATH BY CONSTIPATION
Sometime between 1,000 and 4,000 years ago,
an ailing man ate nothing but grasshoppers for months as he slowly approached death’s doorstep.
He lived in what is now Texas and had a condition called megacolon, when a person’s large intestine
swells to as much as six times its normal size! Yikes! The man also suffered from Chagas Disease,
which prevented his food from digesting properly and led to malnourishment.
During his final days, he was most likely unable to walk or eat on his own,
according to a new study of his remains. The research found that the man’s caretakers
removed the legs from grasshoppers and fed him the “squishable” part of the bugs.
As gross as it may sound, it wasn’t a terrible idea. Grasshoppers are packed with protein and
moisture, according to Karl Reinhard, a researcher who participated in the study. During the early
stages of megacolon, the man would have had an easier time eating bugs than actual food.
Scientists have carried out numerous studies on his remains ever since they were discovered in a
rock shelter in 1937. In addition to being full of grasshoppers, his body contained undigested food
and 2.6 pounds (1.2 kg) of feces that he couldn’t pass due to his megacolon. He was constipated for
months leading up to what could only have been an excruciating and agonizing death.
7. HUMAN BONE INSTRUMENTS
Humans have been memorializing the dead for thousands of years, and we’ve come up with
some pretty creative ways of doing it. But our beliefs and cultures have changed quite a bit
over the millennia, and as you’re about to learn, not every tradition has stuck.
During the Bronze Age in what is now Britain, people buried the dead with the bone fragments
of other deceased family members. It was also customary for families to display the bones
of their dead loved ones inside their homes. A study published last year found that some
people made keepsakes out of the bones, including amulets, ornaments, and other decorative objects.
In one grave, archaeologists found a whistle carved from a thigh bone.
Experts aren’t entirely sure what inspired these traditions. Researcher Tom Booth believes that
the bones were considered relics, and that people associated them with religious or
mythical figures. He pointed out that while these customs are taboo according to modern standards,
the line between the living and the dead was more “blurred” in ancient times than it is today.
Death has never been a happy thing, but there have been times and places where
people were more comfortable being around it than we tend to be in modern western society.
What do you think of this funerary practice? Is it creepy to you or sentimental? Let us
know your thoughts in the comments down below and if you’re liking this video,
be sure to click the thumbs up and subscribe buttons if you haven’t already! :)
6. COPIALE CIPHER
The Copiale Cipher is a mysterious 18th-century manuscript that was handwritten
in a code that experts spent decades trying to interpret with no success. It’s 105 pages long
and contains a mixture of 75,000 Greek and Roman letters, as well as abstract symbols
that don’t appear to be from the alphabet of any known language.
The Copiale Cipher was created by a secret society based in Germany, known simply as the “Occultist
Order” of Wolfenbüttel. The organization wrote the manuscript sometime between 1760 and 1780,
and it was rediscovered in a German school after the Cold War era.
In a 2019 study, a team of researchers realized that the Roman letters are meant to mislead the
reader. By overlooking these characters, they finally managed to crack the code.
The Copiale Cipher’s creators were extremely interested in eye surgery and ophthalmology,
according to the team, who also found detailed information about an initiation ceremony for new
members. These writings appear to be connected to Count Friedrich August von Veltheim,
who founded the Occultist Order in 1742. Based on the manuscript’s flyleaf,
it appears as though the original owner was someone known simply as “Phillipp 1866.”
Members of the Occultist Order operated under beliefs similar to the Freemasons. They referred
to themselves as the “high enlightened.” Their declared goal was to establish a
peaceful community that welcomed people of all races, nationalities, and religions.
Pope Clement XII disbanded the group, but the organization’s mission
is still very much alive in a sense. Centuries after all this happened, people are still trying
to figure out how to create a peaceful society, and with very little success.
5. ANCIENT OVERSIZED WRITING
While working at the El-Khawy site near the ancient Egyptian city of Elkab in 2017,
a team of archaeologists noticed some unusually large carvings scrawled onto a cliff face. The
artwork consists of a bull’s head on a pole, two storks, and a type of bird called an ibis. These
oversized etchings date back roughly 5,500 years to sometime around 3250 B.C. They’re the oldest
known example of hieroglyphs that were made during the writing system’s early, formative stages.
When the carvings were done, ancient scribes were just beginning to master hieroglyphics. While most
Dynasty O are less than an inch (2.5 cm) tall, the ones at El-Khawy are up to 27 inches (69 cm) tall.
They pre-date other large hieroglyphs by roughly 300 years. The images resemble mythical
characters that were eventually used to convey a pharaoh’s power. Egyptologist John Darnell,
who led the team that made the discovery, believes that the carvings were a boundary marker of sorts,
a way of identifying a particular king’s jurisdiction. In his words, the artwork
was a way for travelers to know that they were “entering an area under official authority.”
He cites the oversized hieroglyphs as evidence that the writing system
was established much more quickly than experts previously believed,
and that it was used for publicly declaring royal rule began early on in its development.
4. SIX-HEADED CHIEF
Back in 1997, archaeologists discovered a strange
ancient burial in the Scottish fishing village of Portmahomack. The bizarre grave,
dubbed the “six-headed chief,”was found near the altar of a former church.
