The Vikings are well-known for fighting and exploring, yet religion and ritual practices were a big part of their culture and everyday life. Their religious beliefs included many different gods and goddesses, so much so that it is considered a “non-doctrinal community religion.” This means that their beliefs and rituals varied among people.

Although they all had the same gods and beliefs, there were no set practices that had to be followed and people worshiped only the gods that were relevant to their lives. Vikings also worshiped their dead ancestors, communicated with spirits, practiced divination and sorcery, and had a wide variety of burial practices. This resulted in a large range of ritual practices, both within and between communities.

The Vikings passed on knowledge through oral history rather than writing things down. Thus, accounts from the Viking era were either written by outsiders, who may not have fully understood what they were witnessing or being told, or written long after the Viking period had passed.

Descriptions of rituals are sometimes conflicting, potentially inaccurate, or made up, either to paint Vikings in a bad light or to tell a more tantalizing story. Yet here are 10 rituals that are generally considered to have been practiced by the Vikings.

10 Blot Sacrifice

The blot was a sacrifice practiced to gain the goodwill of the gods. These rituals were carried out in large groups on the estate of the local chief who functioned as a priest during the ceremony. They were both a way for people to honor the gods and for the chiefs to show off their wealth.

A blot supposedly happened at four fixed times a year, close to winter solstice, spring equinox, summer solstice, and autumn equinox. They would also have additional ones if they were having problems, like a bad harvest.

In the 13th century, Snorri Sturluson wrote a detailed description of a blot performed by Sigurd Hakonsson. He said that all the local farmers gathered at the temple. There, they sacrificed many animals, mostly horses, and cooked the meat. Twigs were used to spray blood from the animals around the temple and on the participants.^[1]

The cooked meat and glasses of beer were blessed by the chief. While drinking the beer, they toasted to Odin and other gods. Lastly, they toasted to their dead ancestors.

A different story was told by the Arab al-Tartuchi who visited Hedeby, Germany, during winter solstice. He said that people from around the area came together to feast and anyone who sacrificed an animal stuck it on stakes in front of their farm.

9 Human Sacrifice

Though not a common part of Viking life, human sacrifice was practiced at times. As stated, stories from the Viking period are not always reliable, but archaeological remains indicate that human sacrifice did happen occasionally.

In the 11th century, Adam of Bremen wrote about the Vikings based on secondhand accounts. He talked about a tradition practiced at Uppsala, Sweden, every nine years at the beginning of spring. This ritual lasted nine days, with a feast and sacrifice every day. There were nine sacrifices each day for a total of 81 sacrifices.

Each day, they sacrificed a male human and eight male animals. The bodies were hung from trees in a sacred grove that was next to the temple in which the ritual was carried out. This tradition was practiced to honor Odin and secure victory in the coming year. Although they normally sacrificed criminals or slaves, they once sacrificed a king at Uppsala during a time of extreme famine.^[2]

In Snorri Sturluson’s saga, he says that they appeased the gods by sacrificing a large number of oxen one fall in the seventh century. When that didn’t work, they sacrificed a group of men the next year. The following year, they blamed the king for the continued famine and sacrificed him, covering the altar in his blood.

8 Yule Celebrations

Yule, spelled “Jol” in Old Norse, was the name for the period between the winter solstice and the blot associated with it, which is speculated to have happened on January 12. It is uncertain exactly why Yule was celebrated, though it may have been to honor the dead, to receive good luck in the new year, to celebrate the Sun and light as the days were getting longer, or to honor Thor as he was the god who protected the world from the darkness.

The exact rituals followed are also unclear, but texts refer to it as “drinking Jol.” Thus, drinking alcohol was probably a large part of the celebration. There was also a feast that lasted for three days and nights with games and singing.

Vikings would make a large sun wheel (a circular symbol with a cross in the middle), set it on fire, and roll it down a hill to get the Sun to return. They made Yule logs from large pieces of oak, decorated them with yew, holly, or fir, and carved runes into them. This was their way of asking the gods for protection, and a small piece was kept until the next Yule to protect the family and start the first fire of the new year.

They decorated evergreen trees with food, clothes, and carvings of runes and gods to get the tree spirits to return in spring. Young people would dress up in goat skins to represent the goats that pulled the wagon that Thor rode through the sky. Then they would go from house to house to sing and perform plays in exchange for food and drinks.^[3]

7 Berserkers And Ulfhednar

Vikings are well-known for their battle fury, and there was nothing more terrifying than their berserkers and ulfhednar. Both were the result of shamanistic war rituals, but they took on different totem animals. Berserkers (“bear-shirts”) were those who became bear-men and ulfhednar (“wolf-hides”) became wolf-men.

Sometimes wearing nothing but animal furs and heads, these men would go to war, using their bare hands and teeth to fight instead of weapons and shields. Others would get so worked up that they would start biting down on their own shields. According to legends, they also felt no pain and kept fighting despite being badly injured.

To reach this state in battle, they first had to join the ranks of their fellow fighters. To do this, they would live in the wild like their totem animal. This would strip them of their humanity and allow them to take on their animal’s strength.

There were likely many techniques used to reach the frenzied state for which they were famous on the battlefield, including exposure to extreme heat, ritual weapon dances, and fasting. This could cause a self-induced hypnotic trance, resulting in them losing their sense of pain and conscious control of their movements.^[4]

It has also been theorized that they used psychedelic mushrooms or a poisonous fungus to reach a state of delirium before battle. However, these have never been mentioned in sagas and several of the strains proposed would either have been too poisonous or would have resulted in apathy and depression, the opposite of a battle frenzy.

