From shrieking death whistles to torture chairs, here are 10 of the scariest archaeological
discoveries from around the world.
10.
The Screaming Mummies Imagine that you're an archaeologist coming
back from a dig site in Egypt with a bunch of artifacts, including sarcophaguses with
dead bodies inside.
Most people would expect to open these burial boxes to a beautifully kept body adorned with
jewelry and masks etc…
Instead, you may be unlucky enough to find one of these inside.
They're called screaming mummies and it turns out they have been found nearly everywhere
in the world where mummification is a thing.
While they may be terrifying to look at, the scientific explanation is much less scary.
After death, your jaw will naturally drift away from the rest of your face, giving the
impression that you were "screaming" at death.
Most morticians will attach a chinstrap to stop this from happening but sometimes that
strap may come undone leading to the screaming mummies phenomenon.
Luckily for us, the only harm these mummies can do is give an archaeologist a heart attack.
9.
Girolamo Segato's corpse petrification Girolamo Sagato 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.
8.
Artificial Cranial Deformation In 1928, Peruvian archaeologist Julio Tello
found a massive graveyard in the Pisco Province with human remains with the largest elongated
skulls found anywhere in the world.
Recreations of what the people with these skulls would have looked like aren't nice
to look at either.
It's easy to quickly chalk it up to aliens in one way or another but the real story is
actually more worrying.
It turns out these skulls belonged to people living in Ancient Peru and the process that
lead to this strange look was forced upon them at birth.
Interestingly, purposefully deforming a child's head is a relatively common practice around
the world in cultures that are completely separate from each other.
The reason for the procedure can only be guessed at with some scientists suggesting it was
used to show wealth, social status or tribal affiliation.
The act of cranial deformation (at least in Peru) has proven to not reduce cognitive ability
despite what it may look like.
7.
Curse of the Pharaohs There's no way to have a list of scariest
archaeological discoveries without something about Tutankhamun's curse.
In the beginning of the 19th century, hieroglyphics were decoded and for the first time in thousands
of years, humans could read the Ancient Egyptian written language written on the tombs of pharaohs.
And there was a lot written; many tombs told of the lives and great deeds of the people
they kept inside.
Some burial places placed a curse on any who entered.
"As for all impure men who enter my tomb, there will be judgement."
A curse from another tomb reads: "Cursed be those who disturb the rest of a Pharaoh.
They that shall break the seal of this tomb shall meet death by a disease that no doctor
can diagnose."
It'd be easy to dismiss these curses as an easy way to scare off tomb robbers if some
of them hadn't come true.
Howard Carter and his team opened Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922 but by 1925, five people that
had come in contact with the tomb would die, most under unusual circumstances.
The radiologist who x-rayed the mummy, Sir Archibald Douglas-Reid would die of an unknown
disease, George Jay Gould became feverish after visiting the tomb and died soon after,
George Herbert; the man who had funded the expedition was killed by blood poisoning and
his half-brother died soon after during a relatively simple dental procedure.
There are dozens more deaths attributed to the curse involving strange causes of death
such as: assassinations, poisonings and suicides.
No-one can say for sure if the curse is real or not but if I had a choice, I'd stay away
from old mummies, screaming or otherwise, just in case.
6.
The Capuchin Catacombs We all know catacombs are a bit scary.
Walking through a claustrophobic underground corridor with dead bodies on either side of
you isn't most people's idea of a good time.
But it becomes even less of a good time when the catacombs are in Palmero, Sicily.
Here, you won't just see bones and bodies, but bones and bodies posed in strange and
disturbing ways.
The catacomb's inhabitants are mostly monks but the collection also includes people who
were rich enough to secure their place when they died.
At the time of many of their deaths, it was common to want to be posed in a way that made
you look like you were alive.
This explains the strange poses of some of the bodies.
These catacombs also have a few eerily life-like child cadavers, one of which was worked on
by another famous body preserver: Alfredo Salafia.
You can visit The Capuchin Catacombs on your next visit to Sicily, and you can even greet
the first monk who was interred there 400 years ago at the door!
5.
The Curse of the Lemb Statue The Woman from Lemb is a statue carved from
pure limestone that was unearthed in Cyprus, in 1878.
