On May 16, 1966, the Chinese Communist Party released a document expressing concern that bourgeoisie and counterrevolutionaries were trying to hijack the party. The May 16 Notification, as it became known, would spark the Cultural Revolution, an all-encompassing political movement that sought to purge the country from anti-Maoist opposition and thought.

Millions of people were arrested and terrorized by the Red Guards, the Cultural Revolution’s paramilitary youth organization. Those arrested were forced to endure brutal “struggle sessions,” where they were tortured and humiliated in public.

By the time the revolution ended in 1976, possibly as many as three million people had been killed. The violence and persecution during the revolution was catastrophic, and the decade arguably ranks as one of China’s darkest periods.

10 The Execution Of Fang Zhongmou

Fang Zhongmou, a Communist Party member and veteran of the People’s Liberation Army, felt proud when her two older children got caught up in the furor of the Cultural Revolution and became Red Guards. Fang’s enthusiasm, however, began to wane after her daughter got sick and died following a trip she made to see a Mao Tse-tung rally in Beijing.

Her husband was then accused a few months later of being a capitalist roader, a vague Maoist slur which referred to somebody who was working to betray the ideals of the Communist Party and lead China to a capitalist system.

Due to a past accusation of her father being a Nationalist spy, it wasn’t long before Fang was suspected of being a dissident as well. Like her “capitalist-roader” husband, she was put in detention multiple times and subjected to struggle sessions by the authorities. While home one day in 1970, Fang angered her husband and her son Zhang Hongbing after criticizing Mao Tse-tung.

Fang’s family duly reported her to the authorities, and she set the family portrait of Mao on fire in retaliation. She was then taken away by a soldier but not before Hongbing beat her on orders from his father. For the crime of “attacking Chairman Mao Tse-tung,” Fang was executed by firing squad on April 11, 1970. Neither Hongbing nor his father attended the execution.

In the years following his mother’s death, Hongbing realized what a terrible thing he and his father had done. With the help of his uncle Feng Meikai, Hongbing was able to influence his province’s legal system to clear his mother’s name in 1980. He has since become a lawyer, active in raising awareness of the Cultural Revolution’s victims and fighting to have his mother’s grave turned into a memorial.

9 The Paralysis Of Deng Pufang

From ordinary peasants to high-ranking party members, nobody in China was truly safe during the Cultural Revolution. Not even Deng Xiaoping, the high-ranking leader best remembered for his post-Mao capitalist reforms in China in the 1980s, was safe from the revolution’s purges.

In 1967, while serving as the Communist Party’s general secretary, Deng was denounced as a capitalist roader and removed from his position. He then spent the next two years under house arrest in Beijing, forbidden to leave or see his children.

While the worst thing that most of his children suffered was being forced to work in the countryside, Deng’s oldest son, Pufang, became paralyzed after an encounter with the Red Guards. In 1968, a group of Red Guards captured Pufang on the campus of Beijing University and tortured him for the sole reason of being his father’s son.

After clubbing him, the Red Guards locked a dazed Pufang in a fourth-story room. Pufang has never been able to remember what happened next. Either his torturers pushed him out an open window or he attempted suicide by jumping out the window himself.

Fortunately, Pufang survived the fall. But he did break his back and become paralyzed. Since the Dengs were political pariahs, Pufang was denied the treatment he needed. By the time some specialists finally examined him in 1974, Pufang was already permanently paralyzed.

While still bound to a wheelchair today, Pufang has worked tirelessly the past few decades for the rights of the handicapped in China. In 2003, he was awarded the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights for his humanitarian efforts.

8 The Murder Of Bian Zhongyun

One of the earliest victims of the Cultural Revolution was Bian Zhongyun, a 50-year-old vice principal at the prestigious Beijing Normal University Girls High School. In June 1966, some of the school’s students began to criticize school officials and organize revolutionary meetings.

Bian’s college degree and bourgeois background made her a natural target for the revolutionaries, although many of them were ironically from privileged families themselves. Over the next two months, Bian was repeatedly harassed by her students and even beaten during a meeting.

On August 4 of that summer, Bian was tortured and warned not to come to school the next day. But she decided to come in that morning anyway. It was a courageous decision that would cost Bian her life.

First, her teenage students beat and kicked her. Then they whacked her with nailed-filled table legs. The attack was so terrible that Bian soiled herself and was knocked unconscious before dying of her wounds. Nobody was ever punished for her murder, and even today, the perpetrators have yet to step forward.

In January 2014, Song Binbin, a famous Red Guard and one of Bian’s students at the time she was killed, made a public apology for her death. Although Song claimed that she had no direct part in Bian’s beating, she felt guilty for not being able to stop it.

Some critics, however, felt the apology was insincere and that Song had a larger role than she was willing to admit. Bian’s husband, Wang Jingyao, was also not impressed with the apology. In one interview, he said that Song was a “bad person,” although he believed that the Communist Party and Mao Tse-tung were also responsible.

7 The Down To The Countryside Movement

The Down to the Countryside Movement was a massive relocation program that ultimately sent over 17 million young urban Chinese into rural areas across the country between 1968 and 1980. While some of these “sent-down youth” left the cities voluntarily, the vast majority were coerced against their will.

Due to a variety of factors, including urban unemployment and the Cultural Revolution’s disruption of the education system, Mao Tse-tung proclaimed in 1968 that it was “very necessary for the educated youth to go to the countryside and undergo reeducation by the poor peasants.”

Ideally, the relocation program would cultivate the sent-down youth’s commitment to party ideology and foster economic growth in underdeveloped areas. The young urbanites, fresh from high school, university, and even elementary school, were forced to endure backbreaking labor jobs and the extreme poverty common in the countryside at the time. Although some of the youth saw the policy as a great opportunity for adventure or patriotism, others resented the harsh work and poor living conditions and yearned to return home.

Most of the sent-down youth did eventually return home, but the many years they spent in the countryside remained lost. They’ve become known as a lost generation, an immense group of people who were denied the chance to finish school and maximize their potential. As one Beijing history professor put it, “From the perspective of a historian, from the perspective of the entire nation’s development, this period must of course be negated.”

6 The Ping-Pong Spies

Rong Guotuan, Fu Qifang, and Jiang Yongning were three of the biggest names in Chinese ping-pong during the 1950s and 1960s. Rong was especially popular, and he was considered a national hero for being the first Chinese to win the World Table Tennis Championships in 1959. Despite playing for the Chinese, all three men had originally come from Hong Kong, which at that time was controlled by the British.

As foreigners, the three ping-pong greats were deemed untrustworthy by their countrymen during the Cultural Revolution, and they were all accused of being spies in 1968. Fu was subjected to struggle sessions and beatings by his own teammates, and he eventually committed suicide on April 16 of that year.

Jiang would hang himself a month later. His hobby of reading newspapers, along with a childhood picture he had of himself wearing a Japanese flag during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, was enough to convince the authorities that Jiang was a Japanese spy.

Given the humiliating accusations against him, Rong decided to follow in Fu’s and Jiang’s footsteps. Early in the morning of June 20, Rong wrapped a rope around the branch of an elm tree and hanged himself. In his pants pocket, Rong left a note that pleaded for his innocence.

