Mankind’s love of records left behind countless documents. Needless to say, some are so common that the very sight of them makes people regret going to the museum.

Then there are the secret codes and oaths, unique manuscripts, and caves marked with people’s fear. Text-obsessed scholars are talking in dead tongues and admit once again that the ancient Egyptians did some amazing things.

The world of rare words and pictures is a magnetic one. Sometimes, it’s even downright funny.

10 Oldest Near-Death Case

In 1740, a French doctor called Pierre-Jean du Monchaux described a curious case. An unconscious patient had recovered, only to describe a light so pure and white that the man was convinced he had stood with one shoe in Heaven. The case was included in the doctor’s book, Anecdotes de Medecine.

It might have gone unnoticed if not for Phillippe Charlier, who recently riffled through an antique shop. Ironically, he was also a French doctor. He found the book by chance and bought it for less than $1.

When he read about the case, Charlier realized he was looking at the world’s oldest report of a near-death experience. It was a time when people leaned on religion to explain such things, but the ancient physician stayed professional. He suggested a medical reason—too much blood rushing to the brain.

Monchaux’s assessment nearly matched modern explanations. Today, researchers think a lack of blood flow and oxygen to the brain cause the sensations of a near-death experience.^[1]

9 The Mysterious Devourer

In 2017, archaeologists took their shovels to a shrine-like building. The small structure stood at Zincirli in Turkey and soon yielded a pot. The stone vessel originally held cosmetics but was reused to display an incantation.

A story was carved over the surface, describing the capture of something called a “devourer” which was said to bring “fire” to its victims. The only way a person could recover was to use the devourer’s own blood.

The incantation did not specify how the blood was to be administered or the creature’s identity. Illustrations suggested that it was either a centipede or a scorpion. The “fire” sounds like a painful sting.

The author was a magician called Rahim, who carved the advice in Aramaic 2,800 years ago. This made it the oldest Aramaic incantation ever found. Archaeologists believe that the incantation was important enough to preserve after the magician’s lifetime because the inscription was already over a century old by the time the temple was built.^[2]

8 Dirty Bathroom Jokes

Ancient bathrooms with floor mosaics are rare. When one was found in 2018 in Turkey’s ancient city of Antiochia ad Cragum, it was a cause for celebration. However, the images were not beautifully rendered legends or geometric patterns. The tiny tiles told dirty jokes.

As Roman men visited the latrine around 1,800 years ago, they would have been amused by the antics of Narcissus and Ganymede. Both men belonged to real myths. Narcissus was in love with his own image. Ganymede was kidnapped by the god Zeus as a slave but also as a love interest.

The mosaics twisted the stories, first by giving Narcissus an ugly nose. Instead of admiring his reflection, he appeared to be fixated on his genitals. Ganymede’s scene was even more detailed. He was getting his private parts sponged clean by a heron. The type of sponge was usually reserved for cleaning toilets, and the bird represented Zeus.^[3]

The unusual theme stunned archaeologists but at least proved that bathroom humor is nothing new.

7 The Creswell Marks

The border of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire is marked by a limestone gorge. Called Creswell Crags, the site is historically significant. Apart from past discoveries of ancient remains, Creswell holds the only Ice Age art in Britain.

After years of investigations, the caves managed to deliver a big surprise in 2019. A tour group stumbled upon the country’s largest collection of apotropaic marks. The engravings had nothing do to with the Ice Age gallery. The latter were thousands of years older, while the newfound carvings were from medieval times until the 19th century.

Historians recognized several of the symbols. Also called witches’ marks, their purpose was to protect the living from bad supernatural influences. Among the most popular was “VV,” invoking the Virgin Mary. Others—like boxes, mazes, and diagonal stripes—captured whatever mysterious evil brought diseases and made the crops fail.^[4]

Dense clusters of symbols lined the ceilings and walls of the caves, a testament to the local people’s fear of the unknown.

6 The Nag Hammadi Library

Around 1,400 years ago, a jar was buried in Egypt. Containing 13 codices, the vessel was rediscovered in 1945 near the town of Nag Hammadi. The rolls contained Gnostic records of Jesus. The Gnostic tradition, an early and sometimes mystical branch of Christianity, is considered to be heretical by mainstream Christians. Most were traditionally penned in Coptic, a language that was spoken in Egypt for centuries.^[5]

In 2017, researchers in Texas found that one codex was different. Instead of Coptic scribbles, the text was Greek. This was exceptional. The work in question, the First Apocalypse of James, had never been recovered in ancient Greek before. The piece covered a conversation between Jesus and James, the latter taking instructions on how to continue teaching after Jesus’s death.

Another feature that set the scroll apart was little dots that divided the text into syllables. This rare technique is known from educational texts, which suggested the writer used the heretical gospel to teach Greek to students.

5 Unique Palimpsest

Centuries ago, writing material was expensive. Sometimes, an old manuscript would be scraped clean and inked with new information. These recycled documents are known as palimpsests.

In 2018, Dr. Eleonore Cellard assessed fragments containing Quran script. She noticed ghostly letters behind the eighth-century Arabic text and identified several Bible passages. Written in Coptic, they belonged to the Old Testament’s Book of Deuteronomy.

The find was extraordinary. Quran palimpsests are rare enough, but never before had a Christian document been erased to make space for the Islamic holy book. The writing style dated the Arabic text, but the Coptic was more difficult to place.^[6]

The fragility of the manuscript prevented carbon dating. Even if the document was strong enough, the technique can only date the paper and not the writing. Once again, the style was the only clue.

Unfortunately, it was a very broad one. The original Coptic was not written before the seventh century. Despite the dating issue, the palimpsest remains invaluable for its uniqueness.

4 Earliest Record Of Algol

The star Algol is actually a 3-in-1 deal. Officially discovered in 1669, the three suns move around each other, causing the “star” to dim and brighten. A papyrus studied in 2015 suggested that the ancient Egyptians discovered it first.

Called the Cairo Calendar, the document guided each day of the year, giving auspicious dates for ceremonies, forecasts, warnings, and even the activities of the gods. Previously, researchers felt the ancient calendar had a link to the heavens, but they never had any proof.

The study found that the calendar’s positive days matched Algol’s brightest days as well as those of the Moon. The appearances of one deity, Horus, also matched the star system’s 2,867-day cycle.

This strongly suggests that the ancient Egyptians were the first to follow Algol around 3,200 years ago. More remarkably, they did so without a telescope even though the system was almost 92.25 light-years away.^[7]

3 Unique Ninja Oath

In Japan, rumors of a written ninja oath persisted for almost 50 years. If true, this was a historic gem. Unlike movie ninjas, the real guys used stealth to gather intelligence and rarely used weapons. Most of their traditions and training were passed down verbally from master to student. A written document, especially an oath, would be a first.

In 2018, the piece finally surfaced. It was donated to a museum by the Kizu family, once a ninja clan from the town of Iga. The donated cache consisted of 130 ancient documents, but the oath was the most remarkable. Written by a man called Inosuke Kizu, he thanked his masters for the ninjutsu training and vowed to never reveal the secret knowledge. Not even to his immediate family.

The 300-year-old paper also captured the penalty of sharing ninja techniques with outsiders. The author accepted that his betrayal would cause his descendants to be tortured by the gods for generations. The letter was probably handed to his masters and returned to the Kizu family after his death.^[8]

2 Ferdinand’s Code

To safeguard military information from his enemies, King Ferdinand of Spain wrote in secret code. It was a little too effective. His correspondence with a commander named Gonzalo de Cordoba went undeciphered for 500 years.

Ferdinand sponsored Christopher Columbus’s trips to the Americas and fought several enemies. He recaptured Spain from the Moors in 1492 and battled France for the Mediterranean.

The letters promised interesting insights into the war king’s mind. Spain’s intelligence agency picked up the challenge. Ferdinand’s alphabet had 88 symbols, 237 letters, and six accompanying characters (such as numbers and triangles) that made each letter’s meaning more complex. In addition, the “language” ran continuously without breaks to indicate words.^[9]

In 2018, after six months, the agency cracked enough of the code to read four pieces of correspondence. They revealed details ranging from instructions on troop deployment in Italy to berating the commander for making decisions without Ferdinand’s approval. The breakthrough is a good step toward cracking the rest of the royal mail.

1 Extinct Language Spoken Again

A Cambridge academic loved ancient Babylonian so much that he decided to learn the language. Not just to read it but to speak it correctly. Babylonian went extinct around the time that Jesus was born.

Nearly 2,000 years of silence did not deter Dr. Martin Worthington, who already spoke Sumerian, Assyrian, English, Italian, and French. For over 20 years, he dove into ancient scripts and compiled a unique archive of research.

After gleaning correspondence, treaties, letters, and scientific reports written in Babylonian, Worthington arrived at a point where he could speak it. He was the first to admit that the project was not perfect. Although he could give a speech in the lost language, he was not fluent.

Worthington now teaches the language to Assyriology students, mainly to bring them closer to the ancient world they chose to study. Interestingly, if the two were to meet, ancient Babylonians might understand modern speakers because the language is related to Hebrew and Arabic, which replaced Babylonian as the Middle East’s dominant language.^[10]

The idea that life often mirrors art is one with which many of us are familiar. In most cases, these parallels between fact and fiction feel like harmless fun. There are times, however, in which the blurred line between the two can start to feel unsettling, as though there was more at play than simple coincidence.

From novels that proved eerily prophetic to famous faces who met their end in uncannily familiar ways, here are some of the most tragic examples of life imitating art.

10 Carrie Fisher And The Fate of Princess Leia

We picture her with cinnamon bun hair, a flowing white gown, and a blaster gun in hand. Indeed, actress and writer Carrie Fisher is best remembered as the woman who breathed life into the iconic Star Wars heroine, Princess Leia.

Fisher experienced a medical emergency on a flight from London to Los Angeles in late 2016. After four days in a coma, she sadly died at age 60. Shortly before her death, Fisher had finished filming scenes for Star Wars: Episode VIII—The Last Jedi, her fifth official outing as Leia.

Though having the opportunity to see her once again on the big screen was welcomed by many as a touching tribute, others—including Fisher’s own brother—found certain scenes hard to swallow. He pointed out the uncomfortable irony that Episode VIII saw Leia falling into a coma, a sequence the actress had filmed mere months before suffering the same fate in real life.^[1]

Though Fisher tragically never regained consciousness, her fictional counterpart lived to fight another day. As such, Fisher’s legacy will live on through the character and the scenes she had already completed. It is a bittersweet silver lining that does not quite take the sting out of her untimely loss.

9 The Disappearance Of Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie is the best-selling novelist of all time. Her world-famous crime stories have sold more than a billion copies in English and a further billion copies in translation. So, it is certainly fair to say that she knew a thing or two about penning a compelling mystery.

