Sometimes digging up things would reveal frightening truths we'd rather not know about.
From vampires to cursed books, here are the 8 scariest archeological discoveries ever
made.
Number 8: The Book of the debt The ancient Egyptian Book of the debt is famously
known as a book containing spells that could be used in the afterlife.
In The Mummy film starring Brendan Fraser, it was the very book that allowed Imhotep
to rise from the debt and wreck havoc on Egypt, bringing with him the ten plagues.
This book is very much real, although the effectiveness of the spells written inside
it remains the subject of speculation.
Instead of being one single book, it is more of a concept, and many versions have been
written over the period of about 1000 years.
The most sought after version was the one given to Amenhotep, a powerful Egyptian priest
who lived around 1400 BC.
Sections of the manuscript have laid scattered across the globe, and for over a century,
archeologists have been working hard to piece them all together.
The long wait ended in the 21st Century when the last missing pages were found not in a
dark tomb, but in the basement of a museum in Queensland.
They had apparently been donated to the museum over 100 years ago, and kept meticulously
in the stores.
Number 7: Mummified Moa Remains In 1986, a team of archeologists were investigating
the insides of a large cave system underneath Mount Owen in New Zealand.
With very little visibility in the vast network of tunnels, they stumbled across a bizarre
object that left them wondering whether their eyes were playing tricks on them.
In front of them lay a large dinosaur-like claw, with intact flesh and scaly skin.
Curious, the team took it back with them for analysis.
The results could not have been more astounding - the mysterious claw belonged to a 3300 year
old prehistoric bird known as the upland moa.
For some reason the mummified claw had been preserved so well, it appeared as if the creature
had only recently dyed.
Otherwise known by its scientific name Megalapteryx didinus, the upland moa was a large flightless
bird that reached up to 12 feet in height, and weighed over 500 pounds.
Moa birds were once the dominant animals in New Zealand's forest ecosystems, until the
arrival of the Maori people who hunted them down to extinction.
Scientists have suggested that modern day revival of the species is a viable idea, as
their remains contained extractable DNA that could be introduced into chicken embryos.
Interest in the subject has been going on for years, and with the advancements in biology
and genetics, we may one day get to see a live running moa.
Number 6: The Headless Vikings of Dorset In June of 2009, Oxford archeologists were
excavating land in the seaside town of Weymouth in Dorset, England.
The area was about to undergo a controversial road-building project, so the archaeological
investigation was conducted in order to preserve its historical remains.
Shockingly, they discovered the remains of 54 headless skeletons, and a pile of 51 skulls
within an old Roman quarry.
This discovery attracted a lot of attention, and studies were made to determine who the
remains belonged to and why they were massacred in such manner.
The conclusion was that they were Scandinavian Vikings who dyed sometime during the centuries
of war between them and the Anglo-Saxons during the middle ages.
All of the remains were young adult males, and no remnants of clothing were found in
the pit.
All these clues led to speculations that the men were held captive, and were executive
while may kid.
From the look of the bones, the victims' heads were all cut from the front.
As proud Viking warriors, they preferred to face their killers.
Historians came up with various theories about the mass Viking grave.
Some say the Scandinavian warriors were defeated by a well-organized Saxon army and forced
to surrender.
Some linked them to the St Brice's Day massacre of 1002, ordered by King Ethelred the Unready.
And some speculated that they were traitors or defectors skilled by their own men.
Interestingly, there were 3 fewer skulls than the number of skeletons found in the pit.
A theory is that there were 3 high ranking victims who had their heads kept as souvenirs,
or placed on stakes.
Number 5: Vampires of Europe In recent years, vampire burial sites have
been found in many places across Europe, with most of them being in Bulgaria.
The graves contained skeletal remains with iron rods impaled through their chests where
their heart would've been, a technique believed to be the best way to skill a vampire.
In 2012, a heart-impaled skeleton was found in the Bulgarian seaside town of Sozopol,
believed to be the remains of the local nobleman Krivich, ruler of the fortress of Sozopol.
Recognized as a cruel person, the townspeople pierced his chest with an iron bar to make
sure he wouldn’t come back to haunt them.
A more recent discovery was made in 2014 at Bulgaria's ancient temple of Perperion where
2 impaled bodies were found.
The weird phenomenon is also seen in other parts of Europe.
In 2013, archeologists discovered four vampire burial sites near the town of Gliwice, Poland
where the heads of the debt had been detached and placed between their legs.
This showed that the belief of vampires was widespread, and different regions had different
methods to make sure the bloodsucking creatures would not rise again.
In 2012, Italian researchers found the remains of what was believed to be a 16th Century
female vampire, buried with a stone brick jammed between her jaws.
This was to prevent her from rising up and feeding on the city's plague victims.
There was a widespread medieval belief that vampires were the culprits behind Europe's
Black Death.
Number 4: Ashkelon's debt Babies In 1988, a gruesome discovery was made at
the port city of Ashkelon in Israel.