“I am not a spy,” he wrote, “Please do not suspect me. I have let you down. I treasure my reputation more than my own life.” The National Sports Commission remained unconvinced, however, insisting that the three men were operating a Hong Kong spy network.

5 The Death Of Lao She

Lao She, the pen name of the Manchu writer Shu Qingchun, is widely regarded as one of the greatest authors of modern Chinese literature. His 1937 novel Rickshaw Boy, the tragic story of a poor rickshaw puller in Beijing, is so popular that there’s a statue of the main character on the city’s Wangfujing Street. Such was the admiration for the “people’s artist,” as Lao She was nicknamed, that Chou En-lai, China’s first premier, asked him in 1949 to come back to China after he had moved to New York three years earlier.

On August 23, 1966, as the Cultural Revolution began to gain steam, Lao She and 20 other writers were transported to Beijing’s Temple of Confucius, where a mob of 150 teenage girls beat them with bamboo sticks and theater props in a brutal struggle session. Later that night, after the writers were taken to the city’s Culture Bureau offices, Lao She was beaten for hours without end after he refused to wear a placard that said he was a counterrevolutionary. Finally, around midnight, the mob stopped and Lao She was allowed to go home.

The next day, after earlier leaving his house in the morning, Lao She’s body was found drowned in a lake. It’s believed that the humiliation Lao She suffered during his struggle session drove him to kill himself, although his wife Hu Jieqing suspected that he was murdered.

The exact circumstances surrounding Lao She’s struggle session are shrouded in mystery. It’s uncertain who organized the session and whether Lao She attended voluntarily or against his will. If Lao She did go freely, he might not have known what the unidentified organizers—possibly a trio of younger writers who disliked him—were plotting.

4 The Dao County Massacre

In summer 1967, a rumor began to spread around Hunan Province’s Dao County that there was going to be an invasion of mainland China by Taiwan. The Kuomintang, Taiwan’s ruling party and the former rulers of China from 1928 until 1949, was allegedly going to cooperate with antirevolutionaries to take back the mainland.

The antirevolutionaries were also planning to conduct a massive purge in the county, wiping out all the members of the Communist Party and the peasant leaders in the local government. The invasion was a completely groundless rumor, but the county government’s confirmation that it was true set off a massacre that claimed the lives of over 4,500 people in only two months.

Many of the victims were members of the Five Black Categories, a group that the Communists identified as landlords, rich farmers, counterrevolutionaries, bad influencers, and rightists. Some of the victims were killed by armed militias in their own homes, while others were given a mock trial and then killed by mobs.

Victims were variously shot, decapitated, buried alive, and in some instances, blown up with explosives. The violence got so out of hand that it spread to nearby counties, eventually resulting in another 4,000 deaths.

When all was said and done, over 14,000 people were thought to have participated in the massacre in Dao County. By the 1980s, 52 of the participants had been arrested and given prison sentences, but the vast majority were never punished.

3 The Cleansing The Class Ranks Campaign

To “cleanse the class ranks” of counterrevolutionaries and capitalists, the Communist Party operated revolutionary committees nationwide to root out its perceived enemies. From 1968 until 1971, the committees launched a campaign of terror across the country. One area especially hit hard was Inner Mongolia, where an alleged secret Mongolian separatist party was said to be carrying out counterrevolutionary activities. Hundreds of thousands of people, mostly Mongolians, were arrested, maimed, or tortured. Another 22,900 people were killed.

Other provinces, such as Hebei and Zhejiang, also experienced huge purges. As part of a crackdown on an alleged Kuomintang spy ring, 84,000 people were arrested in Hebei. Over 2,900 suspects are recorded as having died from injuries they received from being tortured. In Yunnan, as estimated by the province’s Cleansing the Class Ranks Office, almost 7,000 people suffered “death from enforced suicide.”

The Cleansing the Class Ranks Campaign began to fizzle after only a year in 1969, although it lasted in some areas until 1971. The large-scale arrests and executions eventually unnerved Mao Tse-tung, who feared that the purges had gone too far and could hurt his public image.

2 Project 571

During the 1960s, the great general Lin Biao was one of Mao Tse-tung’s most trusted men. He was vice chairman of the Communist Party and Mao’s designated successor. While Lin survived the early purges of the Cultural Revolution unscathed, Mao became increasingly worried about his influence in the party. By 1971, Lin and his supporters had fallen out of favor with the Maoists, and Lin found himself isolated from the party leadership.

On September 13, 1971, Lin, his wife, and his son Liguo boarded a plane and tried to flee to the Soviet Union. The plane’s fuel was low, and the Lins were in such a hurry that they didn’t bother to bring a copilot or navigator with them. As government officials followed the plane on radar, it passed over Mongolia and then crashed. There were no survivors, and while the nine corpses that were aboard were scorched, autopsies conducted by the Soviet Union were later able to identify the remains of the Lins.

In the days before the crash, the Chinese government had uncovered a conspiracy by Lin Biao to launch a coup. The plot, code-named Project 571, also intended to assassinate Mao Tse-tung. According to the party’s account, the Lins attempted to escape China after the coup failed. Their plane crashed, however, after running into technical difficulties.

Despite what the Communist Party maintains, there is still a great deal of controversy over Project 571. Critics believe that it was Lin Liguo, not his father, who was probably the head of the conspiracy. In fact, Lin Biao might have been entirely innocent.

The cause of the plane crash has also been disputed. Some skeptics have suggested that the plane was sabotaged or shot down. Strangely, the plane’s pilot Pan Jingyin was posthumously given the honorary title of “Revolutionary Martyr.”

1 Cannibalism In Guangxi Province

According to the research of Zheng Yi, a Chinese dissident and writer, hundreds or possibly thousands of people were cannibalized in the province of Guangxi during the Cultural Revolution. During his time as a Red Guard in Guangxi, Zheng heard stories about the cannibalism, but he never witnessed any incidents himself. In the mid-1980s, Zheng returned to Guangxi to see if the stories had any truth to them. Shockingly, he found and interviewed many participants, and few of them spoke with any remorse or fear of reprisal.

Zheng found that the participants ate their victims not out of starvation but as a commitment to political ideology. Simply killing the revolution’s enemies wasn’t enough. They believed it was necessary to eat and completely destroy them.

Participants ate brains, feet, livers, hearts, and even genitals. They held human flesh barbecues and banquets with their friends and families. In Wuxuan County, where the cannibalism was most prevalent, victims would be stalked by crowds and then pounced upon. Some of the victims were cut and skinned while they were still alive.

In one incident in 1968, a man was beaten on the head, castrated, and then skinned and cut open alive by a mob. Children and elderly people also took part in the cannibalism. One old woman was infamous for cutting out and eating victims’ eyeballs. In another incident, a female teacher was killed by her students and barbecued at their school.

The incidents of cannibalism in Guangxi remained unknown outside of China until Zheng left the country and publicized the episode in his book Scarlet Memorial in 1993. The Chinese government has banned Zheng’s book, and even today, officials are reluctant to talk about what happened in Guangxi.

Tristan Shaw is an American blogger interested in crime, literature, and history. His first two books, Mexico’s Unsolved Mysteries and 20 Unsolved Mysteries of Japan, are now available on Amazon for Kindle.

Pope Alexander VI is often considered the most evil man ever to hold the papal office. He fathered seven children, helped his son Cesare invade Italy, poisoned his enemies, and held orgies inside the Vatican. His son and daughter were also lovers.