However, it was her own personal affairs that had the public gripped in December 1926. In an incident that could have been lifted right from one of her books, Christie disappeared without notice.

Her uncharacteristic and unexplained absence quickly made headlines, with thousands of volunteers scouring the country in search of clues. When her car was found abandoned near a quarry, her coat and ID discarded inside, many feared the worst. When it then emerged that her husband had recently announced plans to leave her for another woman, suspicion fell on him.^[2]

Christie would eventually be found alive, 11 days after first disappearing. But it was not exactly a happy ending. Somewhat disturbingly, she had checked into a hotel using the name of her husband’s new lover and claimed to remember nothing of the ordeal.

Doctors would diagnose concussion and amnesia, and the author would speak little of the difficult period again. New theories suggest that she had contemplated suicide and hid herself away in a bout of religion-fueled shame.

The more commonly held belief is that the stress of her husband’s betrayal added to her existing depression over the loss of her mother. The combination of the two proved to be too much and triggered a mental breakdown.

8 Mary Shelley And Her Husband’s Drowning

Mary Shelley is the author of the revered horror novel Frankenstein. Another of her major works, Mathilda, was not released until years after her death because its publication was suppressed by her father. Due to its gothic exploration of an incestuous infatuation, he feared that readers would think it was autobiographical.

In the novella, there is a scene which sees the titular heroine rushing toward the sea. She is distressed by the news that someone she loves may have drowned, but she would arrive too late to save him.^[3]

A couple of years after it was written, Shelley would find herself mirroring her character’s actions when her own husband met a similar watery end. Shelley later commented on the uncanny comparisons between the two incidents. She described how she identified with her tragic heroine’s plight and had come to consider the book “prophetic.”

7 H.G. Wells And The Atom Bomb

History best remembers H.G. Wells as the author of enduring sci-fi classics such as The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, and The Invisible Man. As Wells was a pioneer of the genre, his writing was often considered ahead of its time, with prescient ideas and technologies that would later become reality.

One of his most disturbingly accurate predictions appeared in his 1914 novel, The World Set Free. He described a weapon of unprecedented power that would be dropped from planes to unleash untold suffering on the world below. He called it the “atomic bomb.”

Three decades later, a frighteningly similar nuclear weapon did indeed emerge and was even given the same name. When the bomb was unleashed upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even those involved in its development were said to be disturbed by the sheer scale of misery that it caused. Perhaps things would have turned out differently had they paid closer attention to the moral warnings that had been present in Wells’s fiction.^[4]

6 A Famous Dog’s Grisly End

The 1989 comedy-action film K-9 is about a cop and his faithful furry companion. The movie’s climax sees the dog shot while trying to apprehend a criminal. Though greatly injured, he manages to pull through, and they all live happily ever after.

In real life, things worked out considerably less well. Koton, the four-legged star of the film, was an actual police dog away from the big screen. He had a successful career and was responsible for more than 24 arrests.

Heartbreakingly, just like his character before him, Koton was shot in 1991 while pursuing a suspect. Unlike his fictional counterpart, he sadly didn’t make it.^[5]

5 The Death Of Paul Walker

US actor Paul Walker is best known for his long-running role in the big-budget The Fast and the Furious franchise. The films are high-octane action flicks, full of high-speed car chases and dramatic stunt sequences.

It is this fact that made his death in 2013 all the more difficult for his fans and loved ones to accept. At age 40, Walker was killed in a car crash when the Porsche driven by his friend collided with a lamppost and became engulfed in flames.

Production of the seventh film in the series was already well underway at the time of his passing. Filmmakers decided to use existing footage of the star to craft a suitable outcome for his character. This was deemed an appropriate and sensitive way to preserve the actor’s memory.^[6]

4 Eva Cassidy And ‘Fields Of Gold’

Given the widespread admiration that exists for Eva Cassidy now, it is hard to believe that she was virtually unknown at the time of her death from melanoma in 1996. Then just 33 years old, she had been a regular on the local music scene in Washington DC.

But with most of her recordings unreleased, international audiences were still largely unaware of her. These various unheard tracks were compiled and released posthumously, which led to extensive radio play, platinum sales, and a whole new level of appreciation for the tragic star.

Shortly before her death, however, Cassidy had released Live at Blues Alley, a collection of intimate recordings. It would prove to be the last release made during her lifetime. This album included her version of “Fields of Gold.” Originally by Sting, it is a track that has endured as one of her most recognizable and beloved songs.^[7]

The touching irony of the final verse—with lyrics that speak of being remembered after you are gone—was not lost on many. This sentiment took on a whole new meaning when the singer was dead mere months after the song’s release. Thanks to the music she left behind, Cassidy has at least been remembered fondly, just as the song wished for.

3 Bill Turnbull And Stand Up To Cancer

Bill Turnbull is a journalist and broadcaster and a familiar face on UK television. Fans of The Great British Bake Off from around the world may also recognize him from his stint in the famous tent as part of a charity special.

The episode, which first aired in early 2018, was produced in aid of Stand Up to Cancer (SU2C). The aim was to raise both awareness about the importance of getting health checks and funds to help improve treatment and survival rates.

In a twist of painful irony, Turnbull was diagnosed with prostate cancer while filming was taking place. Though he underwent several rounds of chemotherapy to slow the disease’s spread, he subsequently announced that his case is terminal. Facing the situation with dignity, he has used his story as a means to further drive home the importance of regular health screening.^[8]

2 J.K. Rowling And The Loss Of Her Mother

J.K. Rowling is best known as the author behind the Harry Potter series. Rowling had been working on the first book for around six months when her mother died from multiple sclerosis. She was just 45 years old and completely unaware of the fame and fortune that awaited her daughter.

At this time, with the book still in an early draft form, the eponymous boy wizard had already been written as an orphan. Suddenly finding herself without parental ties of her own, however, Rowling was able to identify with her fictional hero’s sadness on a much greater level.

This clearer understanding of the grief she had written for him was so profound that it prompted Rowling to rework the scenes concerning his loss. His parents’ deaths were no longer glossed over. Instead, they were imbued with a heavy dose of poignancy and emotional weight.

As Rowling said herself, “Everything deepened and darkened.”^[9] Though this was to the benefit of the story, it should not be forgotten that Rowling had to endure Harry’s pain firsthand to gain this heartfelt insight.

1 The Sinking Of The Titanic

Morgan Robertson’s 1898 novella, Futility (aka The Wreck of the Titan), was about a vast, luxurious ocean liner that struck an iceberg and sank, killing almost everyone on board.

Sound familiar?

Yes, indeed, the sinking of the Titanic is another example of a horrific real-life event that was eerily foretold in fiction. The book was published 14 years before the Titanic’s doomed voyage, but the name and fate of the two ships were not the only striking similarities.

It is little wonder that many suspected Robertson of clairvoyance once you start delving into the many unnerving parallels. These include the size and capacity of the two vessels as well as intricate, finer details such as the number of lifeboats present.^[10]

Even the time and date of each ship’s impact with the iceberg are nigh on identical. Prophecy? Coincidence? Whatever the case may be, it is one of the most tragic cases of life imitating art the world has yet seen.

Callum McLaughlin is a freelance writer based in Scotland. He writes content on a variety of subjects for blogs, websites, and magazines. He can be found on Twitter, where he’ll invariably be chatting about books, cats, and tea.

Artists sometimes explore unique and unconventional methods in their attempts to create masterpieces. Some take things a bit further and turn to very obscure art forms or even end up creating their own. These artists’ work can either make us go, “Wow!” or cringe in disgust.

Some artists take to painting with unconventional paints made from their own feces or semen. Others turn their own genitalia into brushes. Some media artists also use unexpected programs like Microsoft Excel to create their artworks. Whatever their methodology, every artist on this list has some unique selling point.

10 Tatsuo Horiuchi Draws With Microsoft Excel

When we think of Microsoft Excel, we think of spreadsheets and the occasional graph. But thanks to Japanese artist Tatsuo Horiuchi, we can start thinking of art, too.

Horiuchi uses Excel to draw, which is the last thing most people would consider using it for. Horiuchi started to use Excel to draw at the time he neared retirement. He had never used the program before then but had seen his workmates use it to make spreadsheets and graphs. The colorful graphs were the reason Horiuchi thought Excel would make a good drawing program.

Horiuchi did not consider regular graphic and drawing programs because they were too expensive. Excel also came preinstalled in Windows, which made it sort of free of charge. Horiuchi continues to make unbelievable artworks with Excel, which he says is easier to use than Microsoft Paint.^[1]

9 Tim Patch Paints With His Penis

Tim Patch is an Australian artist who paints with his penis. No joke; he uses his penis as if it were a paintbrush. This is why he calls himself Pricasso, which is obviously a portmanteau of “prick” and “Picasso.”

Patch got the idea to use his member as a drawing tool while attending a Christmas party. He quickly checked the Internet and was glad to discover that no one was doing something similar.

He started off with dipping his penis into regular acrylic paint and rubbing it on canvas, but the canvas was too harsh on his penis. These days, he mixes the paint with petroleum jelly before applying it to the canvas.^[2]

8 Martin Von Ostrowski Paints With Poop And Semen

German artist Martin von Ostrowski paints with his own feces and semen. Ostrowski first made the news when he created a painting of Adolf Hitler using his poop. He later created fecal paintings of Friedrich the Great, Otto von Bismarck, and Kaiser Wilhelm II—all of whom had ruled Germany or its predecessor states at some point.

Ostrowski also got the idea to use his semen as paint after observing some oil paintings of ejaculations created by an unnamed artist sometime in 1988. That artist masturbated on his artworks, as the paint didn’t look authentic enough. Ostrowski does not masturbate on his paintings, though. Instead, he masturbates and freezes his semen for later use.

Ostrowski says he had to orgasm over 1,000 times between 2003 and 2008 for his art. A single portrait requires 40 ejaculations. The Gay Museum in Berlin, which exhibited Ostrowski’s work in 2008, claimed that the smell of dried semen set off sexual feelings in people. Nevertheless, Ostrowski says he is just being organic.^[3]

7 Milo Moire Paints With Her Vagina

Milo Moire is a performance artist who paints with her vagina. She calls her art form PlopEgg painting. This is because she inserts small eggs filled with ink and paint into her vagina. Then she stands over a canvas and aims the eggs right at it. The eggs burst as they hit the canvas, creating a splashing effect. The piece pictured above is called The PlopEgg Painting Performance #1—A Birth Of A Picture.

Moire, who is often naked during her performances, says PlopEgg is all about feminism. However, some people do not think so. Jezebel called it “the best advertisement you’ll ever see for Kegel exercises.”^[4]The Guardian was more critical with its words. It called her work “silly” and said it should be considered a “joke.”

