From skull masks made from warriors to the remains of a Slavic god pulled out of a river,
here are ten of the creepiest and most mysterious discoveries!
10: The Van Gogh Mummy A well-preserved mummy that looks almost identical
to Vincent van Gogh’s famous self-portrait was uncovered inside of an ancient church
in Spain.
He has red hair and a beard and everything!!
Nobody knows what this guy's name is, but he was one of 30 mummified corpses found during
restoration work inside the Assumption of Our Lady church in the small village of Quinto
near Zaragoza.
These mummies were found when the floor of the church was torn up to install a new heating
system.
Nobody had expected to find mummies under the floorboards!
The corpses had been stored inside of wooden coffins, and there were 11 adults and 24 children.
They were carefully wrapped in cloth and had originally been stored inside the chapel to
await examination.
But apparently, somebody forgot they were there and buried them beneath the foundations.
The mummies are still being studied, so we don’t know everything about them.
They were found in such a remarkable state of preservation because of the extremely dry
soil they were buried in.
These people died near the end of the 18th century.
While at first, people thought they could have been monks, that turned out not to be
true.
Ancient monks were buried with bare feet, but these mummies were wearing special types
of shoes built from straw and cotton that were usually used by peasants.
That makes it really strange that they were buried in such a holy place.
Researchers believe that they could have died during one of the epidemics that ravaged the
region in the 18th century, such as smallpox or yellow fever.
9: The Aztec Skull Mask The ancient Aztecs had some of the most brutal
rituals in the ancient world and were some of the most morbid people in Central America,
as is evident from eight gruesomely disturbing masks found inside the Templo Mayor in Mexico.
These skull masks are made from real human skulls and are absolutely creepy.
Found alongside 30 decapitated skulls, experts were unsure why these masks were made.
The theory was that they were left behind in the temple as an offering but their purpose
and who or where they came from, remained a mystery.
Even in the context of ritual sacrifice, these skull masks are very unusual.
Biochemists and anthropologists have come together in a new study to solve the mystery
once and for all.
The masks come from two different groups of people,and they were made sometime between
1468 and 1481, during the reign of emperor Axayactl.
The skull masks were all made from males between the ages of 30-45, and these people had no
evidence of dental disease and were in perfect health, pretty rare for back in the day!
The skull masks had been heavily modified, with certain bones removed, and then they
were dyed, and decorated with blades, shells, and other precious materials.
The researchers found that the cut marks and drill holes on the skulls used stone tool
technology similar to other artifacts from templo mayor.
They say that “This indicates that the individuals whose skulls became skull masks were probably
brought to Tenochtitlán to be sacrificed and processed.”
Based on all of this, the researchers determined the skulls were made from captured or defeated
warriors.
Not just everyone was made into a skull mask.
This fate was reserved for the most elite warriors and nobility.
I wonder if these people were resigned to their fate and believed it to be an honor,
or if they were terrified in their final moments?
What do you think?
Let me know in the comments below!
8: The Beheaded Owl Archaeologists investigating a pair of graves
in Sweden were shocked to discover the creepy remains of a decapitated owl next to a warrior
from the Iron Age.
This mysterious discovery was made at the necropolis of Valsgarde, which has been compared
to the famous Sutton Hoo cemetery in Britain.There are more than 90 graves at this archaeological
site, dating from between 500 and 800 AD.
The warrior was buried inside of a 32-foot (10m) boat, which was designed to carry the
dead person into the afterlife.
He was found wearing an ornate helmet, a sword, and a shield.
His boat was even filled with supplies and tools, while an assortment of animals had
been buried beside the vessel.
These animals included horses, which according to Professor Berglund, who worked closely
with the project, were supposed to carry the warrior from his boat onto the shores of the
underworld.
The other supplies would also be taken with him as he started his journey into the afterlife.
Decapitating the owl may have been a way of preventing it from rising from the dead.
Experts have declared it a type of eagle owl, but nobody can figure out what significance
it played in the warrior’s afterlife.