Today, he and his family—the infamous Borgias—are viewed as one of the most evil organizations in all of history. And yet, this family is responsible for some of the greatest contributions to human society. There are people and works of art that changed society so drastically that a world without them is almost impossible to imagine—and we owe every one of them to history’s most evil Pope.

10 Machiavelli’s The Prince

Machiavelli’s The Prince is one of the most famous political treatises ever written. Leaders from Napoleon to Mussolini and even Bill Clinton have all studied Machiavelli’s ideas on how to lead a nation.

Machiavelli, though, was studying Cesare Borgia, Alexander VI’s son, who led a conquering army into northern Italy. In the early 1500s, Machiavelli worked with Cesare and wrote letters of fawning adoration about him.

It was watching Cesare Borgia in action that inspired Machiavelli to write The Prince, which is based on Cesare’s tactics and ideas of politics. Since then, the history of the world has been shaped by men who have read the book.

9 The Mona Lisa

The Mona Lisa is probably the most influential work of art in the world today. It lures crowds of thousands to the Louvre to get a glimpse of it. But it wouldn’t have existed without the Borgias.

During Cesare Borgia’s invasion of Italy, Leonardo da Vinci worked as his chief engineer. Cesare gave da Vinci a passport ordering all who were shown it to obey da Vinci’s demands. Cesare also sent da Vinci through the Apennine Mountains—the area which would become the backdrop of the Mona Lisa.

Da Vinci started the painting in 1503 while still in Cesare’s employ. Although it took the notoriously slow da Vinci years to finish, the Mona Lisa would never have been created without the creative freedoms and inspiration the Borgias gave him.

8 The Borgia Apartments

Da Vinci and Machiavelli’s works were saved from Pope Julius II’s purge of everything associated with Alexander VI because they worked slowly. Their artwork wasn’t finished until after Alexander VI’s reign had ended, so they kept their place in the history books.

Others, like the painter Pinturicchio, were not as lucky. Commissioned by Pope Alexander VI to decorate his apartments, Pinturicchio filled them with works that were masterpieces in their day. They were dotted with fake jewels to create a unique, three-dimensional feel and filled with extravagant, religious imagery.

Then they were locked up and covered in black paint for nearly 400 years because they belonged to the Borgias. No one could see the artwork until 1889 when the Vatican finally reopened the apartments.

7 The First Painting Of A Native American

The Resurrection, one of Pinturicchio’s works, was particularly notable because it was the first painting of a Native American. Created in 1494, only two years after Columbus landed in the New World, it was likely the first view many Europeans had of an inhabitant of the New World.

Columbus wrote descriptions of the people in America in his journal, which he tried to keep a closely guarded secret. But that would have made its way into the hands of the Pope. According to modern scholars, Pinturicchio’s artwork shows every sign that he was given access to Columbus’s private journal and did his best to recreate what was written down.

6 The Spanish Conquest Of America

The history of the world would have been incredibly different if Spain had not colonized the Americas. As the conquistadores swept through the newly discovered continent, entire nations were wiped out and replaced by the Spanish Empire. The European colonization of the Americas had begun.

None of this would have happened without Alexander VI. When Columbus returned to Spain in 1493, Pope Alexander VI rejected the claims of other nations and issued a papal bull that gave the New World to Spain.

In return, the Spanish announced that all indigenous people of the Americas had to convert to Christianity or be forced into slavery, a law that led to the extinction of countless people and the extraction of a fortune from the New World.

Even though this might not have been a good thing, Alexander VI’s decision has shaped the geography and balance of power across the world ever since.

5 The University Of Aberdeen

The University of Aberdeen, one of the top universities in the world, has fostered five Nobel Laureates. None of them would have received the educations they did without Alexander VI.

In 1495, King James IV petitioned Alexander VI to issue a papal bull calling for the construction of a school in Scotland. James hoped to improve the educational standing of the country. Alexander VI agreed, and the school opened its doors.

Since then, it has grown so much that the original King’s College is just one old building in the center of a large campus. But the school never would have existed without the influence of the Borgias.

4 St. Peter’s Basilica

St. Peter’s Basilica is considered one of the holiest Catholic shrines and one of the most beautiful works of architecture on Earth. The building is placed upon what is believed to be St. Peter’s burial grounds. The Roman Emperor Constantine first set a cathedral on the site, but it was through the patronage of Alexander VI that the current one got its home.

Though the Church’s most famous architect is Michelangelo, St. Peter’s Basilica was planned by Donato Bramante, a member of the Borgias’ entourage. Bramante had close ties to Alexander VI, who helped foster his career and had him design cathedrals around the country.

Alexander VI persuaded Bramante and Michelangelo to work together on the new St. Peter’s Basilica, although it wasn’t completed until well after Alexander’s death.

3 The Modern Depiction Of Christ

When we picture Jesus Christ today, we usually think of a white man with long, straight, brown hair and a well-kept beard—an image that doesn’t exactly fit a Middle Eastern Jew.

Some have pointed out that the image does, however, fit someone else perfectly: Cesare Borgia. The paintings of Christ from the Renaissance look so much like the paintings of Cesare Borgia that some people have suggested that the paintings of Jesus Christ in our local churches may actually be paintings of Cesare.

With the Borgias’ close ties to the art world, the possibility of Cesare posing as a model while Michelangelo was painting Christ doesn’t seem that far-fetched. Granted, there isn’t much hard evidence for this, but the similarity between the paintings is so striking that it’s been noticed more than once.

2 Raphael’s Portrait Of A Lady With A Unicorn

In Raphael’s oeuvre is a mysterious painting of a blonde woman holding a baby unicorn. For a long time, this woman was unidentified. Now the woman is believed to be the daughter of Alexander VI’s mistress and, in all likelihood, his illegitimate child.

It’s a theory that fits nicely. Alexander VI was an avid patron of Raphael’s work, so it’s not too shocking that Alexander may have commissioned a painting of his daughter from Raphael.

However, when Julius II purged all Borgia art from the Vatican, he replaced it with new works of his own—works that he commissioned through Raphael. This led to Raphael creating the Vatican’s “Raphael Rooms,” which are often considered his masterpieces.

Some even think that Julius’s hatred of Alexander fueled Julius’s desire to become a patron of the arts in his own right. This would have had a major cultural impact as Julius II is often considered one of the greatest patrons in history.

1 The Modern European Monarchy

The Borgias aren’t really gone. The family lives on and holds as much power as ever, but we might not realize it. Alexander VI’s daughter, Lucrezia, has been linked as a direct ancestor to an astonishing number of European leaders, including the current kings of Spain (pictured), Bulgaria, Belgium, and Portugal.

Major historical figures are direct descendants of the Borgias. For example, England’s King Henry IV was the great-great-nephew of Cesare Borgia, making the Borgia blood a major part of the English monarchy.

Descendants of the Borgias live in almost every royal family in Europe today—meaning that the Borgia legacy hasn’t ended. Their names have changed, but they are still inside some of the most powerful homes throughout history, influencing decisions that have shaped every part of today’s world.

Mark Oliver is a regular contributor to . His writing also appears on a number of other sites, including The Onion’s StarWipe and Cracked.com. His website is regularly updated with everything he writes.