The Guardian added that PlopEgg was Moire’s weird but desperate attempt at becoming popular. The writer said that it made no sense, even though many artists thought it did. The Guardian then went on to attack performance art, saying that people who claim to be fascinated by performance art were either lying or likely to fall for dumb ideas.

6 Uwe Max Jensen Also Paints With His Penis

Tim Patch is not the only artist capable of painting with his penis. Danish artist Uwe Max Jensen paints with his genitals as well. Jensen’s most popular penis artwork is a recreation of Kim Kardashian’s famous “Break the Internet” photo where she bared her naked butt to the camera.

Jensen painted the portrait by inserting his penis in acrylic paint and applying it straight on the canvas. In an interview with The Daily Dot, Jensen mentioned that larger penises are better for painting because they can recreate small details which smaller penises cannot. He added that he held his penis and the canvas in his hands until he completed the painting.

Jensen also revealed that the Kim Kardashian portrait was actually the second painting he’d done with his penis. The first was a portrait of a male politician in his native Denmark. He gave the portrait to a friend but sent a picture of it to the politician through Facebook. The politician responded by blocking him.

The two penis artworks add to the list of eccentric things Jensen has done. He has made the news before for destroying the head of a statue of the Little Mermaid as well as for urinating in a water sculpture exhibited in a museum.^[5]

5 Graham Fink Draws With His Eyes

Graham Fink draws using only his eyes and computer software. Fink had a programmer develop a special software program that tracks his eye movement. The setup works with two infrared lights that are directed into his eyes.

A camera tracks the movement of his eyes and sends it to the software. The software straightens the lines Fink makes with his eyes, which soon become visible on his computer. And it continues like that until Fink completes a drawing.

Fink requires lots of concentration to complete a single drawing. He makes the drawing using a single line, since breaking off eye contact would end the portrait. He is also unable to erase anything. Fink says he spends between five minutes and an hour to create a single portrait, depending on his level of concentration.^[6]

4 Ian Sklarsky Draws With A Single Line And Doesn’t Look At His Artwork

Like Fink, Ian Sklarsky draws with just a single line. However, he does not use any software. Instead, he uses his hands. Interestingly, Sklarsky does not look at his artwork until it is completed. This technique is called blind contour drawing—an art form that forbids an artist from looking at his drawing until it is completed.

Sklarsky says he has been making blind contour drawings since childhood. He often visits bars and events where he creates blind contour drawings for interested people. A single drawing takes seven minutes to complete, after which he will sometimes add colors while looking at the drawing.^[7]

3 Steven Spazuk Paints With Fire

Fire is one thing that we generally want to keep away from our artworks. However, Steven Spazuk wants his art near fire because that’s how he creates it. To be clear, Spazuk does not actually paint with the fire but with the soot from the flame.

This art form is called fumage and was not invented by Spazuk. It has been practiced by artists throughout history. In fact, historians suspect early humans used it to create cave paintings.

Spazuk creates fumage paintings by putting his artwork right above a candle or blowtorch. The soot from the flame rises to the paper, where it forms blackened outlines. Thereafter, Spazuk draws around the soot using a pencil or feather. Sometimes, he uses acrylic paints to add more color to the artwork.

The process of creating fumage on paper is a bit complicated, since the paper needs to be as far away as possible from the flame to make sure it does not catch fire. At the same time, it needs to be near enough so that the soot will create the required outline.^[8]

Spazuk said he got the idea of painting with soot after dreaming about wandering into an art gallery. The gallery was black and white, which Spazuk said was caused by soot after a fire. He tried out the fumage technique the next day. However, the paper repeatedly burned until he switched to a thicker cardboard paper.

2 John Bramblitt Paints Despite Being Blind

John Bramblitt is blind. You’d think painting would be the last thing he would consider for a career, since he obviously needs to see to get the job done. However, he has broken that barrier and proven that you do not need sight to become a painter.

Bramblitt lost his sight after suffering complications caused by epilepsy when he was just 30 years old. He fell into a serious depression—one which he only defeated by painting. Bramblitt paints by using his hands to trace the outline of drawings he makes himself. He determines and mixes his colors by just feeling their textures.

Interestingly, Bramblitt draws people, too. He cannot see but makes a mental outline of his subject’s face after touching it with his fingers. This simple touch is more than enough for him to create a portrait of the person.^[9]

1 Katsu Draws With Drones And His Poop

Cops have a hard time catching graffiti artists. It seems that it’ll only get harder as graffiti artists turn to drones. In 2015, Katsu, a popular and radical but anonymous graffiti artist created the first drone graffiti when he attached a spray can to a DJI Phantom drone.

His target was a six-story-tall billboard of Kendall Jenner in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood. Katsu used the drone to spray red paint on Jenner’s face. Katsu later commented on the incident, saying, “It’s exciting to see [drones’] first potential use as a device for vandalism.”

Katsu made the news earlier that same year when he used his poop to create a smiling portrait of Mark Zuckerberg. Katsu does not like Zuckerberg, and his criticism of the Facebook billionaire worsened after he watched The Social Network, a movie about the founding of Facebook. Katsu had earlier attacked Zuckerberg by pasting posters of him with a blackened eye around New York.

For the poop portrait, Katsu ate a lot of Thai food before pooping into a container. He was so dedicated to the task that he used a mirror to confirm that his fecal matter was getting into the container. Then he drew Zuckerberg, using his poop in place of a pencil.

Katsu later stated that the whole thing was so messy that he frequently changed his gloves. He also wore a respirator and had incense burning to weaken the smell. He added that it is actually difficult to draw with feces, since poop contains excessive amounts of moisture that could destroy the artwork.^[10]

For hundreds of years in Europe, all of the great works of art produced were in service of the Christian faith. Patrons were either rich nobles looking to boost their faithful credentials or the Church itself. Saints were popular subjects in art because images of their actions in life, and especially their deaths, were potent reminders of the power of faith.

Many of these works still speak to us today and elicit powerful emotions. Sometimes, though, the images that were meant to evoke reverence bring a smile to our lips. These are not one-offs done by dodgy artists but typical, if offbeat, symbols used to depict saints. Here are ten images of saints that are just downright weird.

10 St. Bartholomew’s Skin

St. Bartholomew, one of the apostles of Jesus, had quite the exciting life after the crucifixion. Like the other apostles, he was commanded to go forth and spread the word of God, but to Bartholomew fell the mission to go far abroad and preach. Tradition has him going to Mesopotamia, Ethiopia, or most commonly to India. There, he knocked down idols, taught the Indians the Gospel of Matthew, and cast out demons. It was while he was later preaching in Armenia that he is said to have met his sticky end.

Bartholomew converted the brother of the king of Armenia. This somewhat annoyed the king, so he commanded that Bartholomew be flayed alive. This is why in statues and paintings around the world, Bartholomew is shown holding his own skin. In some versions, such as The Last Judgment by Michelangelo, Bartholomew is shown as a person both with skin and holding skin, but other artists chose the bloodier option of showing a flayed man with his bloody skin nonchalantly draped over him.^[1] That’s one way at least to make sure that people don’t forget how much you suffered for your faith.

9 St. Antipas’s Bull

Little is known for sure about Saint Antipas of Pergamum. A brief mention in the Book of Revelation reveals that, “Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth.” This martyrdom has left us with some very bizarre images of the saint.

According to legend, St. Antipas was attacked by the pagan priests of Pergamum for not offering sacrifice at their temples. When told, “The whole world is against you!” Antipas replied, “Then I am against the whole world!” For his obduracy, the priests dragged Antipas to the temple of the goddess Artemis and placed him inside a hollow bronze bull. A fire was lit under it, and the saint was roasted alive.^[2] Many images of the saint choose to focus on this aspect of his martyrdom.

Now Antipas is invoked as the patron saint of those with toothache—which seems to suggest either toothache is worse than most people think, or burning to death is not quite as painful as we imagine.

8 St. Romanus’s Tongue

When you fear what someone has to say, it may seem like a prudent thing to do to rip out their tongue. This is exactly what the Romans did to Saint Romanus when he defied them, and it is with his flopping tongue in his hand that the saint can now be seen in paintings.

St. Romanus was a Christian at a time when this was not a good idea. The Roman world circa AD 300 still persecuted Christians because they did not support the official gods of the empire. During one of these persecutions, Christians were given the opportunity to escape punishment if they would make offerings at the altars of the pagan gods. When St. Romanus encouraged his fellow prisoners not to, he was singled out for special punishment.

First, he was beaten, then he was suspended and attacked with blades, and then his tongue was torn out.^[3] Despite this verbal setback, the saint was still miraculously able to speak, so he was beheaded. Now the saint can be seen still wagging his tongue to spread the faith.

7 St. Margaret And The Dragon’s Belly

St. Margaret of Antioch has always been a favorite for artists because her life provided such a rich source of inspiration. As the patron saint of childbirth (for reasons which will be explained below), she was widely called on for aid, and images of the saint proliferated, leaving us with many examples of her struggles.

When Margaret was a young maid, a Roman official became besotted with her. Being a faithful Christian, Margaret refused his advances. Since he was miffed with being rebuffed, he had her thrown in prison. There, the Devil visited her in the form of a dragon and devoured Margaret, but by praying, she managed to burst out of the beast’s belly, hence the association with childbirth.

For artists, this image proved irresistible, and St. Margaret can be seen escaping from dragons of all shapes and sizes. She mostly manages to crawl out from their innards with her hair and clothes untouched by the gore around her.^[4]

6 St. Wilgefortis

Everyone has had a date that they’ve wanted to get out of. Few have gone to the lengths of St. Wilgefortis, however, when it comes to avoiding romance.

Known by a number of names, Wilgefortis’s legend was a popular one for its folktale qualities. According to the tales, the young Wilgefortis was the daughter of a pagan king and had taken a perpetual vow of virginity. Her father, despite her holy oath, wished to marry her off to another king. To escape the coming wedding, Wilgefortis prayed to God to make her so hideous that no one would want to marry her. In the morning when she woke, Wilgefortis had sprouted a miraculous, if unbecoming, beard. The wedding was off!^[5]

Unfortunately for Wilgefortis, her father was not amused by her new hirsute appearance and commanded that she be put to death by crucifixion. This is why there are many paintings and statues of a young bearded woman on a cross to be found in churches around the world.

5 St. Roch And His Licked Legs

Saint Roch is a relatively little-known saint whose iconography mixes both cuteness and putrefaction at the same time. The cute part comes from his faithful dog, who is almost always shown with him. The less lovely part comes from the rotting sores that St. Roch seems to like showing off.

