Bones record history in their own way. Whether they splinter, show up in odd places, or provide DNA, ribs and all the rest are packed with information.

In recent years, archaeologists handled fascinating rarities, some seen for the first time. Some of the skeletons displayed the ironic fate of one of history’s cruelest physicians, a weird Roman town, and duels at the bottom of a lake. Individual bones also revealed stories from prehistory, tools made from humans, and the reason why ancient women could have beaten the championship-level rowers of today.

10 The Butchered Sloth

In 2000, a farmer found bones at Campo Laborde in Argentina. They belonged to an extinct species of sloth. This was not the modern kind that hangs on a branch all day. Megatherium americanum weighed over 4 tons and stood 3 meters (10 ft) tall.

Archaeologists found evidence, including a butchering knife, that the animal had been hunted and slaughtered at the site. Although it was suspected that humans preyed on giant sloths, Campo Laborde presented the first proof.

Additionally, the sloth’s age was important. It belonged to a group of ultra-large mammals called megamammals. Around 12,000 years ago, about 90 percent died out. The wave of extinction was epic, sweeping through all the continents except for Africa.

When dating techniques placed the sloth at 9,700 to 6,750 years old, it appeared that the species had managed to escape the die-off. In 2016 and 2017, the bones were redated with more sophisticated equipment. The new date of 12,600 years old suggested that sloths got crushed with the rest and humans were among the factors that drove the wave.^[1]

9 Epic Pig Roasts

In 2019, a study was released about pigs that failed to survive barbecues. The swine in question lived in Britain during the Stonehenge era (2800–2400 BC). When researchers analyzed the bones, they found something unexpected.

The fact that pork roasts happened at ceremonial sites around Stonehenge is old news. Leftovers at places like Durrington Walls and Marden proved that the epic feasts happened, but the new study wanted to know where the pigs came from. In turn, this would reveal more about those who owned them.

For a long time, it was assumed that the animals started out as local piglets. Nobody truly believed that pig drives were possible, as was done with cattle over a long distance. However, when the barbecued bones were analyzed, results showed that the vast majority of pigs were born elsewhere, including Scotland and Wales.

Researchers were never sure of the barbecues’ true purpose, but this gave a strong clue. The feasts tightened the social networks from all over the island. Since the pig drives demanded considerable effort, researchers believe that these meetings—and pork—were important to those who attended.^[2]

8 The Speared Rib

There is plenty of evidence that people grazed on mammoth meat. However, there was no direct evidence of hunting. Head-scratching theorists suggested that ice age tribes trapped the animals or drove them off cliffs. These were likely scenarios considering that mammoths were not exactly sheep-sized.

In 2002, researchers rooted around in a mammoth bonanza. Over the years, Krakow, Poland, had churned out around 110 mammoths. Among the remains, aged between 30,000 and 25,000, was a rib. Stuck in the bone was a flint fragment. Despite what it suggested, the bone was not properly analyzed until 2018 when it became the first proof that mammoths were hunted with weapons.

The flint belonged to the tip of a light spear called a javelin. Measuring 7 millimeters (0.3 in) long, the depth showed that the weapon was thrown with immense force. Even so, it was not the death blow. Other hunters were probably present and brought the animal down with more spears.^[3]

7 Surprising Iberian Ancestry

The Iberian Peninsula was the ancestral melting pot for modern-day Spain and Portugal. During a recent study, scientists analyzed the bones of almost 400 ancient Iberians. Together, the skeletons represented 8,000 years’ worth of genetic information.

The goal was to chart when the different cultures arrived and mingled. This history turned out to be unexpectedly complex, but most surprising was a migration that occurred 4,500 years ago.

The genes they brought were not unknown. They hailed from the steppes near the Caspian and Black Seas. There is an old “Steppe Hypothesis” supporting the notion that these people spread to Asia and Europe at the same time.

The study of the 400 skeletons showed that the steppe people—mostly men—also made it to the Iberian Peninsula. They had a massive impact on the region’s genetics. By 2000 BC, their male Y chromosome had nearly replaced everyone else’s. Additionally, they might have brought bronze as the region’s Bronze Age began when the first steppe genes appeared in Iberians around 2500 BC.^[4]

6 Human Bone Tattoo Kit

Archaeologists cannot always identify artifacts. This was the case with ancient tattoo equipment. Only from 2016 onward did a few oddities reveal themselves as inking tools. This included volcanic glass from the Solomon Islands, turkey bones from Tennessee, and cactus spines from Utah.