6 Tooth Modification

Vikings put great effort into their appearance with practices such as bleaching their hair with lye, combing it often, and ironing their clothes with hot rocks. However, archaeologists have fairly recently discovered that Vikings also modified their teeth.

Skeletons show signs of intentional changes in the form of horizontal lines carved into the upper front teeth. The researchers believe that the grooves were filled in with dye, most likely red. This practice was not seen anywhere else in Europe at the time.

This may have been a ritual conducted by warriors to incite fear in those they were about to attack or as a symbol of an achievement. However, there are no written records about this practice. As a result, further information about this ritual and any associated traditions are still unknown.^[5]

5 Cremation Rituals

The Vikings had many different ways of disposing of the dead, which included cremation. The ashes could be buried in graves, under piles of rocks, or sometimes with grave goods. The ashes could also be burned with a ship, though this was reserved for high-ranking members of society as ships were expensive.

A description of a Viking ship cremation was written by the Arab Ahmad Ibn Fadlan in the 10th century. He told of the treatment of a chief from the Rus Vikings.

After his death, the chief’s body was left in a grave for 10 days while they made new clothes for him. A slave girl was selected to be sacrificed with him and was then kept drunk and dressed in fine clothing.

On the 10th day, the chief’s ship was pulled up to land and filled with expensive furniture, drinks, food, weapons, and animals. The slave girl had to go to each tent in their settlement and have sex with the man in charge. Afterward, he told her, “Tell your lord I have done this out of love for him.”^[6]

When the girl was ready to get on the ship, the men who had slept with her held their hands together, forming a sort of walkway for her to walk across. The chief was already on the ship.

She went into his room, where six of the men followed and had sex with her again. Afterward, they laid her down next to her master and a woman came in, giving the men a rope with which to strangle the girl. Meanwhile, the woman repeatedly stabbed the girl in the ribs. The ship was then set on fire.

4 Warding Off Draugr

Draugr (aka aptrgangr) and haugbui were the Vikings’ versions of modern-day zombies. Once a person was buried, it was believed that his corpse would be animated again. The haugbui would live innocently in its barrow, protecting its grave goods from grave robbers. However, a draugr would wander out of its barrow and harm any humans it could.

To prevent this, many precautions were taken when burying a body. Pieces of straw would be placed in crosses under the shroud while a pair of open scissors was placed across the chest. The deceased’s big toes were tied together so that it couldn’t walk, and nails were pressed into the foot soles.

When the coffin was carried out of the house, the bearers would stop before walking out the door to lower and raise the coffin three times in different directions, creating the shape of a cross. Sometimes, the dead person was carried out of a house through a special “corpse-door,” a hole in the wall covered in bricks. It would be torn open to remove the deceased and then put back together.^[7]

Vikings thought that the dead could only return the same way that they came. As a result, the deceased wouldn’t be able to enter the house. The body would also be carried out feet first so that it couldn’t properly see which route they took to the burial mound.

When the coffin was out of the house, all the jars, saucepans, and any chairs and stools previously used by the deceased were turned upside down. If the dead were buried in a churchyard, the parson was meant to bind the dead to their graves with magic words.

3 Wedding Ceremonies

Before a wedding, the bride would remove her kransen, a gilt circlet worn by unwed women with their hair loose. She would likely replace this with a wedding crown, and her kransen would be saved for her future daughter.

The groom would have to acquire a sword from one of his ancestors. It is uncertain whether this was done by breaking into the grave of a dead ancestor and taking the sword, breaking into a fake grave prepared for this occasion, or asking a living relative for his sword. During the ceremony, the groom would carry his sword and possibly a hammer or axe to symbolize Thor. Neither the bride nor groom wore special wedding clothes.

The wedding would be held on a Friday as it was Frigg’s day. (Frigg was a goddess of fertility.) The ceremony would start by getting the gods’ attention, possibly by sacrificing or dedicating an animal to one of the gods.

During the ceremony, the groom would give the sword from his ancestor to the bride so that she could keep it for their future son. In turn, she would give the groom a sword. They would then exchange rings and vows.^[8]

After the ceremony, they would head to a hall to feast. Here, the groom would help his bride over the threshold before he plunged his sword into a pillar. The deeper it went in, the more luck and children they would have. The couple had to share some bridal ale (usually mead) that night and for the next month.

At the end of the feast, the couple would be accompanied to bed so that witnesses could testify that their union had been consummated. The next morning, the bride’s hair would be tied up and covered with a cloth to show her status as a wife. The groom would then give her the keys to his house.

2 Infant Rituals

When a baby was born, a couple of rituals were needed for the infant to be considered a real person. Before this, the baby was not considered a human yet, probably as a way for people to protect themselves emotionally as infant mortality was so high.

When the baby was born, he was placed on the ground until the father picked up the child and placed him inside the father’s coat. This symbolized that the father accepted that the baby was his child.

He would then inspect the child. If the baby had any problems, he would be left exposed to die. If he was healthy, they would perform a ceremony called ausa vatni in which they sprinkled water over the baby.