St. Roch was born to a noble family, and his saintliness was predicted when he was born with a birthmark in the shape of a cross on his chest. When his parents died, Roch gave away all his worldly belongings to the poor and became a holy man. He was so poor that he would have died had not a dog brought him bread to eat. He would also have died from infected sores on his leg if the dog had not licked them clean. Most paintings suffice so show him with the dog, but some actually show St. Roch being licked.^[6]

St. Roch is now the patron saint of dogs and skin diseases, though neither dogs nor dermatologists would suggest licking as a way to clean wounds.

4 St. Lucy’s Eyes

While it is common for women to say to men, “Hey, my eyes are up here!” for St. Lucy, that is not the case. In images of Lucy, she is often shown carrying a plate with her own eyes resting on it.^[7]

St. Lucy was a Christian, but her mother was not. Her mother arranged a marriage to a local pagan, but Lucy longed to remain a virgin and to spend her dowry on the poor. St. Lucy took her mother to the tomb of Saint Agatha (who we shall meet later) and prayed for her mother to be cured of a sickness—the mother was cured and converted to Christianity at once. This was during a Roman persecution of Christians in the fourth century, and Lucy’s intended husband was not impressed by her faith and denounced her to the authorities.

Because Lucy would not recant her beliefs, the Romans had her tortured in many cruel and unusual ways, just one of which was the tearing out of her eyes. Other traditions have St. Lucy pulling out her own eyes to discourage her betrothed from the marriage.

3 St. Agatha’s Bosom

St. Agatha, who had aided St. Lucy, has a similar iconographic style to the younger saint. Instead of carrying her own eyes on a plate, however, St. Agatha prefers to carry her breasts. How they came to be off her body is the key to Agatha’s saintliness.

One of the most revered of the early martyrs, Agatha was born in Sicily. A highly beautiful woman, she was often faced with marriage proposals but had, from a very early age, dedicated herself to a life of pious chastity. A high-ranking Roman named Quintianus was not to be put off by her vows, however.^[8] When she refused him one too many times, Quintianus informed the authorities of her Christianity and had her hauled up before a judge—Quintianus himself.

The less-than-impartial judge reveled in torturing the woman he had wanted to marry, and one of his savage acts was to have her breasts torn off. This act has proved too titillating for some artists to ignore, so St. Agatha is now often shown with her most memorable attributes on a plate.

2 Lactation Of St. Bernard

St. Mary, mother of Jesus, is held by many to be the ideal woman. Images of her nursing the infant Christ were popular ones in churches and were intended to show that as she nurtured Jesus, so she would nurture all humans. While this nurturing was metaphorical, there was one saint who received a more literal feeding of his faith.

According to legend, St. Bernard was praying one day when a vision of the Virgin Mary and infant Jesus appeared to him. When the infant took a break from suckling, St. Mary placed her breast in St. Bernard’s mouth and nourished him. Other versions of the tale have the Virgin squirting milk at St. Bernard from quite some distance.^[9] One legend has the milk hitting him in the eye and curing him of an eye disease. In art, the most common image shows an impressive stream of milk shooting out to strike the kneeling saint.

One final variation shows St. Bernard not drinking the mother’s milk but being baptized in it as it hits him squarely in the middle of his forehead.

1 St. Christopher And The Dog’s Head

St. Christopher is one of the most famous and popular of Christian saints. Many wear his image around their neck, as he is the patron saint of travelers and is said to help people find their way back home. On his medals, he is often shown carrying a child (actually Jesus) across a river. What he is not usually shown as is a dog-headed man.

In some early icons of the saint, however, St. Christopher is shown with cynocephaly—having the head of a dog. This apparently bizarre artistic choice sprang from ancient misunderstandings of the world and texts. Beyond places known to the ancients, the world was said to be populated with exotic and weird varieties of humans. There were tribes with one foot who hopped everywhere, people whose faces were in the middle of their chests, and even cities of humans with dog heads.

One theory for why St. Christopher was shown with a dog’s head is that he was described as a Canaanite (cananeus), and someone misread this as “dog-man” (canineus).^[10] Despite these depictions of St. Christopher falling out of favor, they can still be found in some churches and ancient manuscripts. He was a good boy, after all.

When we find ourselves wandering through an art gallery, perusing the many different styles and disciplines on display, we often make snap judgements about what we like and what we don’t like. Those judgements we make, we tell ourselves, are based on our very own tastes. We look, we evaluate and then, confident in our thinking process, we pronounce the painting, drawing or sculpture to be bad, good, great or a masterpiece. It’s a simple, straightforward process. We know art when we see it. Case closed.

Turns out, the process of appreciating art is much more complicated than that. There are numerous strange, subtle forces that make us embrace some art, push other art away or magically transform non-art into art. Here are 10 fascinating examples.

SEE ALSO: 10 Great Easter Eggs Hidden In Works Of Art

10 Being Told

Fact: Simply Being Told That Something Is Art Changes Our Response To It

Recently, a group of Dutch scientists, from Erasmus University in Rotterdam, conducted a series of experiments. A total of 24 student volunteers were hooked up to an EEG—which measures electrical activity in the brain—and asked to evaluate a series of pictures for likability and attractiveness. Half of these pictures were of something nice and half were of something awful. The students were also told that some of the pictures were art and some were pictures of actual events.^[1]

What the scientists found was that when the students were told that a picture was a work of art, their emotional response was, “…subdued on a neural level.” In other words, when confronted with what we are told is a work of art, we distance ourselves from it to be able to, as lead researcher Noah Van Dongen puts it, “…appreciate or scrutinize its shapes, colors and composition…”

9 Where It’s Shown

Fact: Where The Art Is Displayed Affects Our Appreciation Of It

A work of art is a work of art. Observed up on a gallery wall or in somebody’s garage, that same painting should be able to be appreciated in the same way in either environment, right?^[2]

In 2014, a simple experiment was conducted by a team at the University of Vienna. In that experiment, two groups of volunteers took in an art exhibition—one in a museum and one in a laboratory. A Mobile eye tracking device captured each participant’s viewing time in both places. Afterwards, they were asked to rate each artwork based on, “…liking, interest, understanding, and ambiguity scales.”

The results showed that galleries and museums do matter. Participants in the museum environment viewed each of the individual works of art for a longer time, liked them more and found them more interesting.

Summing up, the team from the University of Vienna concluded that, “…art museums foster an enduring and focused aesthetic experience and demonstrate that context modulates the relation between art experience and viewing behavior.”

8 Hunter-Gatherer Instincts

Fact: The Hunter-Gatherer Era Differentiated What Men And Women Find Aesthetically Pleasing

Next time you disagree with a member of the opposite sex on the aesthetic value of a painting it might just be because, once, long, long ago, men hunted animals and women gathered nuts and berries.^[3]

So says Camilo J. Cela-Conde and his colleagues. They hooked up 10 female students and 10 male students to a MEG—which measures the brain’s electrical currents and the magnetic fields it creates—and showed them each hundreds of pictures of artistic paintings, natural objects, landscapes and urban scenes.

They found that when visually evaluating a work of art, men’s brains show stimulation on the right side only, while women’s brains show stimulation on both sides.

From the data they collected, the authors of the study concluded that male and female differences in the appreciation of aesthetic beauty might be tied to the different roles each had during the time of the hunter-gatherer society.

Men hunting needed to “…process a large landscape” and because of this are, “…more comfortable in open configurations and larger art works.” On the contrary, women gathering would, “…seek out nuts and berries and find the same static patch each day” and because of this, “…would be more comfortable and would like small spatial configurations…”

7 Exposure

Fact: We Prefer The Art That We Are Exposed To More Often

Ever dislike a song, the first time you hear it, but grow to like it after listening to it a few more times? That experience has a name.^[4]

The “mere-exposure effect” is the experience one has when one begins to like things merely because they are repeatedly exposed to it.

James Cutting, a psychologist at Cornell University, showed his students artistic examples of impressionism for a very brief blip of time—2 seconds. Some of those works of art were considered classics and some were not—though, qualitatively, they were very close. The works of art that were not considered classics were shown 4 times as much.

The results were surprising. The students preferred the non-classics to the classic works of art. A control group still gave the edge to the classics.

6 Electroshock Therapy

Fact: Jolting Your Brain With Electricity Enhances Our Love Of Classic Art

Zaira Cattaneo at the University of Milan Bicocca and her team took 12 people and asked them their opinion of a series of paintings. The twist was that they asked these people before and after they either zapped their brain with a small amount of current or merely pretended to zap them.^[5]

The part of the brain that received the jolt, in this experiment, is known as the DLPFC or the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. This part of the brain processes emotions.

Surprisingly, the people who received the zap rated paintings that contained regular everyday moments more highly.

Neurologist Anjan Chatterjee, at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, believes that zapping the DLPFC may, “…improve your mood.”

This is why Zaira hopes that, someday, this method may help those suffering from anhedonia—a condition in which people are incapable of experiencing pleasure.

5 Ambiguity

Fact: The More Ambiguous A Work Of Art The More We Like It

We crave clarity. When we shop, we want to see a clearly printed price tag for the item we wish to purchase. When we drive, we want to see clearly printed signs that tell us how fast we can go and when to stop.^[6]

When it comes to art, though, we ache for ambiguity.

A study was conducted featuring 29 people who ranged in age from 18-41 and had zero art or art history training. They were shown photos of ambiguous works of art done by Rene Magritte and Hans Bellmer.

The results were fascinating, “The higher the participants assessed the ambiguity of a stimulus, the more they appreciated it.”

What the participants found was that the ambiguous art triggered, “…flashes of understanding as they studied the work, which they found enjoyable even if it didn’t unlock all of its secrets.”

Echoing those comments, researchers also found that, “…subjective solvability of ambiguity was not significantly linked to liking, and was even negatively linked to interest and (emotional involvement).”

4 No Info Please

Fact: Providing Information About A Work Of Art Diminishes Our Appreciation Of It

More information does not lead to more enjoyment—at least when it comes to art.^[7]

Psychologist Kenneth Bordens of Indiana University-Purdue University, Fort Wayne, recently wrote about a study where 172 undergraduate students—with little to no art smarts—looked at two paintings and two sculptures in one of four styles. Those styles were—Impressionist, Renaissance, Dada and Outsider.

Initially, each student was handed a broad definition of art and a card indicating the style a particular work represented. Then, half of them were handed even more information, including: a definition of that style, a short look at where that style came from and what artists who worked in that style set out to achieve.

Then, using a scale from 1-7, Students had to rate how much they liked each work and how closely it lined up with their personal idea of art.

The study showed that, “Providing contextual information led to participants perceiving examples of the various styles of art as matching less well with their internal standards than when no contextual information was presented,”

Bordens thinks that the extra information provided about some of the works of art may have led to “greater conscious processing” on the part of the participants which may have made them, “more critical.”