In 1963, the same thing happened. A set of four small combs was found on the island of Tongatapu in Tonga. At the time, their purpose was unknown. The kit was placed in storage at an Australian university but was assumed to be lost after a fire.

In 2008, the combs were found intact. Analysis identified seabird bones as the material used to make two of them, while the rest were crafted from human remains. The tests also gave the kit’s age as 2,700 years old, placing it among the oldest in the world.^[5]

There is good reason to believe that the combs were used as tattoo “needles.” When Captain James Cook wrote about tattooing in 18th-century Tonga, he described a similar bone tool used to insert color under the skin.

5 The Deviant Cemetery

Roman burials placed the deceased on their backs with the bodies neatly arranged. Valuable grave goods were often placed inside the caskets. For burials done differently, archaeologists have an interesting term—“deviant” graves. In every third or fourth Roman cemetery, one can expect to trip over one deviant.

In 2019, archaeologists investigated an area earmarked for construction in Suffolk, England. Great Whelnetham used to be a Roman settlement, but it was long assumed that the region’s sandy soil could not preserve any bones.^[6]

Incredibly, they found a pristine fourth-century graveyard. Even more startling was the high number of deviant burials, 35 out of 52. Men, women, and children were all decapitated. Some heads were missing, while others were next to the bodies or at their feet.

Since the skulls were removed neatly after death, archaeologists doubt that these people were executed. Instead, the locals probably had a reason for burying family in a way not normal for Romans. It remains a mystery why this town was different.

4 The Unlaid Egg

In 2018, paleontologists examined a fossil. The bird had been discovered in northwest China a few years earlier. The new species, Avimaia schweitzerae, was around 115 million years old.

In a fossil first, the bird was pregnant with an egg. In some places, the shell had as many as six layers. This could be why the hen died. In modern birds, trauma can delay a female from nesting. Her body retains the egg and wraps unnecessary layers of shell around it. Known as “egg binding,” it smothers the embryo and often kills the mother.

Finding reproductive disorders in a fossil is great, but the skeleton might also include a medullary bone. This is the holy grail for scientists obsessed with bones and bird pregnancy.

When a bird prepares for egg-making, she stacks up on calcium in the medullary—something that has never been positively identified in a fossil bird. Avimaia‘s medullary region showed all the right signs. If confirmed, it would provide a unique link between avian reproduction and this bone.^[7]

3 Ancient Women’s True Strength

In 2017, researchers compared the arms of prehistoric and modern women—a scientific first. The ancient group included skeletons from Europe’s Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron Ages (5300 BC–AD 850). The living women included sedentary individuals and athletes from Cambridge, including champion rowers.

The arm and leg bones were scanned and then checked for signs of physical activity. Labor intensity as well as physical strength can be gleaned from the shape and density of a bone.^[8]

The study revealed something remarkable. Previous studies were more male oriented, and female leg bones that were analyzed showed strength that varied. (The latter also held true in the 2017 study.) For this reason, the real arm strength of prehistoric women remained hidden.

However, the scans showed that the older gals had arms stronger than elite rowers. The toughness resulted from rigorous manual labor that lasted for thousands of years, proving that women contributed extensively when people switched from being hunter-gatherers to farmers.

2 Fish That Hunted Pterosaurs

Pterosaurs were flying reptiles. During the dinosaur age, they were the top aerial predator. However, in 2012, scientists found a remarkable example of predation on pterosaurs. A lake once existed in Bavaria where the smaller fish attracted pterosaurs and the flying reptiles attracted bigger fish.

When researchers examined the site, they found five drowned pterosaurs, aged around 120 million years old. They belonged to the same species, the long-tailed Rhamphorhychus. Each skeleton had a wing near or inside the mouth of a large fish. The latter also belonged to a single species, an armored fish called Aspidorhynchus that measured 65 centimeters (25.6 in) long.

A closer look suggested that all the creatures died during similar duels. In every case, Aspidorhynchus probably lurched through the surface to grab a low-flying pterosaur by the wing. It was a mistake. The reptiles were too large to swallow, and Aspidorhynchus‘s abundant teeth got caught on the wing membrane.

The struggle to get free would have exhausted both to the point of collapse. They sank to the bottom where low oxygen levels suffocated the fish and drowned the reptile.^[9]

1 Mengele’s Skeleton

After World War II, Josef Mengele became synonymous with the horrors of Auschwitz. As one of the Nazi doctors who worked at the infamous concentration camp, his thirst for knowledge drove him to experiment on prisoners. Mengele killed so many people that he became known as the “Angel of Death.” His crimes made him a wanted man, but he eluded international efforts to capture him for almost 40 years.