At this point, the child would be named in a ceremony called nafnfesti. For this, the father would state the child’s name and give him a gift. The gifts usually consisted of things such as a ring, weapon, or a farm or land deed. After this, the child could no longer be subject to exposure as it would then be considered murder.^[9]

1 The Blood Eagle

Popularized by the TV show Vikings, this gory method of execution was possibly committed in real life, too. The blood eagle consisted of the victim being placed facedown and restrained. An eagle was carved into his back, and then the ribs were severed from the spine with an axe.

The ribs and the skin around them were pulled outward to represent the wings of the eagle. Next, salt was rubbed into the wound. (The victim was still alive at this point.) Then the lungs were pulled out of the body and stretched across the ribs.

As the victim died, the lungs were fluttering in the wind, reminiscent of a bird’s wings. This is purportedly the method used to kill King Aella of Northumbria in AD 867.^[10]

The future is now, and the machines have made their way into our lives. Throughout history, human beings have sought to complement their lifestyles and accomplish their tasks using a variety of technologies, beginning with simple, rudimentary stone tools and leading up to the elaborate robotics of today (and tomorrow). So it’s really no surprise that sex robots are actually starting to make their way onto the world stage.

In a way, sex robots are just animated sex dolls. But is there more to a “sexbot” than just movement that animates the old-fashioned blow-up doll? Some say there is. Truth be told, these machines have become rather intricate, and as time goes on, they reflect the human beings they’re designed after more and more. Will sex dolls ever be able to fool us into believing they’re actual humans someday? Time will tell. From what we know now, and what we can predict, here are ten interesting facts about the rise of sex robots.

10 What Is A Digisexual?

“Digisexual” is a term that’s slowly gaining popularity and seeks to describe someone who’s more attracted to technological forms of sexuality than other people. This can include actual sex robots, but it also encompasses people who have a preference for other forms of technologically assisted sex over relations with other humans.^[1] Experts have suggested that digisexual people are gaining in numbers and will eventually make up a very large portion of the population. Some even predict that by the year 2030, most people will have virtual reality sex in their homes, analogous to how most people view pornography online today.

In a very real way, there are already a lot of digisexual people out there, by these definitions. One of the side effects of pornography addiction is a lack of preference or an inability to perform with human partners, preferring pornography to real, live human beings. Could these people be considered some of the first digisexuals? Will the day come when what we today call pornography addiction is normalized as a sexual preference? We’ll see.

9 Evolution

Believe it or not, it has also been predicted that as soon as 2025, upper-income households are going to have sex robots in the home. They’ll be common, albeit expensive, commodities. Even more surprising than this is the proposal that by 2050, there will actually be more people having sex with machines than with other human beings.^[2] Our sex lives will become largely mechanized, and researchers theorize that this will result in an increasing compartmentalization of sex versus actual relationships; people will begin to separate these two elements of their lives.

The fact is that we will somehow culturally evolve to these drastic changes, just as we’ve evolved to utilize our smartphones in our daily lives, but what sort of changes will come about is just guesswork as of now.

8 Robot Love

In the future, marriage to robots could become commonplace. A few people believe that marriage to robots already exists today. In an unusual case of man-to-object marriage, a Japanese man named Akihiko Kondo believes that he is actually married to a robot (of sorts). He’s in love with a 3-D hologram. Much to his dismay, the rest of the world doesn’t see eye-to-eye with his marriage.^[3] He serves as a strong advocate for the right to marry a robot or hologram and says proudly that he obtains from his hologram what he could never from a woman.

Kondo emphasizes interesting points, such as the fact that a bot cannot age or die, that his hologram will never cheat, and he’ll always have exactly what he wants, no matter how bizarre it may seem to us today. Love between humans and robots has already made its appearance on the world stage, apparently, and we can likely expect to see more of it.

7 Sexual Identity

Considering the roles that sexual expression and sexual identity play in our world today, it’s likely that people will soon find virtual sex or intercourse with sexbots a significant part of their sexual identity in the near future. This is actually starting to happen in obscurity in our modern world. There has already been a documented case of at least perceived discrimination, with the above-mentioned Akihiko Kondo saying on record that he believes he has been discriminated against by those who’ve criticized his choice to have a relationship with a hologram. He feels this largely because people haven’t recognized his marriage as legitimate.^[4]

As sexbots slowly creep into our world more and more, we’re going to have to have some major social discussions concerning the rights of both people and robots, how they interplay, and what it means to be digisexual. Is digisexuality a real thing, and should we recognize a person’s right to fall in love with a machine?

6 Marriage

In December 2016, a conference called Sex and Love With Robots was held in London, and there, experts explained that, in their belief, marriage with robots would be legalized by 2050.^[5] In many countries in the world today, homosexuality is still an illegal practice, but in more recent times, some nations, including the United States, have legalized same-sex marriage. All the same, many people in the US still remember a time when homosexual marriage was completely unthinkable.

The first same-sex marriage didn’t occur in the US until May 17, 2004. Will we see a time when human-to-robot marriages will also be legalized in the United States and other nations? Quite possibly, say the experts.

5 Warmth

Beyond the social ramifications of the inevitable future of the rise of sex robots are the actual bots themselves. One vital aspect of robot relations is the mimicry of human relations—trying to get sex with the robot to resemble sex with a human as much as possible. Physical warmth is a particular part of human touch which manufacturers have sought to mimic in the robots they create.^[6]

People have used electronic warming gloves, blankets, and clothing to escape the bitter cold of winter months and remain comfortable. Seeing as the human body rests comfortably above room temperature, the robots, if they’re to resemble the human experience at all, must also be warmed, and sexbot creators have looked toward these very products, such as warming gloves, to create innovative ways to give their products the capability of temperature self-regulation—with quite a bit of success. Whether this is realistic enough to be convincing is a whole other question altogether, but researchers and manufacturers will definitely try.