“Cultural importance” is a difficult quality to measure. Some cities are important for their contributions to art, architecture, or political theory. Others are important for their effect on the imagination or their place in literature. In some cases, cities had an enormous influence on their region for a time, but this influence is no longer felt today.

After taking all of these factors into account, the following ten cities stand out as the most important cultural capitals of the ancient world.

10 Cuzco

Cuzco, now a city in Peru, was once the capital of the Inca Empire, which reached its apex during the 15th century. Using Cuzco as a base, the Inca conquered territory all the way from Quito to Santiago—making their empire the largest in the world at the time. A mere 40,000 people came to control around ten million subjects, a form of overextension that the Spanish Conquistadors would later use to their advantage.

Cuzco itself is one of the oldest cities in the Western Hemisphere. Its most impressive remnant is the fortress of Sacsahuaman: It contains stones that weigh as much as 300 tons, and it took 20,000 laborers around 80 years to complete.

Cuzco was brought to its knees by European diseases such as smallpox (which killed 65–90 percent of the population) before the Europeans themselves even arrived.

9 Xanadu

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree . . . 

So begin the immortal lines by Coleridge, composed, like all good things, in the midst of an opium-fueled dream. But when we strip Xanadu from its romantic allure, what are we left with? Shangdu, China.

Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis, made Shangdu his capital toward the end of the 13th century. Coleridge’s poem, and Marco Polo’s lengthy description of the city after visiting in 1275, made it a byword for opulence. This probably gives us an exaggerated sense of its historical importance. Kublai Khan soon moved his capital to Zhongdu, though for a time, Shangdu remained the summer capital of the Mongol emperors of China.

“Xanadu” as a romantic idea nevertheless had a sizeable impact on Western culture.

8 Bukhara

The region around Bukhara, now the modern-day capital of Uzbekistan, has been inhabited for at least 5,000 years, and the city itself has existed for around half that time. It rose to prominence due to its strategic location on the Silk Road, which began to see commerce around 2,000 years ago.

Bukhara, along with nearby cities Samarkand and Tashkent, was a major staging point on this trade route. Under the Samanids, Bukhara became a center of Arabic learning, rivaled only by Baghdad. From around AD 900 onward, artists, poets, and scientists flocked there en masse. One scholar who was alive at the time called the city “the meeting-place of the unique figures of the age, the rising-place of the stars of the literary men of the world, and the forum for the outstanding personages of the time.”

However, travelers’ tastes differed even 1,000 years ago. Another poet of the period called Bukhara “the anus of the world.”

7 Babylon

Though its history can be traced back to at least 2000 BC, Babylon didn’t become a truly important cultural center until the rule of Nebuchadrezzar II (605–561 BC). At this time, Babylon was the largest city in the world.

At the city’s hub was Esagila, a temple complex dedicated to the god Marduk, and Etemenanki, a ziggurat that probably inspired the Biblical story of The Tower of Babel. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were considered to be one of the seven wonders of the world (though some recent research actually places the gardens at nearby Niniveh).

The city remained important under the Persians and had a brief revival under Alexander the Great, who made it a center of learning and commerce in his short-lived empire.

6 Baghdad

Baghdad did not become a major city until AD 762 , when the ‘Abbasid caliph al-Mansur made it his capital. The ‘Abbasids controlled a vast empire that stretched from modern-day Morocco in the west to Afghanistan in the east, and Baghdad quickly became the richest city in the world.

Baghdad was also a hub of culture and science. Ancient Greek texts were translated into Arabic, ensuring the preservation of works by Aristotle, Galen, and many others. Scholars such as Razi and al-Kindi made significant leaps in medicine, philosophy, and astronomy. An observatory established by the caliph Ma’mun was “probably the world’s first state-funded large-scale science project.”

Had it not been for Baghdad, it’s possible that the link between the ancient world and the present day would be much more tenuous.

5 Alexandria

Founded at the Nile Delta by Alexander the Great in 331 BC, Alexandria was also the largest city in the world for a time.

The city’s enormous lighthouse, the Pharos of Alexandria, was more than 110 meters (360 ft) high and remained standing as recently as the 12th century. The Mouseion, which housed the famous Library of Alexandria, was frequented by some of the greatest scholars of the age. Among them were Euclid (the father of geometry), Ptolemy (the famous geographer), Plotinus (the philosopher), and Archimedes, the man known for screaming, “Eureka!” (which he probably didn’t).

After the decline of the Western Roman Empire, many ancient texts were preserved in Alexandria before their translation into Arabic. In this bleak period between Rome’s decline and Islam’s rise, Alexandria was an island of reason in a sea of fanaticism.

Incidentally, it was in Alexandria that the Septuagint, the translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew to Greek, was produced.

4 Rome

This list would hardly be complete without Rome, which was undeniably a huge part of Western cultural development. We all know the story of the energetic Republic, its conquest of Europe, and its gradual sink into decadence under a series of (mostly) terrible emperors.

Hardly a branch of knowledge exists that hasn’t felt the influence of Roman thinkers. Art, architecture, law, politics, language—none of these would be the same if, say, Hannibal had sowed Latium with salt.

3 Athens

Athens was just as important as Rome, but it deserves a higher place on this list because many of Rome’s achievements depended on what the Romans learned from the Athenians. Athens’s influence on Western art and philosophy is unrivaled by any other city.

Had you been born to an aristocratic Athenian family in 480 BC, you would have spent your teenage years watching the plays of Aeschylus, performed by the “father of tragedy” himself. In adulthood, you would have met the younger playwrights Sophocles and Euripides. Aristophanes the comedian as well as the historians Herodotus and Thucydides would have attended your drinking parties. Socrates would have pestered you in the marketplace. The entire career of Pericles, the great general just 15 years your senior, would have played out before you.

Finally, in your old age, you would have seen Athens defeated by Sparta and its allies and Socrates put to death by his fellow citizens. In a single lifetime, you would have witnessed the entire golden age of the city and the development of Western civilization as we know it.

2 Knossos

Knossos was established before 2,000 BC by the Minoans, who eventually formed a unified civilization on the island of Crete. The Minoans were consummate traders and artists, and their achievements in pottery and architecture soon spread to other regions in the Mediterranean. They were the earliest civilization of this type in Europe, and it can be argued that Knossos was the birthplace of European “high culture.”

Knossos was also the location of several important milestones in the history of writing. Linear A (a writing system) was invented by the Minoans. The Mycenaeans, who later invaded Crete, adapted this mode of writing into Linear B, the earliest attested form of Ancient Greek.

1 Varanasi

This may be a controversial choice for the number one slot, but who can deny the influence of Varanasi on the cultural and religious history of Asia?

One of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world (dating from at least 2,000 BC), Varanasi is the religious capital of Hinduism. It is also one of the most important sites for Buddhists: Gautama Buddha is said to have given his first ever sermon in the vicinity of the city. Jains consider Varanasi to be a pilgrimage site, and the city also played an important role in the development of Sikhism.

Varanasi’s cultural influence continues to this day. Many Hindus choose to die here, in the belief that meeting their end on the banks of the Ganges will free them from the cycle of rebirth. Varanasi also remains important as a center of art and music.

Michel Fermor is an explorer, mountaineer, and history addict.

People have lived along the Nile since the Paleolithic, or Stone Age. Tools recovered there date inhabitation as far back as 700,000 years ago. With such a storied history, the stage was set long ago for the development of a fascinating civilization.