While exploring the ancient city's sewers, archeologists found a large number of small
bones.
They were initially thought to be the remains of animals like chickens, but further investigation
proved that they were human baby bones.
In all, they amounted to over 100 babies, making it the largest finding of infant remains
in a single place.
Forensic testing showed that none of the infants lived longer than a week.
Although infant more tally tea rates were high during those days, it appears that the
debt babies were intentionally skilled.
Investigations revealed that the sewer was located directly beneath a former Roman bathhouse.
This led to a theory that the babies were born to six workers and prosthetic suits who
then disposed them.
It was not uncommon for newborns to be skilled during Roman times.
It was not even considered a crime as infants were not yet considered "full humans".
A similar finding was made in England in 1912.
While excavating in the site of a former Roman villa in Hambleden, Buckinghamshire, archeologists
uncovered the remains of 103 individuals - 97 of them infants.
The most likely explanation is that the place was a broth full, and prosthetic suits had
been systematically killing their newborn babies.
With little to no effective contraception, unwanted pregnancies would have been very
common.
Number 3: The Alien Skulls of Mexico Residents of the small Mexican village of
Onavas stumbled upon a shocking discovery while building an irrigation canal.
What they found was an ancient burial site, referred to as El Cementerio, containing 25
skeletal remains.
The most shocking part was that 13 of the skeletons had abnormally long skulls, unlike
any known species on our planet.
Five were found with mutilated teeth.
The freakish discovery led to early speculations that the bodies were those of extraterrestrial
beings, similar to the ones seen in Ridley Scott's popular Alien film series.
However, researchers were quick to suggest that the skulls were the result of intentional
cranial reshaping.
Several ancient Central American cultures had a tradition of forcing their heads into
strange shapes.
This was done by placing enormous pressure on their skulls since early childhood, for
example by using tightly bound cloths or wooden boards.
This makes the cranium grow upwards instead of outwards like it is supposed to, resulting
in a freakish alien-like appearance.
Head binding was done either as a ritual practice or to show status, as a distinguishing aspect
between social groups.
The practice is not unique to Central America, with the earliest records of cranial deformation
dating back to 400 BC in the writings of Greek physician Hippocrates, and it is believed
that Neanderthals might have also been using the technique.
Number 2: The Graveyard of Giant Wombats Wombats might be seen as cute and comical
animals, but you might think differently if you come across one that's rhino-sized.
In 2012, scientists in Australia unveiled the largest graveyard ever found of enormous
ancient mega-wombats called diprotodon.
There were around 50 diprotodon remains found, estimated to have weighed an average 2.8 tons
each, making them the largest known marsupials to roam the planet.
One of the largest and most well preserved specimens was named "Kenny", with a massive
28-inch long jawbone.
The creatures are described as pidgeon-toed, and had big kangaroo-like pouches large enough
to fit an adult human.
The grave is part of a larger fossil deposit in the remote outback of Australia's Queensland
state.
It is described as a goldmine for paleontologists, with fossils dating back 100,000 to 200,000
years ago.
With so many fossils, scientists get to theoretically reconstruct the environment and study how
all the creatures lived and behaved, and how they possibly went extinct.
The mega wombats lived between 2 million to 50,000 years ago.
They might have been hunted down to extinction by predators, and some of their carcasses
are found to have been torn apart with foreign teeth found within their skeletons.
Among the predator remains found in the area are 6 meter long lizards known as megalania,
and enormous ancient crocodiles.
Mega-fauna are believed to have evolved to such large sizes in order to cope with the
unforgiving prehistoric Australian climate and food scarcity.
Number 1: Giant Humans Genesis chapter 6 tells us, "There were giants
in the earth in those days, and afterwards".
This verse refers to the Nephilim, a giant race of men who according to the bible, were
perished by the Great Flood.
Scriptural writings of other religions also include similar tales of giant people who
once walked the Earth.
Enthusiastic believers advocate that these stories are true, and in recent years many
stories of archeological findings of giant men have appeared on the internet.
The most famous of these was the story about a giant human skeleton uncovered in the desert
during gas exploration in Saudi Arabia.
Pictures were included, linked with the Islamic story of the Prophet Hud and the powerful
giant tribe of Ad.
Similar pictures and stories of biblical giants can be found, such as the alleged discovery
of giants by archeologists in Greece.
However, none of these claims have been proven, and the scientific community regards them
as mere hoax stories accompanied with photo-shopped images.
There are however, some real findings of ancient giants, although nowhere as dramatic as the
aforementioned stories.
In 1890, French anthropologist Georges Vacher de Lapouge found three bone fragments of a
human leg in France.
The height of the individual - popularly referred to as the "Giant of Castelnau" - is estimated
to have been around 3.5 meters (11 ft 6 in).
Studies showed that those bones dated back to the Neolithic period, and according to
experts either represented a "very tall race" or were the result
of "morbid growth."