At first glance, it appeared to contain the remains of one man surrounded by five skulls.
Researchers took a closer look and identified the remains of two men plus four skulls.
DNA evidence is helping to unravel some of the mysteries surrounding the unusual grave. The
men were probably related in some way. They were most likely an uncle and nephew or two cousins,
and they were buried sometime between the 13th and 15th centuries. The four disembodied skulls they
were laid to rest with also belonged to relatives. Three of them were one man’s grandfather,
mother, and father, and the other belonged to a Pictish monk who died several centuries
before everyone else. The monk was originally buried in a nearby cemetery.
Experts believe his skull may have been a cherished family relic.
Graves filled with skulls and other body parts that were removed from family members’ graves
are “about as unusual as it gets,'' according to archaeologist Cecily Spall, who spoke with
LiveScience. To make things even weirder, one of the men suffered a violent and excruciating death.
Half of his face appears to have either been cut or bludgeoned off. Based on the
burial’s location near a church, the pair were likely high-ranking members of their society.
3. AMERICA'S OLDEST OUTHOUSE
Around 14,000 years ago, a group of ancient people used a cave as a bathroom in what is now Paisley,
Oregon. After staying there for a short period, they moved on,
leaving their waste, stone tools, and a few other objects behind. A few years ago, archaeologists
working at the cave’s lowest excavation level found a collection of fossilized fecal matter,
or coprolites. The ancient excrement’s age adds to a growing list of evidence
that humans arrived in North America even before the so-called Clovis people, who came here around
13,000 years ago. The Clovis people were long thought to be the first humans to reach the
continent, but the coprolites and other recent discoveries are showing that this wasn’t the case.
Some experts have challenged the findings from the cave in Paisley, arguing that the prehistoric
poop was deposited by animals and became contaminated by human DNA. This is possible
but unlikely, according to study co-author and chemist Ian Bull. Most of us would never want to
work with human waste, but coprolite discoveries are thrilling to the archaeology community.
By examining their contents, researchers are able to learn more about ancient societies’ daily
lives. They found that the people who answered nature’s call inside Paisley Caves ate mammoth and
other large game, as well as seed coatings, rodent ones, plants, and the outer shells of insects.
Unlike coprolites found at sites where waste was deliberately managed,
the feces from the cave reflects a nomadic population. The findings could help experts
better understand the migration patterns of some of North America’s earliest human populations.
2. LAPTOP LADY STATUE
Conspiracy theorists tend to lean toward the most far-flung explanations
possible for archaeological mysteries. This was certainly the case in 2016,
when an anonymous YouTuber released a video claiming that an Ancient Greek funerary statue
depicts a woman holding a laptop with USB ports on the side.
The sculpture dates back to around 100 B.C. and is a type of funerary relief called a “naisko.”
They were used for marking graves, and many of them were created between the 6th century B.C.
and the 1st century A.D. Officially titled “Grave Naiskos of an Enthroned
Woman with an Attendant,” it depicts a wealthy woman sitting on an armchair
and touching the lid of a shallow box in the hands of a servant girl.
But the amateur filmmaker saw the artwork as a prediction. To back up his belief,
he cited a sacred archaeological site called the Oracle of Delphi,
where priests went to “connect with the gods and retrieve advanced information.”
The statue belongs to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu. A curator there named Jeffrey Spier
admitted that the object the woman is holding does resemble a laptop, but he
told Live Science that it’s probably a jewelry box, a mirror, or a box filled with incense.
The so-called USB ports are actually drill holes for attaching a bronze or marble object,
according to art history professor Jeff Hurwit. Experts clearly think
that this is just another case of someone creating a mystery where one doesn’t exist.
What do you think? Are they right, or is there perhaps more to the story?
1. OUT-OF-PLACE TOMBS
Around 2,000 years ago, dozens of people were buried in modest graves at the vast
Ancient Egyptian necropolis at Saqqara. They were given the most basic embalming
treatments and were laid to rest in a pit in a disorganized and seemingly careless
way. This indicates that they were commoners -- perhaps working
or middle-class people -- they were not high-ranking members of society.
Archaeologists discovered the graves in 2018 near the 4,600-year-old pyramid
of Djoser (the world’s oldest pyramid). They were struck by their presence in an
area that was typically reserved for elite burials. The bodies were poorly preserved,
and the graves were “modest,” in the words of Egyptologist Kamil Kuraszkiewicz,
who spoke with the Polish press following the discovery.
Many of the graves were looted or heavily damaged by time and the elements, but the team found some
surviving evidence of the people who occupied them. One coffin features a painting of a
necklace and mock hieroglyphics. The person who created the sarcophagus couldn’t read or write,
so they did their best to imitate the writing system’s characters.
The casket also bears what Kuraszkiewicz described as “beautifully clumsy” figures of Anubis,
the jackal-headed guardian of the Underworld.
However ordinary, these burials are valuable in their own right as
a rare example of how rank-and-file members of Ancient Egyptian society
were laid to rest. They also provide clues about the civilization’s hierarchy and social structure.
Thanks for watching! What’s the strangest thing you ever found?
Let us know in the comments below and if you enjoyed today’s video,
be sure to hit that thumbs-up button, and don’t forget to subscribe. See you next time! Bye! :)