4 Sensors

The robots will also be touch-responsive, much like the screens of our smartphones and tablets, and will actually “sense” when human hands are upon them. This is to create a stimulus response so that it seems like the human user is interacting with a conscious entity, though this is not the case.

TouchYou is the name of one of the proprietary technologies that fall under the branch of “smart skin,” which essentially functions like a touch screen.^[7] The goal of smart skin is to allow the robot to, at least in appearance, “feel” their users, which raises some interesting questions pertaining to what it means for a robot to actually “feel,” a person’s touch. Does the sexbot actually feel? Or is this just an input response, not unlike the use of a stylus on a personal computer? At what point will the robots be said to actually “feel” their user’s touch?

3 Personality

One major aspect of sex robots that differentiates them from sex dolls is personality—and personality is given a lot of thought when it comes to the construction and design of a sex robot, and users and potential customers alike have a lot to say about this. There is one sexbot that’s in production now, Harmony 2.0, which speaks with a Scottish accent and has 18 traits programmed into the machine’s “personality,” which can range from sexy or shy, mimicking an actual human mood.^[8] This particular sexbot can actually talk and respond to human interaction, touch, and speech, much like our smartphones respond to the input from our thumbs and speech whenever we browse or talk to Siri.

Matt McMullen is the creator and CEO of Abyss Creations, the sexbot manufacturer which creates these types of machines, and he’s on record as saying that he wants the user to to be able to experience the robot’s personality as much as possible: “I want to have people actually develop an emotional attachment to not only the robot but the actual character behind it, to develop some kind of love for this being.” Could sexbots be a driving force in the development artificial intelligence or even in reaching the singularity where AI equals or surpasses human intelligence and leads to massive technological advancement? Time will tell.

2 Money

Sex robots don’t come cheap these days, but their costs are projected to plummet in the future as they gain in popularity and begin to catch on. The high cost of sexbots has given birth to a new type of business that’s much more affordable, albeit one that may be off-putting or disgusting for some: sexbot brothels.^[9] Spreading across the world are sex doll and sexbot “brothels,” where one can go in and actually rent a sex robot for about $150 an hour. This means, of course, that someone has to spend all day cleaning the robots or toys in between clients, but if you’re comfortable using a machine that someone else had just used, it might be your thing.

We can only assume that as the market expands, so, too, will the budding enterprise of sexbot brothels. Who knows what the future of such establishments could look like, perhaps housing a hybrid of virtual reality and machine love.

1 Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is and will remain a very touchy subject for years to come. Many questions will arise about manufacturers claiming to imbue their bots with supposed AI, as some claim. Some academics and others have gone into a seeming panic, claiming that sex dolls with artificial intelligence should be outright banned by law, fearing the worst.^[10]

At current, the so-called “smart sex dolls” are really just glorified computers merged into a traditional sex doll, far from gaining any sort of sentience. These machines may well mimic human behaviors, at least some rudimentary ones and in a poor fashion, but they’re a far cry from gaining any sort of consciousness or the ability to adapt and learn from their environment to the point of gaining any sort of real independence from the user who owns them.

The fact is that it has been hotly debated as to what exactly will be the final straw when we can proclaim that a machine is actually sentient. Most corporations involved in the field agree that “augmented intelligence,” is the primary goal, augmenting machines with human intelligence to create a hybrid, rather than creating intelligent, thinking, “conscious,” machines. This means that sexbots can be programmed with a variety of stimulus-response traits, but them being actual living creatures is probably a long way off.

The majority of scientists agree that living creatures evolved through natural selection. That is, we dump unfavorable body parts and develop favorable ones. While it is a slow process, it usually leads to the creation of entirely new—and often strange—animals over thousands or millions of years.

Many of these animals had strange features that would have scared the heck out of us and even other animals. Who wouldn’t be scared of a 9-meter-long (30 ft) crocodile? Or a four-legged snake? Thankfully, they have all gone extinct.

10 Thylacoleo carnifex
The Giant Tasmanian Devil

The marsupial lion (Thylacoleo carnifex) is an extinct carnivore that resembles the Tasmanian devil. It just happened to be bigger, more ferocious, and more intimidating with powerful jaws, strong bones, and supersharp jaws and teeth. Researchers have likened it to a “Tasmanian devil on steroids.”

The 91-kilogram (200 lb) marsupial lion would kill today’s lion in a fight. This ancient animal was also a more efficient hunter that was capable of killing large prey within seconds. The lion takes around 15 minutes to kill large animals. However, the marsupial lion was so good at killing large prey that it found it difficult to kill smaller animals.

Although the marsupial lion sounds terrifying, it had one major flaw: Its backbone was not flexible enough to allow it to chase prey. Its forelimbs and collarbone were also excessively strong. The marsupial lion worked around this by pouncing on its prey from trees and other heights.^[1]

9 Tetrapodophis
The Four-Legged Snake

Researchers have discovered the 15-centimeter-long (6 in) fossil of a four-legged snake in Crato Formation in Brazil. They named the snake Tetrapodophis (“four-legged snake”). Researchers believe that Tetrapodophis is one of the missing links between snakes and lizards.