7: The Slavic God One of the rarest, strangest, and creepiest
archaeological relics was pulled out of a muddy river back in 1848 in Ukraine after
being lost for thousands of years.
This relic is known as the Zbruch Idol, and experts believe it depicts a pre-Christian
god with four heads.
This creepy limestone pillar is nearly nine feet tall, and it may still be missing a piece
that would have made it even taller.
The god depicted on the stone is probably Svetovid, a four-headed god of war worshipped
by the Slavic culture before the spread of Christianity.
Researchers believe that the sculpture had probably been pulled down and then discarded
in the river sometime between 800 and 1000 AD, right around the time that Christianity
swept through Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia.
There is still a mystery as to what exactly the idol represents.
Sure, it could depict the four-headed god of war – or it could represent four totally
separate deities that have been lost to the ages.
Unfortunately, almost everything related to the old Slavic gods, including temples and
statues, was destroyed when everyone started converting.
For all we know, the idol wasn’t even built by the Slavic people but another lost group
entirely.
6.
Girolamo Segato’s Corpse Petrification Girolamo Segato was a serious fan of mummification
and after taking a long trip to Egypt in 1818, decided that preserving bodies was his calling.
Mummification occurs when as much water is taken out of the body as possible before it
is wrapped in cloth but Segato wondered if he could turn the process around and add a
special liquid to the body to petrify it.
The outcome was terrifying but very good at keeping bodies looking like they’ve been
turned to stone immediately after death.
He worked on heads, breasts, elbows and the bodies of infants all of which had been injected
with some kind of serum.
Researchers also know that Segato injected his serum very soon after death as it had
to travel through the veins for its proper effect.
Though Segato’s work would have been seminal in the field of body preservation, he chose
to keep his notes a secret to the public who, at the time, believed it was the work of Egyptian
magic.
His technique died with him and to this day, no one has been able to reproduce it.
And now for number 5, but first wanted to give a big shout out to Amir Hussain and jrphillipsmohawknation
who is a new subscriber!!
Big thanks to you all for hanging out with us and if you are new here be sure to subscribe
and join the Origins Explained family!!
5: Who were the Canaanites?
The Biblical Canaanite civilization existed thousands of years ago in the Middle East.
New DNA research and archaeological evidence is shining a much-needed light on just who
these ancient people were.
The Canaanites are mentioned frequently in the Bible and were one of the earliest people
to use an alphabet.
The Canaanites were often fighting with the Israelite tribes who wrote the Hebrew Bible.
The Canaanites kept their records on papyrus instead of clay, which easily disintegrated.
So much of what we know about them comes from the archaeological evidence they left behind.
Now, thanks to new technology, scientists have found a genetic trail leading back to
the ancient world of the Canaanites.
Scientists have sequenced the genomes of five people from the Canaanite culture that lived
4000 years ago, uncovered near the Lebanese city of Sidon.
Interestingly enough, they compared the genomes of these people with 99 currently living residents
of Lebanon.
What they found was that 90% of the genetic ancestry of Lebanese people can be traced
back to the Canaanites.
Researchers also used the DNA evidence to conclude that the Canaanites settled farming
villages in the Neolithic period 5000 years ago.This meand that they were descendents
of Stone Age settlers and are the ancestors of the Lebanese!
What’s mysterious about this is that in the Bible, in the Book of Deuteronomy, the
Israelites are commanded to destroy the Canaanites, but it’s later said that a few small communities
survived.
This new evidence is adding to the proof that some of the accounts written in the Bible
are historically accurate.
4: Mummified Parrots New archaeological evidence from South America
is proving that parrots and macaws were transported as exotic pets thousands of years ago, all
across the Andes Mountains and to the deserts of Chile.
Researchers have found and analyzed a collection of exotic birds found mummified at archaeological
sites throughout Chile’s Atacama Desert.
This is the driest place in the world, and definitely not where you find parrots living
naturally.
These birds came from over 300 miles (450km) away, in the Amazon Jungle.