In 1979, Mengele died in Brazil. His remains were exhumed in 1985, and DNA analysis in 1992 confirmed the physician’s identity. However, his family refused to bring the body back to Germany, and the bones were stored at Sao Paulo’s Legal Medical Institute.

Pathologist Daniel Munoz was among the experts who helped identify the body. Munoz, who was also a lecturer at the medical school of the University of Sao Paulo, recently realized that the skeleton could be used in the classroom.

The result was ironic. This time, Mengele became the object of those seeking medical knowledge from somebody without their consent. These days, his skeleton teaches students how to find and match forensic details on bones with the person’s records.^[10]

The Romans are perhaps one of the best-studied ancient nations. Modern fascination remains steadfast because the complexities of their culture guarantee that for years, archaeologists will continue to peel back new, unknown layers. There is no end in sight when it comes to figuring out how the ancient Romans really lived, loved, and died. New discoveries take researchers back to the beginning concerning their military might, their unexpected allies, their behaviors and influences from other cultures, public issues, and how gladiators really fought.

10 The Oceanus Tombstone

A mysterious and unique headstone turned up in an unusual place in England. The rare artifact was found resting facedown in a graveyard in Cirencester, Gloucestershire. Discovered in 2015, the tombstone’s front is inscribed: “To the spirit of the departed Bodicacia, wife, lived for 27 years.”

That an inscribed Roman tombstone, probably dating to the second century AD, survived in England is noteworthy. Over time, most were removed and reused in construction projects. Only ten have been found in Cirencester, and less than 300 have been found in Britain.

The odd location—a graveyard—is viewed as such by archaeologists since almost no gravestones were left at a tomb site. However, this one, depicting an image of what appears to be the sea god Oceanus, is not in a normal position. It was found in a grave, used like a protective slab over the deceased and not as the person’s standing headstone. Whether the skeleton underneath is Bodicacia, or her stone was pilfered to be used in the Cirencester grave, is unknown. Either way, it’s the first from Roman Britain to bear the mustached deity.

9 A Superstar Recruited Soldiers

In 2002, the base of a statue was found, covered in Greek, in the ancient Roman city of Oinoanda in modern-day Turkey. When it was translated nearly a decade later, the carving turned out to be an 1,800-year-old epitaph. It told an unexpected tale.

The man being honored was named Lucius Flavillianus, a highly regarded veteran of wrestling and a brutal fighting sport called pankration. Needing recruits for the Roman army, the city used a smart but little-used tactic for the time: They asked the popular athlete to inspire new soldiers to sign up. He delivered so many young men to the army’s doorstep that after he died, Flavillianus was rewarded with supreme, hero-like status.

Every community was ordered to erect a statue in his memory, and Oinoanda’s Flavillainus statue once stood on the base discovered in 2002. Researchers aren’t sure if the champion fighter joined the military himself or why he did such a dedicated job, but it’s likely that he was motivated by honor and the attention it brought him.

8 First Major Shipyard

Excavations at Portus in Italy had turned up several ruins. Archaeologists knew that the site was Rome’s maritime center during the first through sixth centuries AD and had hoped to find a heavy-duty shipyard, something from the Roman world that had never been found before. Over the years, they located warehouses, an amphitheater, a lighthouse, and even a palace. Over a decade passed. The team pressed on because ancient writings and a mosaic indicated there was once shipbuilding at the port.

When the mammoth ruins of a rectangular building were found in 2011, they were mistaken for yet another warehouse. Further digging soon revealed that the football field–sized building had piers as well as eight garage-like bays that led into the Tiber river. These findings screamed “shipyard.” The bays ran about 60 meters (200 ft), ample space for ships to be repaired or constructed.

While the building’s position, size, and structure support the theory that it’s the first major Roman shipyard ever identified, one element remains missing. If ramps for launching ships can be found, then it would undoubtedly confirm the yard as the biggest of its kind in the Mediterranean. During its heyday, the shipyard stood five stories tall.

7 Arieldela

For four years, two archaeology professors led a student team at ‘Ayn Gharandal in Southern Jordan. They didn’t realize that they were digging into a patch of Earth that everybody had been searching for. In 2013, they expanded their investigations of an old Roman fort when they found the gate of the ruined complex. The arched structure had long since collapsed, but a single block revealed the answer to a mystery.