However, some experts don’t think that Tetrapodophis was even a snake. Michael Caldwell of the University of Alberta, Canada, says that Tetrapodophis’s spine and skull do not resemble those of a snake. It could have been a lizard or some other reptile that went extinct.

This could be true because not all legless reptiles that separated from lizards ended up becoming snakes. A good number of them became legless lizards. In fact, researchers believe that only one of the 26 legless reptiles that evolved from lizards became a snake. The rest are legless lizards or weird creatures like the Bipes lizard that has only two front legs and no hind legs.^[2]

8 Dormaalocyon latouri
The Common Ancestor Of Bears, Cats, Lions, Tigers, And Dogs

The small Dormaalocyon latouri was one of the most interesting animals that ever existed. It is the common ancestor of over 280 carnivores including tigers, lions, dogs, seals, bears, and even small cats. This is remarkable because the Dormaalocyon latouri lived in trees and weighed less than 1 kilogram (2 lb).^[3]

Researchers were able to get a closer look at the animal when they unearthed a 55-million-year-old fossil in Dormaal, Belgium. They discovered that Dormaalocyon latouri resembled something that was born when a small cougar mated with a squirrel. It lived in trees from where it pounced on smaller animals and even insects.

However, Dormaalocyon latouri is not the oldest ancestor of carnivorous mammals. We have seen other carnivores like Uintacyon that went extinct a million years before Dormaalocyon latouri. Unfortunately, we do not have much information on Uintacyon.

7 20-Clawed Bat That Hunted During The Day

Most bats use echolocation to hunt at night. Interestingly, this is a modern development. The first bats depended on their eyes to hunt. And they did that during the day.

Researchers made this discovery when they uncovered the 52.5-million-year-old fossil of a bat that was unable to use echolocation. Instead, it hunted during the day and depended on its eyes and other senses to catch its prey. However, scientists could not confirm if the daytime bat had good eyesight to hunt at night because a part of the skull that housed the eye socket of the fossil had been destroyed.

Apart from the obvious lack of parts that would have aided echolocation, the bat was unusual because it had a claw on all five digits of each limb. This earned it the nickname “20-clawed bat.” Nevertheless, the bat was just 10 centimeters (4 in) long, making it the same size as many small bats that use echolocation today.

Researchers have always wondered why bats prefer to hunt at night. So far, the answers are inconclusive. They have suspected that bats became night hunters because birds competed with them for insects or even preyed on them for food. Alternatively, it could be an attempt to escape the heat from the sun because bats overheat when exposed to the sun.

Nevertheless, the discovery of the fossil of the daytime bat proves that bats used to be daytime hunters that depended on their eyesight for hunting. They later turned into night hunters and developed echolocation in place of stronger eyesight.^[4]

6 Xenothrix mcgregori
The Jamaican Sloth Monkey

The Jamaican sloth monkeys (Xenothrix mcgregori) were regular South American monkeys until they migrated to Jamaica 10 million years ago. Historians are unsure as to how the animals got to Jamaica but suspect that they hitched rides on rafts formed by fallen trees.

Nevertheless, the monkeys colonized their new home where they slowly turned into sloth-like animals. They became slower than other monkeys and spent most of their time hanging from trees like sloths.

Researchers attribute this to two reasons. First, the Jamaican plains were filled with so much food that the monkeys spent most of their time eating and just hanging around. There was also a shortage of predators, which meant that the monkeys did not do much running around, either.

As a result, they became lazier and less active, which turned them into sloth-like animals. The molars they used for chewing also got bigger. Interestingly, they went extinct 900 years ago. Their closest living relatives are the titi monkeys that live in South America.^[5]

5 Aethiocarenus burmanicus
The Unicorn Fly

Aethiocarenus burmanicus was the unicorn of the fly world. Just like a unicorn, it had a single horn protruding from its head. Unlike the unicorn and every other horned animal that ever existed, it had three eyes on top of its horn. Researchers say that the insect grew the third eye to see incoming predators.

Researchers got a closer look at the fly when they discovered a fossil that was 97–110 million years old and trapped in amber in Myanmar. They discovered that it fed on pollen and nectar. Besides the weird horn, it also had a weird antenna, longer legs than it needed, and unusually small mandibles that could not allow it to chew bigger meals.

The features that made Aethiocarenus burmanicus unique were the same ones that caused its extinction. The horn and eyes quickly became a burden when the smaller flowers on which it fed became bigger. The eyes could not allow it to feed properly, causing its extinction.^[6]

4 Linguamyrmex vladi
The Ant With A Metal Horn

Linguamyrmex vladi (aka “hell ant”) refers to an ancient devil of the insect world. It had a metal horn in place of a mouth. The hell ant used the horn to impale its victim before possibly proceeding to suck its blood. This is why it is also called the “vampire ant” and the “unicorn ant.”^[7]

Researchers are unsure as to how the horn worked. They suspect that it operated like the mouth of trap-jaw ants that will shut the moment the hairs in the mouth are disturbed. They also theorize that the ant sucked the hemolymph (the equivalent of blood in insects) with the horn. Thankfully for other insects, the ant went extinct a long time ago.

3 Mammuthus creticus
The Tiny Mammoth

Mammuthus creticus was a tiny mammoth native to Crete in the Mediterranean Sea. the creature was barely 1 meter (3.3 ft) tall, making it the same size as a baby elephant. In fact, the tiny mammoth’s first fossil was erroneously classified as a baby elephant but was reclassified as a mammoth after the analysis of another fossil.

