10 CREEPY Archeological Discoveries!

The Venice Vampire Skull While excavating a mass grave dating back to the Middle Ages on an island near Venice, archaeologists found a strange skull. Not any other skull. It was the skull of a vampire! It had its mouth wide open, with a large slab of rock or brick forced into its mouth. It was so far back that the jaw was broken. Here's a little backstory to this unusual finding. Female vampires were often blamed for spreading the dreadful plague epidemic throughout Europe. Wedging a rock or brick into the mouth of a suspected vampire was considered as an effective way of preventing it from feeding on the bodies of other plague victims, and in turn, rising from the grave to attack the living. After researchers dived into the history of the skull, they finally learned that it belonged to an elderly woman who had lived well past the normal age of that time, and she was estimated to be between 60 to 71 years old. People in that time usually did not live that long. After her death, it's thought that the people who buried her decided to jam a brick in her mouth, which was often done to bodies people thought could come back as vampires. While the lady probably just lived a healthier life than most, the people around weren't taking any chances. The thought that plague victims might also be vampires arose, because blood often dribbled from the mouths of those who died from the disease. It is now believed that she could have also been a witch. This is due to the fact that scientists know that no one really lived past the age of 40 during those times, and anyone who did were thought to have practiced witchcraft in order to extend their life and ultimately cheat death. A year after the excavation, the investigators started looking deeper into who this vampire was and why people may have suspected her of dabbling in the dark arts, and even what she might have looked like. It gained so much interest that The Vampire of Venice got her own documentary in the National Geographic series, Mysterious Science, entitled Vampire Forensics. 9. Victims Preserved in Bogs Bog bodies are extremely well preserved, and these ancient corpses have been discovered all over northwestern Europe. Bogs mean wetlands, which are founded regions with a temperate climate. The skin of the bog bodies turn into a dark, leathery texture, and their hair turns red from acidic water and lack of oxygen. Occasionally, the clothing is preserved, and any weapons or ornaments stay with the body. Violently killed thousands of years ago, the bog bodies can be found in various states. Some are merely skeletons and can only reveal a limited amount of information to probing scientists. Others are partially preserved and may still hold some clues as to who they were or how they died. The owners of these bodies sometimes met death in a violent manner and were thrown into the bog. Archaeologists examined the works of a Roman historian from the 1st century AD, where he wrote that the Germans killed weaklings and homosexuals and disposed of the bodies in bogs. Researchers form the opinion that, rather than weaklings, many of these people were convicted criminals, punished by agonizing torture and execution. More typical was the Iron Age funerary custom of creation. The Windaby Girl, discovered in a German bog in 1952, was assumed to be an adulteress who was drowned along with her paramour. However, on further investigation of the bodies, they discovered that they were both male and that the other body had been deposited into the bog almost 300 years before the Windaby Girl. One of the best-preserved bodies found in a bog was discovered in 1952 in an area northwest of Copenhagen. Modern research shows they died at the age of 34 and were sacrificed more than 2,000 years ago. Human sacrifice was common at the time and often followed a natural disaster, such as a flood or a destructive storm. According to primitive beliefs, such a disaster was a sign that the gods were angry and a sacrifice was needed to appease them. No one knows for sure how many bog people have been uncovered in the past. Today, documented discoveries of bog bodies number around 700. There are probably many more left undiscovered. Who knows what we may learn about them in the future? When it concerns the bog bodies, archaeologists and anthropologists have redefined their roles as crime scene investigators. 