Inscribed in Latin were words that still showed traces of red paint. The unexpected find was also decorated with victory symbols, such as laurels and a wreath. Phrases dedicated the fort to four Roman emperors who ruled together from AD 293 to 305. Furthermore, the stone named the Second Cohort of Galatians as the infantry unit stationed there. The title rang an immediate bell with those at the site. Ancient military documents indicate that the unit arrived in Israel to suppress a Jewish revolt in the second century AD. The unit was said to have had a stronghold at a place called Arieldela. Nobody could pinpoint where Arieldela was, until the gate stone surfaced at ‘Ayn Gharandal.

6 A Referee’s Mistake

Around 1,800 years ago, a Turkish-born gladiator died because of a referee’s decision. The sad tone of his gravestone read, “Here I lie, Diodorus the wretched. After breaking my opponent Demetrius, I did not kill him immediately. But murderous Fate and the cunning treachery of the summa rudis killed me.”

The tombstone shows Diodorus standing over his submissive opponent, looking expectantly at the referee (summa rudis in Latin) to declare him the winner. This deviates from normal burials, which typically provide a gladiator’s stage name and how many times he won or lost during his career. The unique tombstone focused on Diodorus’s death both visually and with a written account.

Researchers believe that the referee thought Demetrius had fallen accidentally and fatally ruled that the match could continue. The image adds to a growing belief among scholars that gladiators didn’t merely butcher each other. Granted, Diodorus perished, but he didn’t kill his opponent when he had the chance. Instead, he expected a third party to call the victory. If gladiator combat wasn’t a disciplined sport, there would be no need for referees.

5 The Batavian Jupiter

In 2016, archaeologists browsed a field in the Netherlands. The site in the province of Gelderland was about 80 hectares of pure discovery. The 6,000-year-old haul included an engraved tombstone, a funerary urn, and 2,500 bronze artifacts. The discovery of Roman items wasn’t really a surprise. Gelderland once bordered Roman territory, so that was to be expected. What wasn’t anticipated was a statue of the god Jupiter and a unique ointment pot. Such elite objects would be more at home in a wealthy city or religious center than the area where they were found.

During the artifacts’ time, the land was occupied by mainly Batavian farmers, who lived in humble houses made of wood and mud. This revealing glimpse about the Batavians could mean that the locals were more Romanized than previously believed. To explain the out-of-place possessions, experts have two theories: Either the owner was a rich Batavian who wanted to display his wealth in a Roman manner, or perhaps the settlement had a temple honoring the deities of Rome.

4 The Empire Was Infested

How much a community is at risk of parasitic infections hinges mainly on good sanitation. The Romans were famous for their advanced sanitary system. They had public baths and toilets, plumbing, and aqueducts that provided drinking water. To see how the Romans measured against less sophisticated nations, anthropologists toughened up and inspected ancient poop in 2,000-year-old latrines in 2015. Contrary to what one would expect, the results showed that Roman citizens battled with parasites.

Internal infection was rife, especially whipworms, tapeworms, and roundworms. More surprisingly, it was worse than before they developed their famed sanitation. The problem stemmed from a lack of knowledge about worms. Ancient Romans didn’t understand that cooking killed the parasites and rampantly consumed a raw (and sometimes tapeworm-carrying) fish sauce called garum. Sharing communal baths with infected individuals was also risky. Farmers might also have used the human waste carted from the cities as fertilizer and infected their crops that way. Doctors also believed that worms formed spontaneously and treated patients with useless techniques like bloodletting and diets.

3 San Rocco

Researchers in Northeastern Italy hit upon the historic remains of an ancient fortification comprised of multiple buildings. The main fort, called San Rocco, was flanked by two smaller establishments on either side. Remarkably, the trio dates to around 178 BC. This makes it the oldest known Roman fort in the world, by several decades. San Rocco is the only example of an early Roman fort found in Italy and one of only a few in the world. By putting together its history, researchers hope to one day understand the evolution of what became one of the mightiest military nations on Earth.

The construction of the fortification coincides with a time when the early Romans lost a war with a northern people referred to as “pirates.” The impressive size of San Rocco showed their determination not to lose a second time, and they eventually conquered the Istria peninsula in 178–177 BC. They also protected a settlement that grew from the San Rocco site called Tergeste, which later became the city of Trieste.

2 Friendship With The Huns

Considering that the Huns, under Atilla’s reign, started the destruction of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, this one came as a surprise. A 2017 study found that during the same century, farmers of both nations, who shared contact near the Roman Empire’s eastern border, actually got along. By studying skeletal remains, researchers could determine that they swapped crops and lifestyles in order to adapt to volatile and uncertain times. This was smart. Instead of fighting, they helped each other to survive.