That other fossil belonged to a mammoth that was a mere 1.13 meters (3.71 ft) tall and weighed about 310 kilograms (683 lb). Researchers initially thought that it also belonged to a baby elephant until they realized that the tusk was curvier and the body was too big for a baby elephant.

Mammuthus creticus was a victim of island dwarfism, which occurs when animals stuck on islands evolve to become smaller. This could be nature’s way of adjusting to the limited resources on the island or to the lack of a predator. It has been observed in several animals including elephants, deer, hippopotamuses, and even an extinct species of humans called Homo floresiensis.^[8]

2 Atopodentatus unicus
The Hammerhead Reptile

Atopodentatus unicus was described after its fossil was discovered in southern China in 2014. It was named after its bizarre snout, which means “unique strangely toothed” in Latin.

This creature was the size of a crocodile. Instead of the crocodile’s signature V-snout, however, Atopodentatus unicus had a hammerhead snout—just like the hammerhead shark. However, Atopodentatus unicus did not use its snout to tear flesh apart like the hammerhead shark. Instead, this reptile used its snout to uproot plants from the seafloor.

Scientists discovered that Atopodentatus unicus had two sets of teeth.^[9] It had peg-like teeth at the edge of its mouth and needlelike ones deep inside its mouth. The peg-like teeth were used to uproot plants from the seafloor. Meanwhile, the needlelike chompers were used as a sieve that trapped plants while allowing the water to flow back into the sea.

1 The Strange Ancient Crocodiles Of The Sahara

One hundred million years ago, the Sahara was a dense jungle filled with some strange creatures including several species of extinct crocodiles. Researchers have uncovered some of them, and they are downright weird.

One is the 6-meter-long (20 ft) Kaprosuchus saharicus (aka “BoarCroc”) which has its legs under its body and not on its side like modern crocodiles. BoarCroc also had an armored mouth filled with daggerlike teeth. It was nicknamed the “BoarCroc” because its snout resembled that of a boar.

Other extinct species of crocodiles included Araripesuchus rattoides (aka “RatCroc”), Araripesuchus wegeneri (aka “DogCroc”), and Anatosuchus minor (aka “DuckCroc”). RatCroc and DogCroc fed on plants.

DogCroc also had a doglike snout, while DuckCroc had one-half of its snout longer than the other half. RatCroc had two buckteeth that it used for digging.

The weirdest species was the 6-meter-long (20 ft) Laganosuchus thaumastos that was called “PancakeCroc” because of its unusually flat, 1-meter-long (3 ft), pancake-like head. Researchers believe that the crocodile just rested with its mouth open while patiently awaiting unsuspecting prey.^[10]

If you’ve ever seen pictures of a tropical island with sparkling blue water that stretches as far as the eye can see, private beach huts on white sandy beaches, and coral reefs that teem with life, chances are they’re pictures of the Maldives. This tropical paradise sits in the middle of the Indian Ocean, and is made up of 1,190 coral islands and atolls that stretch over 90,000 square kilometers (35,000 sq mi). Ninety-nine percent of the nation of the Maldives is ocean water, but it still supports a rich, 3,000-year-old culture, an amazing educational system, and a ridiculously intolerant government.

10 Established By An Exiled Prince

For as long as there has been recorded history, the Maldives has been an incredibly important island chain due to its location along a number of trade routes. The first people to officially colonize the islands came from India; the real date is unknown, but it was thought to happen before 269 BC. Legends says that there was no government, only a peace-loving community of people who worshiped the Sun and the water.

The first actual kingdom was said to have been established by the son of the king of Kalinga in India. The king was greatly displeased with his son, so he was sent away to the Maldives—what was then known as Dheeva Maari. This prince, named Sri Soorudasaruna Adeettiya, was responsible for the establishment of the Maldives’ Adeetta Dynasty. Also known as the Solar Dynasty, this era ended with the marriage of a Solar Dynasty queen to a prince of Kalinga’s Lunar Dynasty.

Legend is mixed with history in the early days of the Maldives; according to tradition, these days of the early kings are only known through a much later telling. Copper plates inscribed by a Princess that had been banished from her home island to Is Midu in the 1100s were supposedly found by a 14th century scholar, translated, then buried back in the sand to be lost forever.

9 98 Percent Literacy

The Maldives boasts a 98-percent literacy rate among adults; this is a huge jump from 70 percent in 1978. Residents are spread across a number of islands—about 200—making a unified education program difficult, and with 35 percent of the country’s residents under 18 years of age, education is a major key to their future success.

With the aid of UNICEF, the Maldives has created a unified education program in the years since 1978. They built Teacher Resource Centers that utilize the internet for long-distance teaching between islands, and created an education program that advocates teaching not only children, but parents and caregivers, who are urged to take an active roll in education.

As a result, 100 percent of children are enrolled in primary school, with a 99 percent graduation rate to grade five. By comparison, surveys by the US Department of Education have found the US literacy rate unchanged over a period of 10 years, with 14 percent of the adult population still illiterate.

8 Underwater Cabinet Meetings

For the Maldives, climate change and a rising ocean level is a very real threat, with a handful of islands already evacuated due to the rising ocean waters that have interfered with fresh water sources. In order to draw attention to their concerns, President Mohamed Nasheed moved the October 2009 cabinet meeting to the bottom of the ocean.