10 The Daily Temple Ritual

To keep the universe running smoothly, a small army of holy men tended to the gods’ every whim with daily offerings across Egypt’s many temples.

Each temple housed a particular god in the form of an enshrined statue that had gone through an “opening of the mouth” ritual to imbue it with the quintessence of a deity’s spiritual entity. These gods received the rock star treatment from priests of varying rank and allegiance who made daily offerings of food, drink, and gifts. The priests also sang hymns and even washed and clothed the gods.

Ceremonies ranged in complexity. At Karnak, the daily procedure to venerate king-god Amun-Ra consisted of more than 60 formulae, or points of focus, including the application of oils, incense, and eye paint. There was also a yoga-like set of poses and strict guidelines for anointing the god-statue with kisses.

9 The Holy Colors

The Egyptians produced a variety of quality handicrafts, which found their way throughout the ancient world. Based on an unassuming blue bead found in the grave of an extravagantly buried Danish woman in Olby, some items made it to Scandinavia as early as 3400 BC.

Plasma-spectrometry is used to detect the tiniest traces of elements without damaging the source material, and such analysis credits the beads to the Egyptian glass workshop at Amarna. In Egypt, blue symbolized the primeval sea from which creation bloomed. Abroad, glass fetched a high price and accompanied elite burials.

In exchange, Nordic peoples sent back their abundant amber, another mystical substance due to its sunlike sheen. Representing the Sun’s glory, pieces of sacred amber were interred with many pharaohs. According to researchers, the intermingling of items may have even shaped spiritual beliefs in Scandinavia.

8 Workers Signed Their Creations

Egypt’s laborers and draftsmen often marked their monuments with a spot of personal graffiti, sometimes humorous, to brag about the amazing structure they had just raised.

Thanks to informal graffiti records, researchers can piece together how workers tackled Egypt’s massive, man-crushing projects. First, they were organized by the thousands and then into smaller and smaller subdivisions, each assigned to a certain task.

Each gang—they’re literally called “gangs”—of workers adopted a moniker and suffixed their signature with the name of the king. This produced whimsical team names like “The Drunkards of Menkaure.”

This graffiti adorns tombs, pyramids, and other monuments. Some items bear different gang names on opposite sides, suggesting that the workforces competed in nonviolent gang wars to outbuild their peers.

7 Egypt’s Female Physicians

The ancient Egyptians were fairly keen on gender equality. Women enjoyed many liberties that disappeared in successive cultures, such as the right to own property (including slaves) and to execute legal documents.

Furthermore, women were well respected in professions that have become much more male-centric in modern times, such as medicine. Records reveal at least 100 Egyptian female physicians, including history’s first named female doctor, chief physician Merit Ptah, who practiced nearly 5,000 years ago.

Inscriptions on tombs tell of Peseshet, another great woman of similar renown. Peseshet was not only a physician but the overseer of physicians. As supervisors or clinicians, Merit Ptah, Peseshet, and other female doctors were much esteemed and ultimately immortalized in hieroglyphics.

6 The Blue Water Lily

The blue water lily (aka Nymphaea caerulea) oozed religious significance. A creation myth asserted that a primordial water lily emerged from the unformed chaos of the pre-universe and spawned the Sun god, progenitor of all life.

The flowers unfurl their petals each morning to display their golden centers before closing again in the afternoon. This daily cycle emulates that of the Sun. So the lilies are like tiny versions of the Sun god and the perfect sacred icon to ornament monuments and temples.

Images also depict denizens holding the lilies to their faces, sniffing them, or consuming lily-laced wine. Shamans also used the lilies medicinally and ritually to attain trancelike states. More recent research shows that the lily and its brethren plants contain a vasodilating ingredient that can battle erectile dysfunction, possibly explaining its appearance in erotic art.

5 The Egyptian Diet

To find out what the Egyptians ate, French researchers analyzed the ratio of two carbon isotopes in 45 mummies from disparate time periods from 3500 BC to AD 600. Certain plants draw in the carbon isotope carbon-12, while others “prefer” the heavier carbon-13. Since animals also eat plants, the carbon variants can elucidate Egyptian meat consumption.

As evidenced by the carbon makeup of their diets, which skewed vegetarian, the Egyptians noshed mainly on plants. Even though the Nile became increasingly arid, expert irrigation techniques provided plentiful plant-based foodstuffs.

Primarily, Egyptians followed a carb-laden, wheat, and barley-heavy diet, supplementing it with a touch (less than 10 percent) of Old World starches like sorghum and millet. Despite all the textual and hieroglyphic evidence for fishing, the Egyptians surprisingly ate very little seafood.

4 Egyptian And Nubian Culture Mash-up

Discovered in former Upper Nubia, the tomb of a middle-class Nubian woman suggests that the Egyptian and Nubian cultures freely intermingled after the former conquered the latter in 1500 BC.

According to researchers, the yet-to-be-deceased enjoyed the freedom to customize the burial they’d receive. For example, the aforementioned woman chose the funerary pupu platter. She was interred in an Egyptian tomb but eschewed the sarcophagus for a bed, a Nubian practice.

Similarly, she forwent the traditional Egyptian mummification process. Instead, as per Nubian convention, she was placed on her side in a pose similar to the fetal position. Finally, she shunned the ivory death jewelry favored by her compatriots and is rocking an Egyptian amulet around her neck. The amulet is emblazoned with the image of Bes, the domestic protector-god.

3 Health Problems In The Capital

Hieroglyphs showing the Egyptian good life are lies. This was deduced from the human remains in a cemetery in Tell el-Amarna, the former capital under Akhenaton. He was the pharaoh who unsuccessfully attempted a permanent switch to monotheism and successfully fathered King Tut.

The skeletons at the cemetery paint the average Egyptian capital-dwellers of more than 3,000 years ago as tinier and sicklier than expected. The collection of hobbit-sized bones revealed an average male height of 158 centimeters (5’2″) with females standing a few centimeters shorter.

The skeletons also show signs of overexertion and a clinical want of protein. Bone fractures were common, as were spinal injuries from the grueling workload. Younger populations were plagued with stunted growth and high juvenile death rates, with 74 percent of the children and teens displaying anemia, an affliction apparent in 44 percent of the adult population.

2 Marriage

Even though premarital sex was not considered taboo, a social expectation to marry existed. Egyptians did so at an early age, often before their 20th birthdays.

However, the state and religion had no influence regarding any facet of marriage. Rather, Egyptian matrimony resembled a social contract that regulated property, with each member legally entitled to their premarital possessions as well as joint ownership of anything that the couple procured while married.

Thanks to the egalitarian concept of Egyptian marriage, women could just as easily request a divorce as men—for just about any reason. In fact, women seem to have had the advantage. In female-initiated splits, the woman kept her possessions as well as up to two-thirds of the former couple’s joint property.

Divorce was common. But many people remarried afterward because neither divorce nor remarriage was considered unacceptable. As bureaucratic as it all sounds, texts and images paint the Egyptians as a romantic, compassionate, monogamous people.

1 The Aphrodisiac Lettuce

On the list of historical aphrodisiacs, lettuce looks the most like a typo. The first tomb depictions of the leafy green date to almost 5,000 years ago. Somehow around 2000 BC, it took on a sexual significance and became the calling card of Min, the god of fertility.