At first, the Huns had animals for milk and meat and grew various crops, while the Romans ate wheat and vegetables. Chemical analysis of the human remains showed that sharing eventually led to a diet which included just about everything on both sides. This mixed community, which lived near the Danube River in Hungary, allows a fresh view of the Huns, who never made it into the history books except as marauders. Elsewhere, people were Romanized, but in this case, some Romans incorporated the local customs, including the practice of elongating their skulls.

1 The Winged Building

A curious structure once stood in Norfolk, England. The large building, which resembled a “Y,” was raised around 1,800 years ago but matches nothing seen before from the Roman Empire.

The oddity begins with a central room that leads to a rectangular chamber, with two extensions forming the so-called “wings.” The central room’s foundations were solid, but those of the chamber and wings were weak. The shoddy foundations indicate that this section was intended to be used for a single event. Most likely, it could only support timber and clay walls topped with a grass roof. The central part probably had a tiled roof as well as more sturdy mortar and was meant to be permanent. The winged part was eventually removed, and a more elaborate replacement was erected over it. The decorated postholes of this newer building can still be seen today.

What the strange building was used for remains a mystery. While a villa nearby could mean the complex was Roman, it doesn’t fit any known design—and Roman architects stayed within a strict set of architectural forms. The building doesn’t match the characteristic style of the ancient locals, the Iceni, either.

Schizophrenia can be a real-life horror story, far more terrifying that any supernatural phantom. Schizophrenics are real people living with real, haunted minds. They may even become trapped, living through their own personal terror.

SEE ALSO: 10 Haunted Asylums With Extremely Dark Pasts

10 Self-Portraits
Bryan Charnley

As his schizophrenia worsened, Bryan Charnley spent the last year of his life experimenting with different doses of medication and drawing self-portraits. He drew a note on each portrait to explain his thoughts, which revealed the torment inside his mind.

His first portrait was a realistic picture of his face. For the second portrait, he added vibrations to represent the thoughts escaping from his head. “The person upstairs,” Bryan’s note explained, “was reading my mind.”

Shortly after, Bryan cut his thumb and splattered the blood on the canvas to show his mental pain. He often drew himself with a nail in his mouth or brain, representing his struggle to communicate normally with others.

His last picture was a just a streak of red, yellow, brown, and purple. He painted it and then killed himself, the last splash of colors still sitting on his easel as his final note to the world.

9 Island Of The Dolls
Don Julian Santana Barrera

On an island south of Mexico City, the trees are decorated with hundreds of dolls with severed limbs and decapitated heads, which hang off other branches. Don Julian Santana Barrera started putting dolls in the trees after finding a drowned girl in the water. When her doll came floating down the river behind her, he hung it in a tree as a memento to the girl.

Soon, he heard voices coming from the doll. He was convinced that it was possessed by the dead girl and that it wanted him to fill the trees with more dolls. Barrera believed that each doll in the trees was possessed by the spirit of a dead child who would communicate with him.

Today, tourists can visit the island and see the hundreds of spirits that haunted Barrera’s mind, manifested physically as broken dolls hanging from trees.

8 Descent Into Cannibalism
Vince Li

Vince Li made headlines around the world when he stabbed and cannibalized an innocent man, Tim McLean, on a Greyhound bus. But an equally terrifying story was happening inside Li’s mind.

On the bus, Li became convinced that the voice of God was telling him that McLean was a deadly force of evil. Li panicked and began fighting for survival against a demon of his imagination.

When the officers came, Li told them, “I have to stay on the bus forever.” He believed that God would not let him leave. He had no recollection of desecrating McLean’s body and refused to believe it had happened.

When the facts of the case were presented to Li, a sliver of his mind had to face the reality of what he had done. Throughout the court case, his only words were, “I’m sorry. I’m guilty. Please kill me.”

7 Faces
Edmund Monsiel

During World War II, Polish artist Edmund Monsiel hid from the Nazis in his brother’s loft, terrified that they would find and kill him. Even after the war ended, he wouldn’t leave and refused to talk to anyone outside his room.

God, Monsiel believed, had chosen him as His emissary. Monsiel drew pictures of his hallucinations, at first showing Christ and the Devil before him. Soon, though, his work started to be full of faces. For Monsiel, every blank space in the walls before him was filled with watching eyes, staring at him with the face of Christ.

Monsiel died in the attic alone nearly 20 years after the war had ended. By the end, he had drawn 400 pictures.