The president and 13 other government officials strapped on scuba gear and sat at desks that had been sunk to the bottom of the sea in an attempt to raise awareness about the dangers facing the island chains. He also wanted to draw attention to the sustainability projects he had in mind for reducing the carbon footprint of an entire nation; those plans include biodegradable resorts and sustainable tourism, as well as harvesting all energy sources on the islands, like wind, water, and solar power.

7 Incredible Ocean Life

For most people in the United States, a whale-watching tour might consist of an 8-hour day out on a boat, where you will either see a whale or two . . . or nothing at all. Go whale watching in the Maldives, though, and you’re guaranteed to see anywhere from 1,500 to 2,500 individual whales and dolphins. At any given time of the year, there are 10 to 12 different species of whales and dolphins that call the coral reefs of the Maldives home.

In addition to dwarf sperm whales, false killer whales, and real killer whales, there are also striped and spotted dolphins, bottlenose dolphins, and pilot whales. A single school of dolphins can contain more than 200 individuals, and the Maldives is also one of the most well-known places in the world for catching a glimpse of the world’s largest fish, the Whale Shark. These massive fish range in size from 5.5 to 10 meters (18 to 32 feet), and can be seen cruising the clear, blue waters of the Maldives, filtering plankton from the sea water as they swim.

6 A Muslim Nation

Visitors should realize that the Maldives is a strictly Muslim nation, and obeying local laws and traditions are a requirement. Both the Shari’a and Ja’fari schools of law are represented on the islands, with the Shari’a overseeing family and criminal law. Originally a Buddhist nation, the Maldives were converted in the 12th century by traveling Islamic holy men, who were accompanying traders and merchants on their long journeys.

In the 16th century, the islands were colonized by the Portuguese, who attempted to convert them to Christianity. The conversion failed, ending in violence and bloodshed. With the restoration of their government, the position of King came to be seen as a sacred position made possible by Allah. By law, the president and all cabinet members must be Sunni Muslim.

5 Forced Resignation

The Maldives has always been a place of highly charged politics and religious beliefs. In 2012, President Mohamed Nasheed (mentioned above in the underwater cabinet entry), was forced at gunpoint to step down as president after three weeks of protests and revolts. A day after he resigned, a riot in the streets left him and nearly 50 other people injured after the the police and military forces began launching tear gas at the ousted president.

It all began when the President issued orders to arrest associates of his predecessor for interfering with a criminal court case investigating corruption and human rights violations. Nasheed was replaced with his vice president, who denied any knowledge of the forced resignation, the assaults, or the planning behind it.

4 Alcohol Is Forbidden Outside Of Resorts

Because of the country’s strict Islamic beliefs, tourists are expected to obey and respect Muslim traditions while on the islands. Alcohol is prohibited everywhere except resort hotels, and the beverages cannot be taken off resort property. Illegal imports include anything that infringes on the Muslim belief system, such as alcohol, pork, and pork products. During the month of Ramadan, tourists are expected to respect Muslim traditions; this can include avoiding food, drink, and smoking during the daylight hours. Some restaurants will still cater to tourists, but they might be screened from public view.

There is no public observation of any other faith allowed, although acknowledgment of the tourists’ beliefs have made private worship acceptable. And contrary to implications that might be given in some of the beach photos of the Maldives, nudity and topless sunbathing absolutely aren’t allowed, even on resort islands.

3 Adulterers Face Public Flogging

According to the political laws of the Maldives, all people are equal and deserve equal protection. However, the extremely devout nation often bows to religious law before secular; as a consequence, those who are found guilty of committing adultery can expect a public flogging.

The vast majority of flogging victims are women; recent statistics from 2006 accounted for 184 people who were convicted of having extra-marital sex and sentenced to be flogged. Only 38 of them were men. Most men who are accused of the crime walk free—all they have to do is deny it. Amnesty International has gotten involved with what they call a human rights violation, saying that most of the people who disagree with the practice are afraid to say so.

In 2009, an 18-year-old mother was flogged 100 times, and later sent to the hospital for her injuries. She denied the charges as well, but was found guilty because she was pregnant. The two men accused with her were acquitted.

2 Extreme Religious Intolerance

More than just religious devotion, the Maldives is known for its religious intolerance. Don’t disrespect or offend religious sensitivities in the Maldives, or you’re looking at a prison sentence. That includes bringing in any other religious idols or texts, pornography, or alcohol. (More recently, religious texts have been allowed in the country, but only for private use. Missionary activities are strictly forbidden.) Get caught with any kind of drugs, and it’s life in a Maldives prison. Same-sex relations are a religious and state offense, and can lead to jail time as well.

The Maldives Constitution was written in 1997, and specifies that citizens must be Muslim—it actually specifically forbids the following of any other religion. Convert, and you lose your right to citizenship. Instruction on the Islamic faith, history, and practice is part of the nationwide education curriculum, and there’s a government department established to provide religious guidance. Freedom of speech is extremely limited, and people convicted of speaking out against Islam and its beliefs have been jailed, tortured, and executed.

So strict is their observance of religious traditions that foreign workers are encouraged to come and work at tourist destinations so citizens aren’t in contact with questionable items and activities.