Supposedly, the imaginative Egyptians noted that lettuce stalks emerge from the ground straight and erect, resembling a certain part of the male anatomy. So they associated it with Min. Also, a chunk of lettuce cut at the base secretes a white, milky substance which the Egyptians likened to life-bearing liquids like mother’s milk or semen.

Odder still, the Egyptians didn’t generally eat lettuce. They disposed of the bitter leaves and pressed the seeds, wringing out a healthful oil used for medicinal purposes, cooking, and even the preparation of mummies.

Food is one of those things that transcends cultural boundaries. Everybody eats, and one of the greatest gestures of goodwill toward another person is sharing your food with them. But as much as we all love trying new dishes, most people would balk at the idea of slurping down an emulsified animal or a tortilla that’s literally crawling.

If you’re eating anything right now, you might want to stop.

10 Ptarmigan Droppings

Ptarmigans are large birds that live in the Arctic and look sort of like a more graceful version of a chicken. They’re a valuable source of food to the Inuit in Northern Canada because, unlike the Arctic’s migratory animals, they stick around through the harsh winters. In a region where hunters can go months without bringing in a large game haul, a readily available food source is worth its weight in gold.

Because of that, the Inuit have found ways to use every single part of the ptarmigan—even its feces. But ptarmigan droppings aren’t a trail nibble that you can pick up for a quick snack on your way to the closest seal nursery. There’s a very delicate procedure for making the dish taste right. Before anything else, the droppings are collected in winter and brought inside to thaw and dry out. (The fresh stuff doesn’t have the right flavor.)

Next, you need to kill a seal.

Cut the raw seal into chunks, chew on the chunks, and spit the chewed pieces into a bowl. If you feel like spitting some extra saliva into the bowl, it’s all the better. At this point, you can combine the dried ptarmigan droppings with the masticated seal meat, stir well, and drop in some rancid seal oil for extra flavor. According to people who have tried it, it doesn’t taste that bad.

9 Jumiles

Every November, families all over Taxco, Mexico, gather for one of the most important culinary celebrations of the year. During the festivities, the city comes to life. The tantalizing aromas of hot corn tortillas, fresh-ground chilies, and ripe tomatoes waft from building to building, and the markets pulse with vendors hawking their dishes to the visitors crowding their city streets. And if you stop at one of the many food stalls for a quick bite to eat, you won’t get away without a heaping handful of the main ingredient—live stink bugs.

Known as jumiles, these green, crunchy insects are a culinary treat in Southwestern Mexico. They appear en masse in November and stick around until the end of February, during which time the locals will harvest them by the basketful. Live jumiles are usually added to tacos, but they can also be ground into salsa, fried in their own oily secretions, grilled, roasted, toasted, or boiled. If you don’t want to wait, nobody will look twice if you simply pop a live jumile into your mouth. The taste is often described as “cinnamon-like.”

8 Shiokara

To unindocrinated Westerners, the pinnacle of Japanese cuisine is sushi. If you’re feeling really adventurous, you might try slapping your chopsticks down on some odori don, but that’s usually as far as it goes.

It’s a shame, because Japanese food gets much more diverse than that. Take shiokara, for example. Shiokara is seafood served in its own fermented entrails. The result is a sort of lumpy, chewy, pungent slurry in various hues of beige, depending on what animal was used to make the dish. The most common version is ika-no shiokara, which is made from squid, although there are dozens of different varieties. It’s usually served with booze, and the conventional wisdom is to take a large bite of shiokara followed immediately by an even larger gulp of sake or whiskey.

7 Cobra Hearts

On Mangga Basar Street in Jakarta, the cobra stalls open near sunset and stay busy into the wee hours of the morning. Here, customers can partake in one of Indonesia’s most unique and grotesque medicinal practices—a shot of fresh cobra blood mixed with palm liquor.

The setup is simple. Next to each stall is a cage writhing with angry black cobras. When a customer is ready, the vendor whips out his trusty butcher’s knife and lops off the head of the calmest cobra he can grab. Then, in front of the customer, the vendor holds the snake’s body upside down and squeezes every last ounce of bright red blood into a glass, all the while chatting about the myriad health benefits of the sanguine slurry. These include increased sexual stamina for men and firm breasts and clear skin for women, to name a few. These guys make up to $100 a night. After the snake has been completely drained, it’s filleted, and the meat hits the grill, shish-kebab style.

In Vietnam, cobra blood nightcaps get even more hardcore. The setup is mostly the same, but instead of lopping off the cobra’s head, they tear out the cobra’s still-beating heart and chuck it into a glass filled with the snake’s blood and a few shots of rice wine.

6 Bodog

Even in the 21st century, Mongolia maintains a strong nomadic culture that still practices the customs of their ancestors, many of which began in the era of the great Mongolian Khans. Faced with the ever-changing world outside of their isolated steppe between China and Russia, nomadic Mongolians have found ways to integrate patchwork technologies with their traditional way of life. It’s almost like stepping into the 13th century only to find that a time traveler has beat you to it: You travel on horseback to a small village, where children play barefoot and water is still pumped by hand. However, beside each round, tent-like ger is a gleaming solar panel, so goat herders can move around and still have electricity.

While much of Mongolian life has caught up with the times, some traditions are entirely unchanged from the way they were centuries ago. Bodog is one of these bastions of the past. Also called Mongolian barbecue, bodog is a dish made by cooking goat meat inside the goat’s own hide. It’s an intricate process that takes hours of preparation and still more hours of slow cooking. After a goat is killed and beheaded, it’s hung by the top of its severed spine while the chef painstakingly removes every bone, organ, and scrap of meat from the inside of the hide, taking care not to pierce the goat’s skin. The viscera is dropped in steaming hunks for the dogs to pick off the snow-dusted ground, while the meat and bones are laid aside and seasoned.

Eventually, the goat becomes an empty sack, which means that it’s time to start cooking. Hot stones from a fire are stuffed into the dangling limb cavities, followed by a layer of meat, and then more hot stones, layer by layer until the goat is full. Then, it’s tied shut at the neck and left to cook from the inside out. Periodically, the whole package is seared on the outside until the fur has burned off, and the former goat has become a white balloon inflated with the steam from the cooking meat’s juices. It is now a bodog.

5 Frog Juice

Peru is one of the most geographically diverse countries in the world. From the lush Amazonian lowlands to the windswept peaks of the towering Andes and down again to pearl-white beaches brushed like a painting along the rim of the Pacific, it’s a country that offers anything and everything, a visual casserole of nature’s most savage beauty. It’s the home of ancient Machu Picchu, the ice pyramid Alpamayo, and the mysterious Nazca lines of the Sechura Desert. It is, in most respects, a very cool place to visit.

But what isn’t cool is a tradition that you’ll find happening every day at open-air markets in Lima, the capital city. Here, vendors prepare a special concoction that has its roots in centuries of Peruvian folklore and mysticism—jugo de rana, or “frog juice.” Simply put, it’s a frog thrown into a blender with a dash of spices and herbs and a squirt of honey. It’s supposed to be good for everything from anemia to erectile dysfunction. When it’s made with an endangered species of frog called the scrotum water frog, it’s called “Peruvian Viagra.” However, any frog can feature as the main ingredient, and they’re used indiscriminately regardless of conservation status.