6 Shadows
Karen May Sorensen

“Be aware of the presence of the Shadow in my art,” Karen May Sorensen says on her website. “Every person has a hidden Shadow aspect to their personality. I just happen to bring my Shadow out into the light of day.”

Sorensen spends almost all her time in her home, drawing pictures and living through the symptoms of her schizophrenia. She compares herself to a monk in a stone room with a single window to the outside world that is too high up for him to see. The monk, she says, can’t see the world outside, but he can “roam free across vast interior landscapes with the Lord as his companion.”

Giving us a glimpse into her interior landscapes, her art shows a world dominated by sexual and phallic images—often violent and perpetrated by malevolent men. “There is a threat,” she writes about her own sexual experiences. “There is some fear.”

5 Finger Painting
Mary Barnes

Seeking help for her schizophrenia, Mary Barnes met with Joseph Berke, a pupil of the influential psychologist R.D. Laing. With Berke, Mary entered into regression therapy to access early memories by bringing her to an infantile state.

But Barnes went further back than most. During therapy, she started smearing feces against her own body and against the walls. Desperate to get her to stop, Berke presented her with paints and urged her to use them instead. Barnes soon discovered that rubbing the paint with her fingers let her to create the beautiful images she saw in her mind.

For Barnes, this was the only way to express her reality to the world.

4 Lifelong Hallucinations
January Schofield

January Schofield showed symptoms of hallucinations from her seventh day of life. By her third birthday, she was chasing an invisible cat named “400” across the room, convinced that it was real.

Soon, she had hundreds of imaginary friends and had withdrawn from all her real ones. She became violent, attacking her parents and baby brother—sometimes until she drew blood. Later, she revealed that 400 scratched her if she didn’t hit people.

According to January, an army of rats feared her baby brother and ordered her to drive him away. One time, January tried to eat him, the whole time telling him, “Bye-bye, Bodhi. I love you.”

In time, January’s parents had to get two apartments to keep Bodhi and January apart. Their lives have calmed somewhat since then. Her father says that January now “only needs to hit once so that the voices will stop screaming [and] 400 will stop scratching her.”

3 Suicide
Richard Sumner

Richard Sumner was an artist who painted scenic landscapes until schizophrenia started to plague his mind. Unable to work or function in society, Richard had to rely on the support of his family, which was hell for him. His sister explained, “He hated to be thought of as a parasite.”

Depressed and worn out by being a burden on his family, Richard went into the woods and handcuffed himself to a tree. He had intended to die there, hoping that no one would find him. But he lost his nerve and unshackled himself.

Richard tried this two more times. The third time, he couldn’t reach the key. He started wrestling with the locks, leaving deep marks in the tree and in the flesh of his wrists. But he couldn’t escape. Slowly, he wasted away, locked to a tree.

Three years later, a woman walking her dog stumbled upon Richard’s skeleton, still locked up in the woods.

2 Air Loom
James Tilly Matthews

James Tilly Matthews was confined to Bedlam asylum in London during the Napoleonic Wars. The world, he insisted, was overrun with magnetic spies and machines that were brainwashing people to send Europe to the brink of war.

James described a brainwashing machine called the “Air Loom,” which he believed was trying to control his mind. Like many schizophrenics, James believed that an external force in his reality was influencing his mind.

For James, this great machine sent out rays and gases to brainwash him and the politicians of the nation. He drew incredibly detailed diagrams of the machine, which was built to plunge the world into chaos. He claimed that the pockmarked “Glove Woman” operated the machine.

1 Cat Drawings
Louis Wain

Louis Wain may have been driven to madness by his own cats. He spent his life surrounded by them and illustrating them. However, he didn’t know that a cat’s excrement contains a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii, which can cause hallucinations. In Louis’s case, the hallucinations were usually believed to have been symptoms of schizophrenia.

Louis kept drawing cats even when his mind started to degrade. He couldn’t stop—his family was relying on the money he earned through his work.

As his hallucinations worsened, Louis’s art changed. His early paintings are realistic pictures of cats, but his later paintings became increasingly psychedelic. The cats started to absorb into the patterns of the background, turning into electric kaleidoscopes of color.

In his art, we can see the slow dissolve of his perception of reality and the way the real world gradually slips away as the untreated symptoms of schizophrenia worsen.

Sumeria was one of the earliest civilizations on Earth. More than 7,000 years ago, they built the roads and walls of their first city. For possibly the first time in human history, families left their farms and their tribal homes and moved into urban life.