According to anthropologist Jose M. Capriles from Penn State University, the mummified
parrots were buried between 1000 and 1450 AD, during a time when trade and commerce
was growing in the region.
These pets were popular during the gap between the fall of the Tiwanaku Empire and the rise
of the Inca.
This was back when caravans of llama were packing goods through the Andes Mountains
and various regions of South America.
These birds would have been taken from the Amazon and then transported through mountain
passes in the Andes over 10,000 feet (3000m) up.
It would have been tough just to keep the birds alive.
These birds and their feathers were prized possessions to people in the Americas and
are found in high status burials.
Some of them were mummified with their mouths wide open and their tongues sticking out!!
Nobody is really sure why.
3.
The Phoenician Shipwreck In 2007, a Phoenician shipwreck was spotted
off the coast of Malta during an offshore remote sensing survey.
It was a total accident.
Researchers spotted an anomaly in the sonar data and it turned out to be an ancient ship
sitting at the bottom of the ocean, from the 7th century BC.
Teams were sent down to investigate, at which point they found ceramics and stones that
had probably been traded through networks along the Mediterranean during ancient times.
There were urns, jugs, grinding stones, and even funerary objects.
The pure diversity in artifacts made the Phoenician shipwreck a unique archaeological resource
in and of itself.
Even though the shipwreck was discovered in 2007, it wasn’t until 2014 when an international
team of researchers could dive down and check out the ruins.
It was almost impossible to bring relics back to the surface.
The team had to go back again in 2016 to recover the bulk of the artifacts.
It’s unclear why this ship sank, where exactly it had been sailing to, or where the crew
was from.
All we know is that it was a trading vessel that operated in the Mediterranean around
3000 years before today and the fact that it lies at the bottom of the sea serves as
a reminder of the dangers of the water.
2: Magic Hand Carving Archaeologists working in the West Bank of
Israel recently discovered what they called a ‘magic hand’ carved into an old stone
slab.
This magic hand carving dates back to the biblical Kingdom of Judah.
The artifact was unearthed inside a tomb at the archaeological site of Khirbet el-Qom.
3000 years ago, this place would have been part of the Kingdom of Judah, which was an
Iron Age nation located slightly south of the Kingdom of Israel.
The hand carving was discovered with ancient text chiseled into it, with the text being
written in a lost form of Hebrew.
A professor of biblical archaeology named Dr. Titus Kennedy said that the inscription
may have had some kind of spiritual significance, and that it could have been associated with
worshipping Yahweh.
Many religious professionals are saying that both Israel and Judah worshipped Yahweh, which
may also refer to the god of the Old Testament, and that this theory has been confirmed by
the finding of the hand and the inscription.
1: Knife-Wielding Spider God Archaeologists working in Peru have discovered
the creepiest mural in the entire country.
They announced in 2021 that there is a giant mural of a knife-wielding spider god painted
on the side of a mud-brick temple complex in the northern Viru province, about 300 miles
(450km) from Lima.
The mural was probably painted by the ancient Cupisnique culture 3200 years ago.
It was done using ochre in shades of yellow, grey, and white.
The mural was discovered by avocado farmers who had been using their machinery to plow
the nearby fields.
Incidentally, the farmers destroyed roughly 60% of the archaeological site while doing
their plowing.
But to be honest, they probably had no idea what they were doing.
The temple complex is old and mostly fallen apart, hardly distinguishable from the crumbling
rock and overgrown weeds.
If not for the bright colors of the spider god mural, nobody would have known a temple
once stood in the field.
Archaeologist Regulo Franco Jordan told local newspapers that the temple complex was likely
some kind of shrine used as a ceremonial center, and that the temple was probably dedicated
to a water deity.
The spider mural most likely depicts this deity, with the sacred water ceremony being
held here between January and March when the rainy season started.
As for why this spider god was drawn wielding a knife… well, that’s anybody’s guess
at this point!
Thanks for watching!!
Which of these discoveries did you like the most??
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See you next time!!