According to the BBC, vendors can sell over 100 of these smoothies each day, each one with a freshly blended frog as the creamy centerfold. The fact that the drink’s sale continues so openly is a prime example of the clash between tradition and modern conservation laws that’s become an issue in Peru of late. If 10 jugo de rana stalls are closed down one week, 10 more open up the next week. It’s an effort akin to staying dry in a hurricane by swatting raindrops, but if the practice isn’t curbed, enitre species of Amazonian frogs could go down the hatch in the time it takes to chug a mug of slimy, green, frog-flavored Viagra.

4 Wasp Crackers

At the beginning of 2015, a few photos started to make the rounds on the Internet. They showed a cracker with dead wasps baked right into it, sort of like chocolate chips. Far from being a hoax, these wasp crackers are real and apparently pretty popular around Omachi, Japan.

More of a fad than any kind of delicacy, the crackers are made from digger wasps that are harvested from the wild. The wasps are thrown into a pot of boiling water, dried, and then added to the traditional mix used to make rice crackers, or senbei. Supposedly, the idea was started by a group in Omachi who hooked up with a local bakery to create the crunchy treats. According to RocketNews24, a Japanese news blog, the wasps taste like bitter raisins, and the only real downside is that every now and then you might get a leg stuck between your teeth.

3 Dragon In The Flame Of Desire

China’s cuisine doesn’t beat around the bush. The food is vibrant, in your face, and full of life, a culinary kaleidoscope cultivated from centuries of historic tradition. According to the old Chinese saying, they’ll eat anything with four legs except a table, and our money’s on the six- and eight-legged critters, too. However, even in China, some dishes are considered a rarity. The Guolizhuang Restaurant has had a particularly hard time getting its dishes into the mouths and hearts of Beijing’s citizens for very good reason: They’re all made out of penis.

When you order a dish such as “The Essence of the Golden Buddha,” “Lotus Flowers with 1,000 Layers,” or “Dragon in the Flame of Desire,” what you get is an ox penis, a donkey penis, or a yak penis, respectively. Every dish on the menu is some sort of penis, except for the testicle entrees. The menu also offers a single dish made from tiger penis, although it comes with a hefty price tag of $5,700 and has to be ordered months in advance so that the relevant parts can be procured. If you aren’t sure which particular penis you’d prefer, you can order the “hotpot” which, with six types of penis and four testicles, is like the Applebee’s sampler plate of genitalia.

2 Snake Wine

If you travel anywhere in Southeast Asia, there’s a good chance that you’ll stumble across a bottle of snake wine at some point. Found everywhere from Ho Chi Minh City to Hong Kong, snake wine comes from a long tradition of holistic medicine. It’s said that the snake infuses the liquor with healing properties which can treat anything from skin conditions to arthritis. The medicinal effect is believed to come from the snake’s venom seeping into the wine.

Whether or not that’s true, there’s definitely something morbid about the sight of a curled-up snake floating in a jar of amber booze. According to Vice, the production of snake wine is even more unsettling. A live snake is coaxed into a bottle, and the alcohol—usually rice wine—is poured on top of it, drowning the snake alive. A shot of the stuff certainly packs a bite, but it’s not always from the alcohol. There have been several stories of people making snake wine at home, only to find the snake still alive after months of storage. In 2013, a woman in China supposedly went to the hospital when the viper in her wine leaped out and bit her.

1 Virgin Boy Eggs

For centuries, spring has hailed the arrival of one of the most revered traditions in Dongyang, China. As the weather warms, and the first signs of greenery begin to grace to hillsides, egg vendors make their yearly pilgrimage to the region’s elementary schools. There, they’ll find rows of buckets laid out for them, all ready to pile into their trucks for transport back to their market stalls.

Over the next few days, a new scent will fill the air. It’s the “smell of spring,” according to some Dongyang residents. And if you wander down the city’s streets, you’ll probably see large pots filled with eggs simmering in a clear, yellowish liquid.

It’s the urine of young boys.

Virgin boy eggs have been a part of Dongyang’s culinary heritage for hundreds of years. Nobody can remember how the practice came about, or why the urine has to come from boys, but that’s the way their parents did it, so that’s the way they do it. Once the urine is collected from schools (the boys are encouraged to urinate in the buckets instead of in toilets), eggs are dropped into the pots and boiled. Then, the eggs’ shells are cracked, and the eggs are dropped back in to soak for a few more hours. It takes a day to make a batch of virgin boy eggs, and they sell for twice the price of a regular boiled egg.

[WARNING: This list contains disturbing footage.] Archaeological finds have shown that people have been modifying their bodies in interesting ways for much of human history. Body modification remains popular today, and while it can be something as ubiquitous as an ear-piercing or tattoo, some cultures have taken it a step further.

The cultures that appreciate body modification are widespread throughout history, and some of them are far more extreme than others. These ten examples are truly some of the most fascinating examples of cultural body modification.

See Also:Top 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Yourself

10 Neck Elongation

Neck Elongation is the practice of placing neck rings around a woman’s neck at various points throughout her life to achieve an ideal standard of beauty. Over time, they stack and create the illusion of a long neck, as they don’t physically lengthen the neck. Instead, they push the clavicle and ribs down, making it look as if the neck is longer than it truly is.

Over time, the rings’ weight twists the collarbone and upper ribs 45º lower than where they would naturally be. Neck elongation is found in African and Asian cultures, though they are likely best known in the Kayan Lahwi Tribe in Myanmar.

Kayan girls wear brass collars as early as two to five years old. Over time, they add rings as the girl ages, creating the bones’ deformity that results in the illusion of neck elongation. The practice was first described to the West by Marco Polo, who wrote about it in 1300 AD.

The modification to the body is permanent. While removing the rings is possible, it can result in death if done incorrectly. Simply removing them often causes pain, so for most women, the addition of rings is a permanent choice.^[1]

9 Lip Plates

It’s relatively common in the West to see people placing successively larger gauges in their earlobes to create large holes, but the practice isn’t new. In some parts of Africa, increasingly larger disks made from clay or wood are placed into a pierced lower lip (sometimes upper) until a large lip plate can be worn.

The practice was independently invented at least six times in Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Mesoamerica, and Ecuador, with Africans starting as far back as 8700 BC. The placement of lip plates continues in various places around the world, though it is most common in Ethiopia.

The Mursi and Surma people who inhabit the lower Omo River valley begin the process about six to 12 months before marriage. This is usually around the age of 15 to 18 when the lip is first pierced. At this time, a wooden peg is inserted.

Over time, the peg is replaced by larger pegs, and eventually, a plate is inserted into the hole. The size of the plate depends on any of several factors, though the largest one ever recorded, in 2014, measured 23.4″ (59.5 cm) in circumference and 7.6″ (19.5 cm) wide.^[2]

8 Blackening & Filing Teeth

The Bagobo people of the Southern Philippines in Mindanao are an ancient tribe who have inhabited the region for centuries and is credited with bringing Hinduism to the area. While many members of the tribe have embraced modern life, some continue their traditional practices, including sharpening and blackening their teeth as a rite of passage for young Bagobo.

When a Bagabo youth reaches the age of puberty, they have their teeth filed by placing their heads against the person carrying out the sharpening. They then bite down on a stick, and the teeth are filed, leaving only the stump of the tooth, ending in a sharp point.