It was put up for auction and sold to a Lord Elphont.
It is unclear what exactly the statue is supposed to represent but some researchers have suggested
that it was a statue dedicated to the goddess of fertility.
Carbon dating revealed that it was created in 3,500 BC.
The statue is better known for its mysterious and deadly effects it has had those who have
owned it.
The first owner, Lord Elphont saw all seven members of his family die in six years.
Ivor Menucci, inherited the statue next, after which, his family all died as well within
four years.
This continued with two more of the statue's owners dying suddenly alongside their families.
The last person to own the statue, Sir Alan Biverbrook died shortly after obtaining the
artifact but his two sons survived.
Hearing stories of the previous owners, the sons decided to donate the artifact to the
Royal Scottish Museum.
There, the head curator of the section where the statue was kept became sick immediately
after its acquisition and died.
Since then, the statue has been kept in sealed glass with as little human contact as possible.
She is now also known as the Goddess of Death.
4.
Heracleion In the year 2000, a French archaeologist named
Franck Goddio led a team 4 miles of the Egyptian coast and found a city many thought didn't
exist.
The city of Heracleion was shrouded in myth, swallowed by the Mediterranean Sea for over
1200 years.
It was rarely mentioned in ancient texts and no trace of the city had been recorded in
modern times until its re-discovery.
Images of the underwater city are very cool and haunting at the same time.
What's scarier is how the city got pulled under water and forgotten.
Some scientists believe that the city simply sunk in a giant sinkhole, probably very suddenly
though the lack of bodies may indicate that people had left the city by that point.
The large weight of the buildings on the clay and sandy soil may have caused the city to
sink in an earthquake.
The city was then buried under 33 feet of water and became legend.
Either way, it's a sobering reminder of just how quickly an entire city can become
victim to mother nature.
3.
The Judas Chair The Judas chair was a particularly horrible
torture device used during the middle ages and up to the 1800s.
Sharp spikes cover all areas of the chair that are in contact with the victim's body.
Bars are then pushed against the victim to impale their back, arms and legs onto the
spikes.
None of the spikes are long enough to reach any vital organs and the spikes clog the wounds
they've inflicted, reducing blood loss and prolonging the time the victim has before
death.
Because of the horrifying image this chair creates for everyone involved, it was often
used to extract a confession from someone without needing to torture them.
The pure fear generated by watching someone else slowly die of blood loss over days of
agony was enough to make most criminals or otherwise tell their captors anything they
wanted to hear.
These historical torture devices have been recovered all over Europe but variations have
been seen as far away as China.
Luckily, most torture devices went out of style in the 19th century and very few people
have been subject to the Judas chair since.
2.
The Altamura Man Between 128,000 and 187,000 years ago an unfortunate
Neanderthal fell into a sinkhole.
With no-one to help him out, he slowly starved to death in a cave below.
Many years later in 1993, scientists studying the caves came across his skull which was
found looking like this.
When the image spread there were many theories about reptilians, aliens and new species of
humans.
There is a scientific explanation, however.
Calcium carbonate concretions had formed around his body and closed up the cave giving his
skull its strange look.
These concretions that slowly filled up the entire cave may have already been present
while he was dying.
The skeleton was left in place to avoid damaging it but scientists tested a portion of his
shoulder bone and determined that Altamura Man is the oldest Neanderthal ever found.
While it looks pretty cool now, it probably gave that cave explorer a heart attack.
1.
Aztec shrieking Death Whistles Discovered 20 years ago, clutched in the hand
of a skeleton belonging to a human sacrifice, the Aztec shrieking death whistles do well
in living up to their name.
They were used to terrify enemies during war time and also played during sacrificial ceremonies
to guide the souls of the dead to the afterlife.
Creepy right?
The death whistle might be the last sound you heard before dying.
Many more similar Aztec whistles have since been found with different designs that included
feathers, sugar cane and even frog skins.
Experts believe that the sounds from each of these designs could invoke different feelings
in enemy troops on the battlefield, allowing the whistler to manipulate their actions on
the battlefield.
Unfortunately, no guides or sheet music for the whistles have been recovered so their
true effects may never be felt again.
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