8. Screaming Mummies Bodies which are buried in the deep for thousands of years may be found in different states and stages of decomposition or fossilization. After you have unearthed the body, everything looks rather normal, except for the fact that the corpse looks like it is screaming. This has been a recurring experience for archaeologists throughout history, and some believe that the bodies would have met disturbing ends. Mummification in ancient Egypt was performed using clearly defined routines and religious rituals. However, an unidentified mummy found in 1881 had not been prepared in accordance with custom. When its body was unwrapped in 1886, archaeologists found themselves confronted with the horrific, gaping maw of a face contorted in a scream. The mummy was in a sarcophagus that did not bear any name or identifying marks. Unable to proceed further, he was called as Unknown Man-E and was stored in the Karim Museum. One look at the body and you will be having nightmares for quite a while. Over 100 years later, a team of Egyptologists accompanied by National Geographic reopened the case of Unknown Man-E, who became known as the Screaming Mummy. The mummy's identity was rigorously researched because of his startling appearance. However, most Egyptologists agree that the gruesome visage is merely the result of the deceased head falling backwards after death. Archaeologists intend to conduct a DNA test to confirm the familiar connection between the Unknown Man-E and Ramesses III. Do you think mummies scream? Maybe it just lost its voice? We don't have any definite answers to these questions, yet. The Screaming Mummies will undoubtedly continue to inspire journalists and documentary scriptwriters and many more. How do we know they aren't singing? 7. Pits Full of Heads The villagers of China, for decades, believed that the crumbling of rock jade pieces shaped into blades, discs, near their homes were from the Great Wall of China, which was very common along the area. Suspicions grew among the locals as jade was only available at about 1,000 miles away from the area. When a team of Chinese archaeologists came to investigate the rubble, they started unearthing the area and found that the stones weren't a part of the Great Wall, but were the ruins of a magnificent fortress city. The digging revealed a 230-feet-high pyramid surrounded by more than six miles of protective walls and an inner sanctum containing jade artifacts, painted murals, and gruesome evidence of human sacrifice. The archaeologists had dug up 70 stunning stone sculptures, which were figurines of monsters, serpents, and half-human beasts, resembling Bronze Age iconography of China. The site has been named Shimao. It seems Shimao flourished for nearly half a millennium in that remote region, and then suddenly it disappeared. Shimao is forcing historians to rethink the origin of the Chinese civilization. 6. The Lloyd's Bank Coprolite The Lloyd's Bank Coprolite, one of the weirdest discoveries from the Viking Age, is unlike any other find from that time. The weird fossil is, strangely enough, human feces. It is over eight inches long and two inches thick. It is one of the largest human feces ever discovered. It's not hard to feel sorry for the person who squeezed this out. It was densely packed, so much so that it fossilized instead of rotting like normal feces would. Now we can all stare at it and wince with sympathy for the poor person who created it. But here is what further research into this blob of excreta revealed. It contained hundreds of eggs belonging to the whipworm, a parasitic worm which lives in the large intestine. Finds like these are incredibly important because it gives us details into the Viking diet. From this fossil, we understand that whoever created it lived on a diet largely made up of pollen grains and cereal bran, which they would have eaten in the form of bread and porridge. The fossil is named after the place it was discovered, and isn't some weird corporate branding exercise. But there's not much known about the person who left it behind, except their diet was rich. The fossil is now on display in the Jorvik Viking Centre, UK. Whether the coprolite can be valued as a treasure is a question that has remained for ages. 5. The Black Sarcophagus A mysterious black granite sarcophagus, which is approximately 2,000 years old, was discovered in Alexandria, Egypt. The discovery further announced that the massive coffin held the remains of Alexander and that opening the sealed and foreboding-looking box would unleash a curse. When opened, the sarcophagus was found to contain only the remains of three Egyptian army officers and a reddish-brown sewage liquid. One of the skeletons shows signs of an arrow injury, suggesting the three may have died in battle. The exact age of the skeletons is unclear. No inscriptions or works of art have been found on the outside or inside of the sarcophagus so far. It's also unclear what artifacts, if any, were buried with the skeletons. The sarcophagus was nearly nine feet long, five feet wide, and six feet tall. The sarcophagus was never opened after it was buried in Alexandria. The opening of the sarcophagus creates a series of new mysteries for Egyptologists. Who were these three people? When exactly did they live? What killed them? Why were they buried in such a giant sarcophagus? What were they buried with? And how did so much liquid sewage get into the sarcophagus? Do we know all these answers yet? Unfortunately, no. But scientists are working towards uncovering some hidden truth. Archaeologists believe that it could date back to sometime between 304 BC and 30 BC, a time when the descendants of one of Alexander the Great's generals ruled Egypt. 