3 Abstraction? Sacré Bleu!

Fact: We Appreciate Abstract Art More In A Foreign Language Context

There is a term in psychology called Psychological Distancing. It refers to the, “…subjective space that we perceive between ourselves and things.”^[8]

Elena Stephan, Department of Psychology, Bar-ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel and her colleagues studied psychological distancing and how it related to the appreciation of art.

They argued that a foreign language may create enough of a psychological distance to move an individual, “…away from the pragmatic everyday perception style and enhance appreciation of paintings.”

In the end, they found that abstract art was appreciated more deeply in a foreign language context than in a native language context.

2 Patterns

Fact: Seeing Patterns In A Work Of Art Is Our Sweet Spot

Our brain loves patterns. An ability to recognize patterns is so important that it played a big role in helping our Neanderthal ancestors survive.^[9]

Not surprisingly then, recognizing patterns actually gives us a pop of pleasure via our brain’s opioid system.

Jim Davies, a professor at Carelton’s Institute of Cognitive Science, says patterns are crucial in our appreciation of art. “If we don’t see a pattern…we rapidly get bored with it.”

1 Mona Lisa . . . Yawn

Fact: The Mona Lisa Only Became A Masterpiece After It Was Stolen

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Whether true or not, absence certainly helped boost the profile and popularity of a certain Leonardo Da Vinci painting.

Though difficult to imagine now, there was a time when interest in the “Mona Lisa” was, “…relatively minimal.” So, what accounts for its now legendary status? The tireless work of art historians? Re-evaluation by art critics of the early 1900s? Da Vinci’s ancestors? No, all it took was a construction worker and a few of his buddies.^[10]

Sleeping overnight in the Louvre, Vincenzo and his friends awoke the next morning, Monday August 21, 1911, dressed themselves in workman’s smocks, grabbed the painting and then split via a back stairwell.

The “Mona Lisa” was so uncelebrated that it took 26 hours before someone noticed the painting was missing.

Newspapers around the world announced the theft with big front page headlines. The walls of Paris became crowded with wanted posters. People flocked to police headquarters. Songs were written about it. Through this process, high art became mass art and the people fell in love with Da Vinci’s now universally adored masterpiece.

So, the “Mona Lisa” owes much of its renown and appreciation to an obscure 5′ 3″ Italian construction worker whose brothers called a nut. Strange but true.

How can one express the complex emotion of love?

A broad range of art forms have been used for this very purpose. There’s no doubt you’ve heard the romantic tale of the Taj Mahal, a mausoleum built by an emperor for his favorite wife who died giving birth to their 14th child. It’s both achingly stunning and depressing. A teardrop glistening on the cheek of time, as the poets say.

This domed symbol of love, however, isn’t the only grand romantic gesture made through art. From Picasso to the simple farmer, men have wooed women by whatever means are at their disposal. Art and creativity are as varied as people.

10 A Lopsided Portrait In A Ring

Most women would be revolted at the gift of a misshapen, Frankenstein-esque portrait of themselves embedded in a ring, but Pablo Picasso could get away with it. He painted his lover, Dora Maar, surrounded by flowers on a ring that he designed.

It was an apology gift after they had a dramatic fight one night along the River Seine. He was sore because she had convinced him to sell a painting for a mere ruby ring. So she yanked it from his hand and threw it into the river in a rage.

That ring was never recovered, but Picasso did present her with this work of art as an apology. Their affair was tumultuous and eventually ended. But she kept the ring until her dying day in 1997.^[1]

9 Performance Art With A Twist

Life and love don’t always go as planned, but the journey is always poetic. Two lovers, Marina Abramovic and Ulay, wanted to be the first couple to walk the Great Wall of China, each beginning at opposite ends and meeting in the middle. When they finally reached each other, they planned to marry on the spot.

It was many years later that the Chinese government finally gave permission for this powerful art performance that pushed the boundaries of convention. In 1988, they went through with the project. They called the piece, simply, The Lovers. It took three months to reach each other. She began her journey on the side with the mountains, and he walked from the Gobi Desert. When they finally embraced, they wept.

At this point, there had been numerous infidelities. Layers of resentment had built up to a breaking point. Instead of marrying at that meeting, they broke off the relationship in a surprising twist. The idealized romantic gesture had turned a corner. The Lovers demonstrated the course of a real human relationship. As often happens in art, the meaning changed halfway along.^[2]

8 A Good Old-Fashioned Sonnet

Sonnets from the Portuguese was never intended for publication by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She wrote them for Robert Browning, and the sonnets described their entire intimate relationship from start to finish.

After they were married, he insisted that she publish the collection. They threw the word “Portuguese” in the title to shift the focus from an autobiographical nature. He told her that they were the best sonnets since Shakespeare.

Still, they remain some of the most famous love poems from the Victorian Age. The first line of “Sonnet 43,” for example, is one that you probably don’t know that you know: “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”^[3]

7 A Protest Of Love . . . For Love

There was an art movement of “happenings” in the 1960s, and one such performance took the form of a “Bed-in for Peace.” John Lennon and Yoko Ono decided to spend their honeymoon in bed, surrounded by protest signs, at the Hilton in Amsterdam. The Vietnam War had been raging for 14 years at this point. So, what did they have to lose?

The global press was in the bedroom 12 hours every day with cameras rolling and peace discussion flowing. Yoko Ono said, “[As an alternative to war,] everybody should just stay in bed and enjoy the spring.”

She was an artist in her own right who was involved with the Fluxus movement, which created art from everyday life. Lennon and Ono used their honeymoon to spread their message to “make love, not war.” As of 2016, the suite in which their performance took place could be rented for $2,400 per night.^[4]

6 A Surprising Symphony

For seven years, Richard Wagner, the famous composer of the Romantic period, had an affair with the married Cosima von Bulow. Finally, she divorced and they were able to marry in 1870. In that first year, Wagner composed a tender serenade for Cosima in secret.

This gift of love surprised her on Christmas morning at sunrise as it was played by a small ensemble on the winding staircase outside her bedroom. It was also Cosima’s birthday. She wrote in her diary:

As I awoke, my ear caught a sound which swelled further and further; no longer could I imagine myself to be dreaming, music was sounding, and what music! As it died away, Richard came into my room with the five children and offered me the score of the symphonic birthday poem—I was in tears, but so was the whole house.^[5]

5 The Acting Role Of A Lifetime

She was a fiery redheaded actress with an unparalleled sense of humor, and he was a devilishly handsome Cuban musician who performed at a nightclub. That’s right, we’re talking about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

After a six-month courtship, they were married. Then CBS wanted to transfer her I Love Lucy persona from radio to television. She insisted that the spouse be changed to her real-life husband, Desi. Executives weren’t convinced that was a good idea. Arnaz had a strong Cuban accent, and they were certain he wouldn’t appeal to a wide audience. Lucille Ball wouldn’t take no for an answer, of course.

They toured together in a vaudeville act to show that they could win over the hearts of the masses. She was correct. And this acting role gave Desi the opportunity of a lifetime to star in a hit show for six seasons with 40 million viewers tuning in each week. Lucille’s romantic gesture of artistic opportunity was above and beyond the gift of a lifetime.^[6]

4 A Thoughtful Invention

In the early 1900s, an architect from Wisconsin named John W. Hammes had a brilliant idea to make his wife’s chores a little easier in the kitchen. “Happy wife, happy life,” as they say. He wanted the kitchen cleanup to be a smoother process, so he had an epiphany. He went immediately to his basement and started brainstorming designs for his invention.

Finally in 1927, he invented the first garbage disposal. These early prototypes were called “electric pigs.” After being granted a patent, he started selling them in 1938.^[7]

3 A Song Written For His Best Friend’s Wife

In the 1960s, Eric Clapton and George Harrison were good friends. It’s common knowledge that Eric fell in love with George’s first wife, Pattie Boyd. She was the muse for George’s song “Something.”

Then Eric wrote a song for her that she happened to like even more, and it won her over. Pattie said, “We met secretly at a flat in South Kensington. Eric had asked me to come because he wanted me to listen to a new number he had written. [ . . . ] He . . . played me the most powerful, moving song I had ever heard. It was ‘Layla.’ ”

It was later the same night when George confronted them and asked what was going on. Eric responded, “I have to tell you, man, that I’m in love with your wife.” What followed was perhaps the most epic rock duel in history. (Eric won.)

Pattie ended up with another classic song written for her by Eric called “Wonderful Tonight.”^[8]

2 Graffiti

In England, graffiti isn’t the taboo art form that it is in the USA. For example, Banksy’s art is adored and protected all over the country. When a man asks a woman to marry him by spray-painting a brick wall in Ohio, he’s arrested and fined. When the same thing happened in Sheffield, England, the spray-painted proposal was admired and untouched for more than 10 years on a bridge along the skyline.

Recently, the words were even immortalized by the city in bright, neon lights: “I Love You Will U Marry Me.” The street artist finally stepped forward and admitted that he had done it. Although he was afraid of heights, he wanted to illustrate his love as boldly as he knew how. In neon permanence, this demonstration of love glows on.^[9]

1 A Secret Clearing

When his wife’s heart gave out, farmer Winston Howes was grief-stricken. In a final act of love, he planted thousands of oak trees near his farmhouse but kept a heart-shaped meadow open in the middle. He made sure that the heart pointed toward his wife’s birthplace. Howes said, “I sometimes go down there, just to sit and think about things. It is a lovely and lasting tribute.”

For years, this special meadow remained a family secret. Then one day, a man in a hot-air balloon flew overhead and took a photograph of the heart-shaped field. It’s designed so perfectly between the trees that you can even see it on Google Maps. Howes even planted daffodils that bloom every year in the spring.^[10]

Statues and paintings of Jesus can get predictable. They stare, pray, suffer on the cross, or rest in a manger.

Upon closer inspection, some have bullet holes. Others hide mysterious messages. This being art, controversial interpretations are always going to be there. But one of them, the claim that Jesus was a victim of sexual violence, could have repercussions throughout the Catholic Church.

See Also: 10 Controversial Depictions Of Jesus

10 The Creepy Jesus Lamb

As history has proven, Jesus paintings are prone to botched restorations. When another masterpiece was cleaned and shown to the public in 2020, many thought it had happened again.

The painting was The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb. It was created during the 15th century by two brothers who depicted Jesus as a sheep. Over time, the image turned hazy. A three-year project restored the artwork, and the result was freaky.

The lamb’s face was very humanoid. Although it disturbed visitors and even shocked the experts, this was not another screwup. During 1550, two different artists had changed the animal’s appearance to look more sheepish. But the original version was designed so that the humanlike face gazed almost directly at the viewer. Some critics did not appreciate the look and described the eyes as “overly confrontational.”^[1]

9 Lost Masterpiece Found In A Kitchen

In 2019, a French woman spring-cleaned before moving. Among the things she no longer wanted was a painting. The family heirloom was hanging above the kitchen hot plate and was rather depressing. It showed Jesus being shoved around by a crowd. Perhaps warned by instinct, she had it appraised. The decision made her $26.8 million richer.