Once the filing is completed, the teeth are then blackened to complete the process. To darken the teeth, powder created from a tree or black smoke passed through bamboo is applied to the teeth, which blackens them.

Throughout this process, the person having the treatment done is not allowed to drink any water, nor can they eat sour food. They are also prohibited from attending a funeral, so their less-than-pristine teeth don’t cause offense.^[3][4]

7 Circumcision

These days, people don’t often think about circumcision as anything more than a simple medical procedure. Still, the practice has a long history, and it very much is a form of cultural body modification. Circumcision is a form of genital mutilation that involves removing the skin (prepuce) covering the tip of the penis.

It’s most commonly performed shortly after birth. In many hospitals throughout the West, it’s common to circumcise a child without any cultural or religious stipulation. Despite this, the practice is deeply rooted in history and has been conducted by numerous cultures around the world.

Circumcision and other forms of genital mutilation began in eastern Africa sometime after 3,000 B.C. Early uses of circumcision likely centered around the fact that a man’s foreskin is the location of their primary erogenous sensation. Removing it may have been seen as a sacrifice of enjoyment in life for a potentially better afterlife.^[5]

The ancient practice was carried into modern times via Jewish customs, which continue to conduct circumcisions on newborn boys, eight days following birth. Judaism ascribes circumcision as a commandment honoring of the covenant between Abraham and God.

6 Scarification

One of the oldest known practices of body modification is tattooing. Still, another similar process of creating images on the skin is called scarification. The process involves cutting, branding, scratching, or etching images into the skin. Doing so creates permanent scars in the desired image.

The reasons someone might use scarification over tattooing are various, though there are several potential cultural reasons. They could be done as a rite of passage, for religious reasons, or for social reasons. In that respect, scarification is found more often in dark-skinned cultures, as the resulting images are easier to see than traditional tattoos.

There are numerous cultures worldwide, and throughout history, that have utilized some form of scarification for various reasons. It is most commonly found in sub-Saharan Africa, West Africa, and East Africa, including the Gonja, Tiv, and Maasai people.

Regardless of the methods used, scarification is inherently more dangerous than tattooing. The skin is subjected to a much larger trauma, and the risk of infection is substantially greater. Additionally, the process takes much longer than tattooing due to the need to heal between treatments.^[6][7]

See Also: 10 Horrifically Botched Circumcisions

5 Fingertip Removal—Dani Village, New Guinea

There are several instances of fingertip removal across various cultures in history, with Yakuza members being one known to many around the world. Another culture that practices removing portions of the finger is the secretive tribe of the Dani found deep in the jungles of Indonesia.

Whenever a loved one dies, female members of the tribe have the upper half of their fingers amputated, in a process called Ikipalin. This is done as part of a ritual meant to ward off spirits. It is believed that removing the upper part of the finger helps to keep the deceased person’s restless spirit away from the family.

Additionally, it is meant to be a symbol of the pain of bereavement, and it doesn’t stop with adult women. In some cases, the mothers will bite the tips of the fingers off of their own babies to have them take part in the practice.

The Indonesian government banned fingertip removal, but members in Western New Guinea are believed to continue the practice. Older women are often found to be missing parts of their fingers, which suggests Ikipalin continues in some areas of the country.^[8]

4 Genital Beading

Genital Beading or Pearling is a form of body modification believed to have originated in Southeast Asia sometime in the early 1400s. A more famous account of Pearling came from members of the Yakuza, who insert a single pearl for each year they are imprisoned.

Pearling involves permanently inserting small beads beneath the skin of the genitals. It is most commonly done by men who insert pearls in the penis’ shaft, though women have been known to do it directly under the labia’s skin. There are several reasons a person might do this; however, it is commonly done to enhance sexual pleasure during vaginal or anal intercourse.

Historically, pearls were used in the practice, hence the name, though any material can be used, including gold and ivory. In modern times, Teflon, surgical steel, titanium, and silicon are used, as they are the safest option for permanent insertion into the body.^[9]

These days, it’s common for Filipino sailors, who largely do Pearling to curry favor with prostitutes. “Filipino seaman are famous for them… that’s why they [women in port] like us, why they keep asking for us. When they hear that Filipinos are coming, they’re happy.”^[10]

3 Female Genital Mutilation

While removal of the prepuce in boys only lessens their erogenous pleasure during sex, female genital mutilation aims to destroy it altogether. The practice involves the partial or complete removal of the clitoral hood, clitoral glans, inner & outer labia, and the vulva’s closure, leaving a small opening for the passage of urine and menstrual blood.

While most people around the world consider female genital mutilation to be barbaric, that hasn’t stopped it from being carried out on an estimated 200 million women living in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.^[11]

The practice began long ago, but the origins remain unknown. It is believed that female genital mutilation may have been practiced in ancient Egypt’s Middle Kingdom period, which would set the custom as far back as 2050 B.C. Evidence has been found in hieroglyphics, though it hasn’t been found on mummies from the period.

It is known that Egypt continued the practice well into the 2nd and 3rd-century. Pilio of Alexandria wrote that “the Egyptians by the custom of their country circumcise the marriageable youth and maid in the fourteenth (year) of their age when the male begins to get seed, and the female to have a menstrual flow.”^[12]

2 Foot Binding

Foot binding is the Chinese custom of wrapping a young girl’s feet tightly so that over time, they change shape and size. The practice is believed to have originated among upper-class dancers in the 10th century but became popular over time among the elite during the Song dynasty. By the Qing dynasty, the practice spread to all classes in China.

When a woman’s feet were bound in this manner, they were considered to be exhibiting a beauty standard called lotus feet. There were various means of carrying out the practice, but the end result was often the same: the feet were smaller and had the toes tucked unnaturally beneath the sole.

The process began before the arch fully formed and could begin with girls as young as four. They would begin in the winter months to take advantage of the cold’s numbing effect and soak the feet in a mixture of herbs and animal blood. The nails would then be cut back as far as possible, and bandages were used to tightly bind the feet until the toes broke.

Once broken, the toes were held tightly against the foot’s sole, and the arch was then broken. The process was maintained and repeated for years until the foot’s shape was completely altered. Fortunately, the practice concluded in the 20th century.^[13]

1 Head Shaping

Head Shaping, or artificial cranial deformation, is an ancient form of body modification that aimed to alter the skull’s formation through flattening or binding. The practice could only be done before a child’s fontanel closing during the normal growth process.

Head shaping predates written history, and several cultures around the world have been found to practice it. Evidence has been found in Proto-Neolithic humans’ bones dating as far back as 9000 BC, where skulls have been found to be elongated to a near conical shape.

The earliest written record of the process comes from Hippocrates’ writings, who named the Macrocephali (long-heads) as practitioners around 400 BC. In the Americas, the Maya and Incans reshaped their children’s heads, as did some Native American tribes in North America.^[14]

People in France practiced head shaping until the late 19th century. They would bind an infant’s head in a tight bandage, which was left in place for two to four months. The bandage was replaced with a fitted basket, which would be strengthened as the child grew using metal threads.

The Vanuatu people of Tommen Island continued head binding well into the 20th century, though the practice has widely been abandoned in the 21st century.^[15]

See Also: Top 10 Human Sideshow Freaks