This was also the first time that anyone in Mesopotamia had lived in a tight-knit, walled town. They were making their lives as administrators and scholars instead of growing food for themselves. Life here was something completely new—not just for the people who lived there but for all of humanity.

Little of life in 5000 BC remains today. All we have to work from is a few old tablets and the ruins of ancient towns. But it’s enough for a small glimpse into life in history’s first civilization.

10 Women Had Their Own Language

Men and women in Sumeria were not equal. When morning broke and a man climbed out of bed, he expected his wife to have breakfast ready for him. When they had children, they sent the boys to school and kept the girls at home. The life of a man and a woman was a very different experience, so much so that women developed their own language.

The main Sumerian language was called Emegir, and it wasn’t exclusive to men. Both genders used it, and it was the main language of society. Women, though, had their own separate dialect called Emesal (“women’s tongue”)—and we can’t find any record of any man ever speaking it.^[1]

The female language was really a different dialect. They pronounced a few sounds differently, used a few different words, and actually had a few vowels that the men didn’t use. Men probably understood it, but it was likely seen as effeminate to use it.

It was a language used in poetry and song, often with a mother cooing her child or a maiden fawning over a lover. Perhaps, in Sumeria, a girl who wanted to sound sweet didn’t just choose her words carefully—she spoke a whole other language.

9 They Paid Taxes Before They Invented Money

Taxes have been around for longer than there’s been money to pay them. Even before the first coins and silver shekels came to Mesopotamia, the people had to give the king his share.

Often, Sumerian taxes weren’t too different from ours.^[2] Instead of cash, the king would just take a percentage of what you produced. Farmers would send over crops or livestock, while tradesmen might send up leather or wood. Like our modern governments, the wealthy were taxed harder, in some cases having to give the king half of what they grew.

That wasn’t the only way you paid taxes, though. Sumerians would be called to work on public projects, too. For months of a year, a man would have to leave his home to work on the government farm, dig out a public irrigation project, or go off to fight a war. Unless you were wealthy, anyway. The rich could always pay someone else to do it for them.

Mandatory labor was just how early societies functioned. At its peak, there were 11,000 administrators and managers in Sumeria, and they had to be fed. They definitely didn’t go hungry, though. According to the records they left behind, government taxes collected more than a million tons of barley each year.

8 Life Revolved Around Beer

There’s a theory that civilization started because of beer. Men first started farming, the theory goes, so that they could get drunk. They were also lured into the city under the promise of more beer.

Whether that’s true or not, beer was definitely a major part of life in Sumeria. It was served at every meal, from breakfast to dinner, and it wasn’t treated like a drink you had on the side. It was the main course.

Sumerian beer was different from ours, of course. It was as thick as porridge—with a muddy sediment at the bottom, a layer of foam on the top, and little pieces of bread left over from fermentation floating at the top. It could only be consumed with a straw.

But it was worth it. Sumerian beer had enough grains to be considered a nutritious part of a balanced breakfast. Plus, it got you drunk.

When laborers were called in to work on public projects, it was common practice to pay them with beer. That was how the king would lure farmers to work on his building projects: He had better beer.^[3]

7 They Got High On Opium

Beer wasn’t the only drug available in Sumeria. They had opium—and they definitely used it to get high.

The Sumerians were growing opium poppies by at least 3000 BC. We don’t have a lot of information on what they did with it, but the name they gave it kind of spells it out. In Sumeria, poppies were called the “joy plant.”^[4]

There are theories that the Sumerians used these plants for medicine. But there’s nothing to really back that up. We know that people eventually used opium as a painkiller, and charitably, we like to think the Sumerians might have done that, too.

But there’s no proof. The only things we know for sure are that the Sumerians cultivated opium, that they smoked it, and that they thought it was a hell of a good time.

6 The King Married A New Priestess Each Year

Each year, the king would marry a new woman. He had to marry one of the priestesses—a group of virginal women chosen for being “perfect in body”—and make love to her. Otherwise, the gods would turn the soil and the women of Sumeria barren.

The king and his chosen bride would have to reenact the lovemaking of the gods. On her wedding day, the bride would be bathed, perfumed, and dressed in the most beautiful gowns they had, while the king and his entourage made their way to her temple. There, a crowd of priests and priestesses would be filling the hall with songs of love.

When the king arrived, he would give his new bride gifts. Then they would go off together into a room filled with scented spices and make love on a ceremonial bed that was custom-made just for the occasion.