4. The Very First Leper When archaeologists were digging in India, they found something startling. Archaeologist experts usually find various traces of where life once was. But rarely do they come across something so rare as a disease like this. They discovered evidence of leprosy in a skeleton that was 4,000 years old. It was not only the oldest skeleton that had been found, but it was with traces of leprosy. It was also the first case of leprosy found in India. Leprosy is very difficult to trace and study. While leprosy is curable now, there was no treatment for the disease 4,000 years ago, and lepers were often ostracized by their communities. The investigations have shed light on how the disease might have spread in early human history. Historical sources support an initial spread of the illness from Asia to Europe, with Alexander the Great's army behaving as the vector after 400 BC. The newly discovered skeleton was buried around 2,000 BC in Rajasthan, India, at the site of Balathal. Though it is no longer a significant public health threat in most parts of the world, leprosy is still one of the least understood infectious diseases. 3. A Creepy Tiny Hand Archaeologists unearthed a creepy, child-sized, life-like miniature bronze hand at the Roman fort of Vindolanda, near Hadrian's Wall in England. The hand was found near a temple devoted to the god of Jupiter Dolichenes. The cult of Jupiter Dolichenes is shrouded in a mystery, whose practices were further shrouded in secrecy. It died out before the adoption of Christianity in the main region of the empire. The cult was very popular in the Roman army of the 3rd century CE. Researchers are stating the age of the hand to be between 208 and 212 AD. The hand was likely left as an offering after a major invasion of Scotland, in which a huge number of people may have been killed. The four-inch hand originally had a socket and would have been fixed to a pole, which is now missing. Jupiter Dolichenes was typically depicted holding a thunderbolt in his hand, with an upraised arm signifying his destructive power, according to experts. The open hand also symbolizes protection and well-being. So, what is your take on this? Does it sound creepy or not? 2. Skeletons of Twins A bioarchaeologist says she has discovered the oldest set of confirmed twins during a field research in a Siberian cemetery. The discovery says the exhumed skeletons of a mother and her twins are around 7,700 years old. It says a sad story of a woman who partially delivered one twin in a breech position, which obstructed the birth of the second child. It is impossible to say for sure that there were twins in the past, said Levers, who added that while archaeologists have found babies buried together in the same grave, it doesn't necessarily prove the existence of twins. But finding the twins' bones inside the mother confirms them as the oldest set in the world. The mother, who was between 20 and 25 years old, probably bled to death or died from exhaustion, and was likely unaware that she was carrying twins. This find is the earliest confirmed set of human twins on record. The fact that the first baby came breech was just a death sentence for all three of them. 1. Skeletons Placed in a Circle Last but far from least, one of the most troubling examples of human sacrifice comes from Peru. At the ancient site of Pachacamac, 80 skeletons were found arranged in very peculiar ways, with all feet pointing to the center of a circle and were estimated to be buried around thousands of years ago. The skeletons were placed in the fetal position and consisted of bones of very young people, which were circled in a Peruvian tomb, some of which had false and wooden heads. It is named as one of the creepiest discoveries ever made. Simply because of the way the bones were arranged, it was believed that it was the resting place for pilgrims, who had come for miraculous cures and didn't get what they expected. It is also assumed that some people might have died naturally. It's considered the largest find of human remains at Pachacamac, and it continues to baffle archaeologists and researchers. Archaeologists help demystify these seemingly bizarre remnants of the past. In doing so, they also do the incredibly important work of helping humanity learn from history, rather than being doomed to repeat it, human sacrifice and all. Which of these creepy discoveries give you a spine-chilling moment? Let us know about it in the comment section and do come back soon for another shocking video! Don't forget to hit subscribe and thanks for watching!