The work belonged to 13th-century Renaissance master Cimabue. He had created it as part of a multi-paneled altarpiece. The Frenchwoman’s painting was called The Mocking of Christ and was the third panel to be found.^[2]

When the panel was slotted into place, the woodworm damage on the back matched the scars of the second painting in the series. Coincidentally, this was also the third piece to be discovered overall. There could be as many as five panels still out there. Whoever finds them can visit an auctioneer and retire with millions.

8 John The Baptist Was Once Painted Over Jesus

In the scheme of things, images of Christ might be seen as more important than those of John the Baptist. One 16th-century artist disagreed. His name is lost to time. For a long time, the person’s decision to erase Jesus in favor of John also went undiscovered.

However, the unknown artist created a masterpiece. The painting showed John clasping his hands together in prayer on the day of his beheading. Time did not treat the work well. In 2019, Northumbria University scanned the damaged canvas to start the restoration process.^[3]

When the X-ray was examined, the original painting emerged. It was a nativity scene. Nestled in a manger, Jesus was surrounded by an angel, a wise man, and possibly a shepherd. A stable-like building stood in the background.

The discovery added more questions to the painting’s murky past. The year that the nativity scene was painted and by whom remains unclear. Why it was covered up with John the Baptist is another head-scratcher that will probably never be answered.

7 A Black Jesus Was Shot

In 2019, a painting was being prepared for an exhibition in Sheffield. At one point, artist Lorna May Wadsworth saw a bullet hole in the canvas. The painting was based on The Last Supper, and real models were used by the artist to depict Jesus and his followers. For Jesus, Wadsworth used the Jamaican-born Tafari Hinds.

Experts identified the weapon as an air rifle. As the shot had been aimed at the image of Hinds, Wadsworth was asked if she thought the act was racially motivated. She replied that it was “too horrible to contemplate.”^[4]

Indeed, the whole thing upset her so badly that she almost pulled the painting from the exhibition. Only the realization that the vandal probably rooted for such a move stopped her.

Ironically, the bullet passed through Jesus’s right side where he had received the famous spear wound.

6 The Buttocks Time Capsule

In 2017, a wooden statue arrived in Madrid to be restored. The life-size Jesus had been carved during the 18th century. Back in the day, the larger pieces of religious art were hollow. This made them easier to move and less prone to cracking. However, this Jesus had cracked around the buttocks. During the restoration, a team member was surprised to find that the statue’s bum was a time capsule.

Somebody had stuffed two scrolls inside. In a careful hand, the writer named himself as Joaquin Minguez. He was the prior of the church where the statue had been kept in 1777. Minguez talked about everyday stuff. People had short fevers. They hunted and grew crops. Earthquakes shook the land. Curiously, Minguez also mentioned that the monks loved ball games and playing cards.^[5]

Most likely, Minguez created the scrolls for future generations. This way, they could glimpse the past and see his world. To honor the prior’s intentions, the team replaced the scrolls inside the statue. They also inserted their own letter that describes modern times.

5 The Last Supper Mistake

The Last Supper is one of the world’s most famous paintings. But despite being the center of movies, books, and countless studies, one mystery remains. What menu did Leonardo da Vinci have in mind when he painted his masterpiece? In 2016, a study revealed the likeliest menu.

Archaeologists dug deep into the Palestine cuisine of the time. They took into account that the dinner was informal and that Jesus adhered to Jewish customs. For good measure, the study drew on the Bible, Jewish scripts, historical records, and the eating habits of the first century AD.

As it turned out, da Vinci did not know what he was doing. He was a superb artist but was too caught up in painting the Eucharistic ritual to put the right food on the table.

Indeed, the table seems empty for 13 people about to chow down. The only plates contain insubstantial amounts of food. The real dinner would have included wine on the table. Unleavened bread, lamb, and a bean stew would have provided enough substance while olives, fish sauce, and dates would have added variety.^[6]

4 Nativity Family In Captivity

During the festive season in 2019, many dusted off their nativity figures and arranged them in the traditional way. The Claremont United Methodist Church did something different. Mary, Joseph, and Jesus were separated into individual cages.

Nothing about the display pointed a finger directly at US President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, but the message was clear. The Holy Family had also been immigrants. Had they crossed the US-Mexico border today, they might have been taken to different detention centers.^[7]

The decision to use the nativity scene as a silent protest was inspired by immigrant children. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, over 5,000 children had been separated from their parents at the US-Mexico border from mid-2017 to late 2019.

The community, both online and local, had mixed reactions. Some were insulted or angry. But a lot of people appreciated the point that the church was trying to make. No matter what, families should not be forced apart.

3 Mystery Of The Sphere

Leonardo da Vinci painted Salvator Mundi around AD 1500. The portrait showed Jesus holding a glass orb in his hand. For decades, experts were confused. The sphere lacked certain things. For one, the glass did not distort anything. The robes directly behind the ball looked the same as the rest of Christ’s clothing. In addition, the curved surface did not reflect light as might be expected.

Da Vinci was no fool. Taking liberties with the Last Supper’s menu can be excused. Perhaps the food was symbolic, or he lacked the resources to do research. But an orb was not something that he would have bumbled. There was a reason why this object did not distort or reflect anything.

Scholars debated their options. Some said that the master had deliberately painted the orb wrong. Other theories involved a hollow object or rock crystal. In 2020, the University of California found the answer. A 3-D computer rendering of the orb revealed that the hollow sphere was a match.^[8]

Far from making a blooper, the results once again proved that da Vinci was a talented scientist who perfectly understood optical properties in this case.

2 Da Vinci Struggled With A Masterpiece

Given Leonardo da Vinci’s reputation, it is hard to imagine that he wrestled with his paintings. In 2019, a scan proved that even legendary masters have their bad days. The painting involved was the world-famous The Virgin of the Rocks. The artwork shows Mary and baby Jesus being adored by an angel and John the Baptist.

True to da Vinci, the painting is a masterpiece. But when a London gallery scanned the surface with X-rays, a very different scene emerged. The garbled figures showed da Vinci’s indecision. He had changed their positions twice before he was satisfied. Had he chosen one of these, today’s Virgin would be very different.

In the earliest version, Christ and the angel were placed higher. The angel also holds Him in a much tighter embrace. Then da Vinci changed everything. This second attempt was close to the final painting, but there were significant differences. The angel had more hair, and Jesus looked at a different spot in the painting.^[9]

1 Jesus Might Have Been Sexually Abused

Sexual abuse has many faces. Some argue that forcibly stripping somebody naked also counts, even when nothing else happens. When researchers looked at crucifixion art, most showed that Jesus was humiliated in this way. The artists did not follow a baseless notion. The Romans really did turn prisoners out naked before executing them.

The researchers needed this connection between stripping and abuse to deal with a crisis. In the past, Catholic leaders had exhibited a lackluster response to survivors of sexual violence—especially when priests were the offenders. The struggle is ongoing. But if Jesus can be recognized as a victim, it could change the way that the Church deals with assaults.

During the 2019 study, male survivors were interviewed. Those who have never experienced this kind of trauma might easily dismiss the idea of stripping as sexual violence. After all, it’s not rape or even fondling.^[10]

In fact, when the victims were asked if forced nudity could be considered as abuse and Jesus as a victim, most were surprised at first. However, they eventually agreed and said that recognizing Jesus’s plight would give the Church more solidarity with survivors.

When rock art is a little strange, things get interesting. Ranging from the controversial to the paranormal, some aren’t what they appear to be, while others remain downright inexplicable. More and more, ancient paintings and carvings are revealing the behaviors and obsessions of long-gone cultures and, incredibly, even genetic mysteries from prehistoric times.

10 Neolithic Nativity Scene

In 2005, geologists made a discovery that belongs to the Neolithic or Paleolithic era but is still very recognizable today. While in a small cave in the Sahara Desert in Egypt, somebody looked up, and on the ceiling sat an apparent nativity scene. It certainly doesn’t show the baby Jesus. The painting is 3,000 years older than the famous Christmas spread, but the elements are there.

A newborn infant is raised, as if important and valued, between its parents. Two animals and a star in the east complete the picture. The animals aren’t domestic barnyard types, either. One is a baboon-like creature, and the other a lion missing its head. Researchers are intrigued by the meaning of the dark red ocher creation. No nativity scenes were known to have existed before the early Christian age.

9 The Sudan Sites

In Sudan, 15 sites with ancient rock art confused archaeologists upon their discovery in 2011. The desert valley of Wadi Abu Dom is etched with carvings, from single images to almost 30 at different places. The collection grew over time and was added to by different artists. Those chiseled around 1,500 years ago fit with when Christianity arrived in Sudan: crosses, a church, and what might even be St. George on his horse. The 3,000-year-old pieces contain well-drawn cattle.

The batch aged 5,000 years mystifies code-crackers. The art is simply unexplainable. There are spirals coiled so precisely that some theorize them to be an early mathematical notion. Another type is geometric but lacks any recognizable form and is patterned like a fishing net. Archaeologists also found “rock gongs.” When hit with a smaller stone, they emit clear sounds that can travel quite a distance. Of unknown age, they may have been signaling devices.

8 Tiny Hands

In the Sahara, the Cave of the Beasts was named for the weird, headless beings painted on its walls. Discovered in 2002, the decapitated creatures weren’t what drew attention, but 13 baby handprints were. Some sat inside the handprints of adults. This nurturing scene melted hearts until one anthropologist noticed that the infant hands weren’t proportionally correct. The 8,000-year-old imprints were even tinier than premature newborns. The fingers were also abnormally long. They couldn’t have been human.

Analysis proved that they came from an animal, probably the front paw of a desert monitor lizard. Added at the same time as the hands, the same pigment was used for both. The reason behind this relationship remains a mystery, but it appears to have been a close one. Apart from being found inside people’s prints, the paws were also found arranged in friezes, a design usually made by human hands.

7 The Venus Of Hohle Fels

She’s a different sort of cave art: an ivory statue. The Venus of Hohle Fels was found in a German cave of the same name. The figure is a nude female without arms or a head. It’s been called “prehistoric porn,” and at 40,000 years old, it’s also the oldest human sculpture.

The hand-sized lady renewed a debate about the meaning of animal statuettes previously exhumed from Hohle Fels and neighboring caves. Some argue these were talismans to attract certain game, but they don’t match the bones found on-site. Long-ago locals ate hoofed animals, but most statues were of predators. One half-man, half-lion could be a copy of a shaman’s vision. The Venus might represent prehistoric beauty and health, but perhaps the carver just wanted a naked doll. Most scholars agree it’s nearly impossible to prove what the statuettes were for.