When it was over, the king and his bride would sit together on the throne. His beautiful new bride would gush about him to his people, reciting his poetry about his manliness and telling the crowd that he’d brought them prosperity.^[5]

This, the king explained to his people, was his sacred duty. He had no choice but to sleep with beautiful women. The gods demanded it.

5 Priestesses Were Doctors And Dentists

The priestesses weren’t just the king’s harem—they were some of the most useful people in Sumerian society. They were poets, scribes, and some of history’s first doctors.

Sumerian cities were built around a temple complex. A great ziggurat would sit in the center, surrounded by buildings where priests and priestesses lived and craftsmen worked on public projects.

This was a massive space that took up a third of the city, and it did more than just hold ceremonies. There were orphanages, astronomers, and major business operations.^[6] An administrator there was in charge of government business, and he used his temple as a hub to run trade networks with other cities.

It was on the outside of the complex, though, where the most historically important work was done. There, the sick would come and ask for a priestess to look them over. These women would come out and check the patients’ health. They would diagnose the sick, usually treating illnesses as curses and hexes, and would prepare early medicine to nurse them back to health.

4 Literacy Meant Wealth

Reading and writing were fairly new concepts in ancient Sumeria, but they were already incredibly important. People there didn’t get rich by working with their hands. Tradesmen and farmers were usually in the lower class. If you wanted to get rich, you became an administrator or a priest. And if you wanted your kids to get rich, you made sure they were literate.

Sumerian boys could start school as soon as they were seven years old, but it was expensive. Only the wealthiest people in the city could afford to go. At school, they were taught math, history, and literacy, usually copying what a teacher had written until they could imitate it perfectly.^[7]

Discipline was strict. A student who misbehaved or spoke out of turn would get whipped in front of the class. The biggest incentive to succeed, though, was wealth. A particularly talented student could go on to be a scribe or a priest—and that meant being in the top echelon of Sumerian society.

3 The Poor Lived Outside The City

Not every Sumerian was part of that upper echelon. Most were in the lower class, living on farms outside the city walls or scraping by with low-paying craftsman jobs in the city.

While the rich lived in mud-brick houses filled with furniture, windows, and lamps, the poor had to settle for reed tents.^[8] They slept on straw mats on the ground, and their properties were often shared with their whole extended family.

Outside the city walls, life was hard. But people could move up. A hardworking family could trade in some of their crops to buy more land, or they could rent out their land at a profit. It may even have been possible—although definitely rare—to make enough to hire a tutor and move your child to a better life inside the city walls.

2 The Army Raided Mountain People For Slaves

The lives of Sumeria’s poor were still far better than the lives of slaves. The Sumerian kings kept a steady supply of enslaved workers in their city by running raids on the people who lived in the hill country. The raiders would drag these people off and steal their possessions. The Sumerian kings believed that if the gods gave them victory, it was their divine will to make slaves of the hill people.^[9]

Slaves were usually managed by women, who would put them to work on domestic chores and manual labor. A rare few were given more distinguished jobs, sometimes working as accountants or even tutoring the children.

Female slaves often became concubines. They would live their lives as the sexual tools of the men who owned them, with strict laws keeping them from forgetting their place. If a concubine slave started talking about herself as the wife’s equal, by law, she was to have her mouth scoured with a quart of salt.

It was possible to get out. A female slave could marry a free man, although she would have to give her firstborn child to her master as payment. A male slave could make enough to buy his freedom and even get his own land.

But that mobility went both ways. No one was safe from a life of servitude. If a free man got himself in enough debt or was caught committing a crime, he could be forced to sell himself into slavery.

1 Servants Were Buried With Their Kings

In Sumeria, death was a mystery. The dead would be ferried to what they called the “land of no return,” but little was known about what lay on the other side.

The one thing Sumerians believed for sure was that they would need their Earthly possessions in the afterlife. They were terrified of the possibility of spending eternity alone and starving, so the dead were buried with jewelry, gold, food, and even their pet dogs.

Kings and queens wouldn’t stop at possessions. They would take their attendants with them. The king’s favorite servants would be rewarded for their hard work by being ritually killed at his funeral.^[10] They would be lined up in their finest clothes—and then they’d have their heads bashed in.

One queen was buried with her musicians. They were poisoned and thrown into her tomb so that she wouldn’t have to spend eternity without song. A king was buried with 73 servants, their bodies positioned to be eternally kneeling before his remains.

Some kings may even have been buried with their living families. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the king is buried with his beloved son and his favorite wife. No one was safe. When the king died, death could come for anyone he held dear.