6 The Scottish Swirls

The Cochno Stone is a mysterious rock found in Scotland. Somebody did some serious decorating on this slab, including geometric swirls known as cup and ring marks. While not unique, the stone ranks among the best examples of such spirals in Europe. The Glasgow artifact was dug up in 1887, but above the ground wasn’t the best place for it. Something that measures 13 meters (43 ft) by 8 meters (26 ft) and carries funny markings is bound to attract attention.

By 1965, vandals and weather had done their damage. An archaeologist attempting to prove the swirls were an eclipse forecast left enough paint lines on the surface to make any sensible conservationist weep. For protection, the stone was reburied.

In 2016, the 5,000-year-old slab was unearthed, scanned, and photographed for better study before being returned to the Earth once more. The message on the Cochno Stone, if there is a message, remains a mystery.

5 Special Toes

When it comes to extremities, hands don’t get all the glory. A thousand years ago, feet were revered by a Pueblo culture that lived in Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. Want to honor your walls? Forget about buying a Picasso. The Chacos plastered feet and sandals all over. This community had a special physical trait: polydactyly, which is when hands or feet have an extra digit. Not everybody had an additional toe, but the Chacos had the highest percentage of any ethnic group, based on a study of over 90 Chaco skeletons.

Chaco art revealed the true depth of their respect for polydactyly. Sandals were everywhere, from real ones to shoe-shaped stones to prints against walls and floors. On some, researchers noticed adjustments to make an extra tootsie comfortable. Bare feet and hands also appeared, but those with more digits were positioned more often near the entrances of important rooms.

4 Acoustic Art

A 2014 study determined a remarkable link between prehistoric doodles and sound. Such art is more likely to be found at locations with a tendency to echo loudly. Additionally, many depict scenes connected with thunderous sounds. In Europe, India, and Indonesia, hoofed herds in full charge adorn caves where resonance can get rowdy. Where echoes carry in North America, sometimes there are Thunderbirds. The creature’s beating wings are said to be where thunder comes from.

Even when researchers investigated places known for booming echoes but with no known drawings, they were rewarded with several discoveries of brand new rock art. It’s feasible that prehistoric humans, not fully understanding the nature of echoes, saw them as manifestations of something sacred. An old myth from the Canadian Shield interestingly connects a rock spirit, the Memegwashio, to both cave art and echoes.

3 The Higgs Bison

The Higgs bison represents one of the few times when science received backup from cave paintings. After testing ancient bison DNA, the results were odd. Unexpectedly, the DNA wasn’t a close match with modern European bison. Instead, a mysterious ancestor was hinted at, one researchers dubbed the “Higgs bison.” Like the infamous Higgs boson, they suspected but couldn’t prove its existence.

The tests delivered another zinger: the Higgs bison was a hybrid. Two bovine groups roamed ancient Europe: aurochs and the Steppe bison. Around 120,000 years ago, something rare happened. The two distinct mammals species produced fertile offspring that led to an entirely new species.

Incredibly, this evolution was captured in French and Spanish Ice Age art. Paintings older than 18,000 years show long-horned, powerfully built animals resembling the American bison, a Steppe bison offshoot. Horns and humps diminished with younger art, resembling today’s European bison.

2 The Charama Aliens

Indian archaeologists were throwing around the words “UFOs” and “aliens” after looking inside a cave in 2014. In the rural village of Charama in Chhattisgarh, residents are very familiar with the 10,000-year-old paintings. Their ancestors told of a legend wherein the so-called Rohela people would come to the village. These small people would land in a round object and welcome a few villagers aboard before flying off again. In the past, the tribal people of Charama even worshiped the paintings.

Done in colors that archaeologists claim remain fresh-looking despite being prehistoric, the images show humanoids dressed like spacemen and holding what could be weapons. The creatures are lithe, somewhat orange, and lack any noticeable mouths and noses. The alleged UFO image shows a disk-type object with three legs and what local archaeologists describe as a “fan-like antenna.”

1 Neanderthal Enigma

In Spain, an underground cave is making waves. On the walls of El Castillo are painted dots and hand stencils. The reddish creations are over 40,800 years old, making them the oldest known cave art. They might not even have made by humans. During the time of the art’s creation, the cave was a Neanderthal neighborhood, making it possible that they created the historic marks.

Neanderthals are seen as a separate hominid species, but this art could reclassify them as a race of humans instead. Scientific doubts over whether Neanderthals could even create art, let alone symbols, are being challenged by previous discoveries at Neanderthal sites such as pigment, beads, sculptures, and decorated bones. The way they progressed culturally was the same as Homo sapiens, a strong indicator that Neanderthals were also human and not another hominid species.

When we picture the ancient world, it is often an idealized society we conjure up. In this serene Golden age intellectuals wandered about in clean streets surrounded by elegant and gleaming white statues. In fact the ancient world was often dirty, smelly, and noisy. Many of the white sculptures in museums today were originally painted in gaudy colors as you can see on our list of Top 10 Color Classical Reproductions.

When artefacts were excavated in the past they were often suppressed if they did not fit the cultivated image people had of the ancient world. It can therefore be a shock when we are confronted with the naughty, erotic, or frankly bizarre sexual imagery that our ancestors reveled in. Here are ten of the most shocking pieces of erotic art from the deep past.

SEE ALSO: 10 Sex Myths We All Believe

10 Ain Sakhri Lovers

The oldest image we have of two people having intercourse comes from 11,000 years ago. Currently held in the British Museum, the Ain Sakhri Lovers were discovered in a cave near Bethlehem. The 10cm tall statue is thought to come from the Natufian Culture of the ancient middle east. While at first it merely looks like a crude piece of carving it is in fact a clever work of art.

The person who created the Lovers used a stone tool to pick out the details. When viewed from the side it is unmistakably a pair with their legs wrapped around each other during sex. But without facial features on either figure it gives their heads a somewhat phallic appearance. This resemblance to a penis continues if the statue is turned sideways. From different angles the Lovers can also appear as a pair of breasts or dangling testicles.

What the Lovers was originally intended for is unknown. As with any archaeological find it may well have had a ritual meaning, but it is also possible that our ancestors were like us and simply preferred their porn 3D.

9 Pompeii Brothel Pictures

Pompeii was a cosmopolitan port. From the graffiti found in the ruins of the town we know that visitors were speaking a variety of languages from Latin to Greek to Oscan and maybe Hebrew. With potential language barriers popping up how then was a prostitute to earn her living?

When Vesuvius erupted it both destroyed and preserved Pompeii. Excavations have revealed exactly what Roman towns were like and one of the entertainments offered in Pompeii was a trip to a brothel. In the Lupinare, one of Pompeii’s pleasure houses, were a series of wall paintings showing couples in various sexual positions. It is thought that these images were used as a sort of sexual menu telling punters exactly what was on offer, in much the same way a picture of a hamburger helps a foreign tourist order in a restaurant.

8 Min

To describe something as ithyphallic is to say it has an erect penis. If you know anything about the Egyptian god Min it is that he is ithyphallic – his statues will not let you forget that fact.

Min, an early god known as ‘the maker of gods and men,’ was among the first Egyptian deities to have large statues raised to them. Those statues did not attempt to hide his anatomy. He is often shown holding his penis in his left hand. At his cultic sites his sacred animal was usually a bull – animals known for their virility. When Min was linked to the constellation Orion the three famous stars in Orion’s midriff were definitely not representing a belt.

Min was associated with a type of wild lettuce that when cut produces a thick, white sap. Some archaeologists have made claims about just what this sticky white fluid could have brought to the Egyptian mind.

7 Priapus

Having a big penis is generally thought to be lucky. For the Greeks and Romans however a large phallus was not only lucky in itself it was also a bringer of luck. Carvings of penises have been found at many ancient sites and one figure of mythology is particularly associated with them. Priapus is a fertility deity with a (to us) comically large penis who was thought to be helpful in farming, gardens, and anything you might consider using a penis for.

Pompeii once again offers a great view of how sex was seen in the ancient world. Paintings and statues of Priapus are found all over the city. One famous fresco of Priapus shows him weighing his penis against a bag of gold, perhaps hinting at a role in business as well.

Statues of the god often show him holding fruit in his robe which is lifted to reveal his erect penis beneath. We cannot be sure how exactly the Greeks and Romans viewed these images. Were they viewed with reverence or laughter? Perhaps the two were not separate things back then. Bear that in mind the next time someone laughs at your anatomy.

6 Herms

Herms in ancient Greece were a unique style of statuary. On top of a square pillar sat the head of either a human or a god. This much is fairly standard but around half way down the pillar was carved a set of male genitalia.

The god Hermes was often the deity shown on a herm and he had a role in protecting borders and warding off thieves. It is thought that herms acted as guards in both private and public settings, as well as being general good luck charms. When the herms were attacked it was an attack on the whole city.

In 415 BC the city of Athens awoke to find its herms had all been mutilated. A gang had torn through the streets during the night vandalizing them – probably by smashing off their penises. Suspicion for this sacrilegious act fell on the statesman Alcibiades and led to his downfall and banishment from the city. Luckily for him the law of “an eye for an eye” was not yet in vogue.

5 Tintinnabula

The penis was a lucky charm for the Romans but so were bells. It, therefore, made sense for them to hang bells from a phallus to increase the power of these charms. Called tintinnabula these wind chimes were hung from doorways and in gardens to ward off evil spirits. But simply mixing two charms together was not enough for the Romans.

Some tintinnabula are a complex mix of imagery. The central figure might be an erect phallus with wings and a lion’s tail. This flying phallus might also be sporting an erect phallus of its own. Hanging from these conjoined penises could be bells or even other phalluses, with yet more bells attached.

4 Warren Cup

The Warren Cup, bought by the British Museum in 1999, is one of the finest pieces of Roman silver work in existence. It is also one of the most pornographic. Usually dated to the 1st century after the birth of Christ, the silver drinking vessel shows four figures in a heavily decorated room surrounded by musical instruments. These signs of luxury are not what catch the eye, however.

On one side a pair of youthful men (“twinks”) are shown making love while on the other a young man or boy lowers himself into the lap of his older, bearded lover (or “daddy” in modern parlance). As if to underline our own role as voyeurs a fifth figure can just be seen peeping at the copulating couples from around the edge of a door.

To show just how far tastes can change the Warren cup was refused entry into the United States in 1953 because the imagery on it was just too shocking.

3 Sheela na gig

When PJ Harvey sang a song called Sheela Na Gig, some listeners may not have understood what she may have been singing about. The lyrics include lines like:

“Sheela-na-gig, Sheela-na-gig
You exhibitionist
Put money in your idle hole”

So what is are sheela-na-gigs? They are statues with exaggerated vulvas that they are gleefully opening up to the world. They are often found on churches, which seems like the last place you would find an exhibitionist female statue. Most commonly found in Ireland and Britain sheela na gig-like sculptures can also be found in mainland Europe. When they appear on churches they are usually positioned over doorways or windows. It is as if the portal being opened by the statue is mirrored in the one below.

No one knows exactly why these sculptures began appearing in the 11th century or what their purpose was. The best guess is that like other erotic figures they were used to ward off evil spirits and to keep them from entering the church, perhaps by offering a more tempting place for spirits to enter.

2 Babylonian copulating couples

Freud said “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” When it comes to erotic art sometimes porn is just porn. This may be the case with the copulating couples of ancient Mesopotamia. From across millennia and locations in the middle east plaques and statues have emerged from the sands which show nothing other than couples in various acrobatic poses.

Two famous plaques from Iraq that are nearly 4000-years-old are illustrative. One shows a man taking a woman from behind, apparently to the satisfaction of both. The other shows a couple in a similar position but with the pair taking a break from their exertions to have a refreshing drink. The lady sips up thick Babylonian beer through a straw while the man drinks from a cup. It has been theorized that these different drinking styles may relate to male and female oral sex.

Here may be an example of a simple joyous reaction to sex from the ancient world untainted by any spiritual meaning. For the Mesopotamians it seems that sex was just sex and not something to be ashamed of. For us modern readers, however, it is absolutely shocking to see such a perverse and unashamed promotion of drinking straws.

1 Pan having sex with a goat

When an excavation in 1752 at Herculaneum (the other Roman town buried by the Vesuvius eruption) revealed a statue of the god Pan, the discoverers were left in a quandary. What do you do with a sculpture that plainly shows the half-human, half-goat deity penetrating a she-goat? One early viewer wrote home to say that the depiction was too indecent to describe and suggested that it should be tossed back into the volcano.

Instead the sculpture was placed in a collection of other pieces of erotic art from the ancient Roman sites that could only be accessed by getting the permission of the King of Naples. Or by bribing a guard. Women were banned entirely from viewing the objects.

For those desperate to see what all the fuss was about prints and drawings of the statue became available. The sculptor Joseph Nollekens created a terracotta copy from memory. Today however anyone paying the entrance fee to the Archaeological Museum in Naples can see it among the other artefacts in the ‘Secret Cabinet’ of ancient artworks once considered too filthy for the public.

Art is a subjective thing. Some people look at modern art and see a pile of junk while others stare at a pile of junk and see profundity. One of the biggest misunderstandings about art history is that there has been a steady progression from primitive art to some level of perfection it reached recently. In fact it is not that people in the past couldn’t make art in the same way we do it’s that they chose to follow styles that they found most beautiful and moving.

Here are ten of the ancient world’s most amazing styles.

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10 Cycladic Figures

Cycladic figurines are instantly recognisable. Carved from white marble they tend to show people with elongated heads, pointed noses, and smooth lines. There is some evidence that the blank heads may once have been painted but today they stare out from museum cases with completely expressionless faces.

Despite being made over at least a millennium (3300-2300 BC) the figurines show a remarkably consistent style. The standing figurines are often female and are shown with arms folded across their belly. Sometimes the pubic hair of the figurines is scratched and drilled into the marble.

Another type of Cycladic figure represents musicians. Some of them play a large harp that rests on their knee while another blows a double pipe. The curving shapes of the figurines would not look out of place in a modern art institute and they have been found across the Cycladic islands suggesting they were just a popular in their own day as they are prized today.^[1]

9 Voluptuous Venus

The ancient Roman goddess Venus was the embodiment of love and sexuality. Her statues from the Classical Age are therefore representative of what sculptors of the time found most attractive. If the group of sculptures known as Venus figurines also show idealised womanhood then stereotyped ideas of beauty have changed over the millennia.

The Venus figurines tend to show rotund women with oversized breasts, ample hips, and large buttocks. Sometimes their private parts are similarly emphasised. The earliest of these figurines, the Venus of Hohle Fels, was carved from a mammoth tusk and dates from around 35,000 years ago. Other figurines are made of stone or ceramic and most are relatively small in size. This suggests that the Venus figures were meant to be carried around with the people who owned them.

No one can say exactly what the around 200 Venus figurines represent. Were they a mother goddess? Were they fertility idols? Were they simply figures of beauty and security? It is unlikely that we will ever know for sure.^[2]

8 Roman Frescos

Romans surrounded themselves with art. From small statues of their gods, to monumental sculptures, to graffiti scratched into their walls there was no part of life that could not be decorated. This included the interior walls of their homes. Unsatisfied with just painting their walls they sometimes created false views to create the illusion that they were dining outside. These false views are known as trompe l’oeil.

At first the frescos, paintings done directly onto fresh plaster, were large blocks and represented architectural features like pillars and doorways. Soon the paintings evolved into more complex scenes. Perhaps a door would open and a person would peep out from behind it. Sometimes a false window would open out onto a vista showing fields or beaches.

Perhaps the highest achievement of Roman fresco painting can be found in a villa belonging to the Roman Empress Livia. The walls of the dining room of the villa are not covered in fake walls and windows. Instead the walls are painted as if they are not there at all. The frescos show a garden scene containing trees, fruit, birds, and flowers.^[3]

7 Moche Pottery

The Moche people lived on the coast of Peru from around 100-700 AD. While their culture is little known today they left large amounts of pottery that can be found in museums around the world. Though sometimes the pottery is hidden away because of the sensitive nature of the scenes the pottery depicts.

Sometimes Moche pottery is relatively simple in form and shape, but with complex images painted on it. Other times the pottery is sculpted into complex configurations. These can show everything from animals, to gods, to portraits of individual humans. Sometimes what the humans are doing is revealing in many ways.

Over 500 pots have been found that show humans engaging in sexual activities. Some of the pots show men with large penises, which are fairly common in art from the ancient world, but there are also representations of women with gaping vaginas. Intriguingly vaginal sex is never shown between individuals in the pottery – anal sex was apparently more to the taste of the Moche potters.^[4]

6 Engraved Gems

People have always loved pretty stones. As soon as gems were discovered humans were using them to decorate their bodies. The pretty stones were not beautiful enough on their own however. From at least 5000 years ago people were cutting into gems to create images. And these were not simple geometric shapes – some of them are as life-like as anything created in stone can be.

These images could show everything from mythological beings to individual people. Roman Emperors were fond of having their faces cut into gems. But these were not large objects. Most of the engraved gems from antiquity are small enough to be worn in rings and would have functioned as seals.

The stones were engraved using tiny drills and abrasive dust. The engravers must have had amazing eyesight because the detail in their work can be as small as half a millimetre. One gem known as the Pylos Combat Agate manages to show two men fighting in anatomically accurate detail on a surface just 3cm across. A fallen soldier also on the gem is sculpted so skilfully that individual muscles can be seen.^[5]

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5 Roman Glass Portraits

Before photography there was no easy way to capture a person’s likeness. The best most people could hope for was a description – and one that picked out mostly unflattering parts of their image. Legal texts from ancient Egypt will often name a person and then describe them as “with a scar on their forehead” or “long-faced” or “bald in front.” For some lucky Romans however their faces have been hauntingly preserved.

In Roman gold glass portraits the faces of certain Romans have survived. These portraits were made by placing a thin layer of gold onto glass and then pinpricking it and scratching to create a delicate image. The portraits can capture the shade created by the shape of a face and often include the imperfections that make our faces unique.

Most of the portraits were made on the bases of bowls and cups to celebrate a special occasion. When the person in the portrait died however they were often broken out of the glass vessel and used to mark their grave.^[6]

4 Fayum Mummy Portraits

Ancient Egyptian art is not generally known for its realism. People were often shown in profile and in strange contortions. But Egyptian art did not remain static over the thousands of years that it was produced. Once Egypt was incorporated into the Roman Empire there was a synthesis of their different styles.

Egyptian culture placed a great emphasis on the afterlife and the commemoration of the dead. While pharaohs were given gold and gem encrusted sarcophagi more humble people had to make do with wooden face-masks. These are known as Fayum Mummy Portraits and were created on wood or directly on the wrappings of the mummy.

Unlike the stylised images found elsewhere in Egyptian art these portraits are very personal. The shadows that play across the faces make them feel three dimensional and alive. The portraits are also revealing about how people in the ancient world really looked. Normally hairstyles and make-up die with the person but by looking at these portraits reveals how fashions in Egypt changed over the centuries.^[7]

3 Etruscan Sarcophagi

Placing a painting or image in a grave is one way of making sure that the appearance of a person is not forgotten but if you want to really capture how a person looks then Etruscan sarcophagi are probably the way to go. Etruscan tombs often took the form of a terracotta statue of the deceased. They are almost always shown as if they were reclining on a banqueting couch and enjoying an eternal feast.

The tombs did not contain a body because the Etruscans cremated their dead. Perhaps that is why creating a lasting monument of the dead was so important to them. The terracotta of the tomb was painted in brilliant colours. Unlike in some ancient societies it seems that women were as important as men. Married couples often shared a tomb and were shown side by side in death.

One sarcophagus belonging to a woman called Seianti Hanunia Tlesnasa was found to contain the woman’s complete skull. Using this skull researchers were able to reconstruct her appearance in life and showed that the woman depicted on top of the tomb really was the woman buried in it.^[8]

2 Hand Stencils

Hands are among the most common finds in stone age art. Rock faces from South America, to Europe, to Asia, to Australia are all covered in the hands of our ancestors. These images of hands stretch back as far as 39,000 years.

Sometimes the artist would use powdered pigments and place their hand directly in them before leaving a hand print on the rock face. More commonly though they would use a tube to blow watered-down pigment over the hand to leave a negative image on the wall. From studying the hands we know that this type of art was made by men, women, and children. We can even tell that people in the stone age were mostly right-handed because most of the hands depicted were left hands. The artists would have held the tube used spray the pigment in their dominant hand.

What the purpose of this art was remains debated. The hand prints are often found in the most hard to reach places in a cave system while flat sections of wall were left unmarked.^[9]

1 Dogu

Some of the strangest pottery ever made must have belonged to the Jomon period of Japan that lasted from 14,000 to 300 BC. Because Japan was so abundant with food supplies at the time the population was able to form stable, sedentary communities that produced large amounts of pottery. Jomon pottery was marked by cords of string being pressed into the clay.

As well as decorated pots they also made figurines called Dogu. These human figures can be separated into several types. Some of them look like Horned Owls, others have heart-shaped heads, and others are Goggle-Eyed. It is these google-eyed figurines that have attracted the most attention.

The figurines in some cases look as if they are wearing ornate space suits and their goggle-eyes resemble helmets. They have been taken by some fringe theorists to be evidence of ancient alien visitors. The truth is that no one can say for sure what these figurines were used for – but they were the product of amazing ancient artists and not aliens.^[10]

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