1 The Coconut That Rigged An Election

Many people of the Maldives hold on to a strong belief in the supernatural, including black and white magic. In September 2013, a coconut was detained by police after being found loitering and acting suspicious during the presidential elections. The questionable young coconut was found outside a polling station, and was accused of being placed there to rig the election.

Coconuts are supposed to be a frequent ingredient in black magic spells and rituals; the police called in a white magician to examine the coconut for threats and curses. No such curses were found, and the magician deemed the coconut to be an innocent. No arrests were made, and we assume the coconut was released into the custody of his family.

The actual day-to-day of archaeology and other similar professions may not be that exciting, as they often have to carefully spend time removing dirt from artifacts that may not be worth much of anything individually. Still, their collective work has inspired our imaginations and helped create countless fantasy works, as well as many lively discussions about the ancient past. 

That work has also given us a window into what we know to be true about these ancient civilizations, and also what we have come to suspect could be true based on archaeological evidence. Let’s take a look at some of the most fascinating theories of historical cultures, based on what’s been gathered by these curators of the past…

10. The Aztecs Sacrificed Countless People Due To A Protein Shortage

It’s pretty widely known that Aztec people took part in cannibalism during their human sacrifices, but it was anthropologist Michael Harner who put forth a controversial theory in an attempt to further explain the “why” behind their religious ideology. The theory goes that their population was booming, but at the same time, the available game for protein was decreasing. Getting all eight essential amino acids and protein from maize and beans would require large quantities of food, making it relatively impractical. He also cited times of famine where even nobles sold their children into slavery to buy food and suggested the poor class could fight in wars to get POWs so they could cannibalize them in a blood ritual and eat them for protein.  

Of course, there’s a competing theory by anthropologist and historian Bernard Ortiz De Montellano who argues that the rituals where cannibalism occurred were nearly always done at harvest time, as part of a celebration, and not during times of famine. Further, the cities where these blood sacrifices were known to take place were the bigger cities that received food tributes and weren’t particularly worried about food, even in general times of famine. Montellano argues that sacrificial victims’ bodies were sacred and that the reason for ingesting the body was to ingest a part of the gods themselves and was never connected in any official literature to protein deficiency. 

9. The City Of Pavlopetri Was The Fabled Lost City Of Atlantis

In 2009, a group of Anglo-Greek marine geologists and archaeologists went to work to survey a promising area off the Southern Peloponnese that more primitive technology had suggested was a hotspot for discovery some 40 years earlier, and they made an amazing discovery. They found the ruins of an ancient city, mostly intact, that had sunk beneath the sea floor about 5,000 years ago, during the days of Homer’s epic legends. 

The researchers believe it could have sunk due to a tsunami, earthquake, or both, somewhere around 1000 BC, leaving it resting below the waves for future discovery. While mapping it with modern digital technology they discovered 9,000 square meters of new buildings, and a very large Megaron, which was a structure used by elites for public gatherings, suggesting the city was used by important members of Mycenaean society. Due to the time period to which the city is dated, how quickly it disappeared beneath the waters, and the potential elite status of its inhabitants, some have suggested it could have been the fabled lost city of Atlantis. 

8. Noah’s Story Was An Allegory For Survivors Of A Really Bad Local Flood

Even those who aren’t Christian are well aware of the story of Noah’s Ark, and his quest to save two of every animal from a great flood that would encompass the entire earth. But Noah’s was not the only similar story. The epic of Gilgamesh, the Qur’an, and many others have a story of an all-encompassing flood in which people had to go to great lengths, often using boats to survive. Now, while stories about bad local floods, or even allegorical stories of worldwide floods, are not confined to one area, there is a very large concentration of them coming from Ancient Mesopotamia — which is now modern-day Iraq. 

This has caused researchers to consider whether the stories could have been allegories about a really bad local flood. While the geological record of the earth does not support a global flood, the geological record of Iraq does support the possibility of a bad flood, or even floods, back in the days of Ancient Mesopotamia. This flood (or floods) could have drowned many, destroyed their homes, and taken months to properly recede due to the geography of the area. With no internet or telephones to check outside their area, and all their known geography flooded, they wrote stories of the entire world being lost beneath a catastrophic deluge because as far as they knew, their entire world was flooded.

7. Contrary To Recent Popular Belief, Some Christians May Have Been Thrown To Lions

It used to be accepted that Christians, and many other malcontents, were thrown to the lions during the days of the Romans and it was believed to be a fact. Now, many historians and debunkers have told you that it isn’t true and that there is not a single corroborating text that states Christians were thrown to lions. However, the Romans didn’t always keep the best records. 

During the early era of the Christian Church, when many Christians were being executed, throwing people to the beasts was a popular method of execution. This method involved all kinds of animals including lions, and one text tells of a Priest called Saturas, whom they first tried to kill with a boar, then with a bear, and then finally finished off with a leopard. As for the crueler Roman Emperors, Nero was known to cover Christians in animal skins before throwing them to the dogs. Now, as we stated, there is no extant evidence of lion-on-Christian action, but considering how popular it was to throw people to the animals, it would seem more like a bizarre accident than anything if they never got their chance to sink their teeth into any early Christian flesh. 

6. Spartan Warriors Were Not That Amazing, It Was Mostly Propaganda

The Spartan reputation today is such that many still see them as the epitome of the most fearsome and powerful warrior. However, the truth is that much of what we think about the Spartans may have been nothing more than propaganda by the Greek historian Herodotus, and much of it from the Spartans themselves.

The Spartan state had a population of slaves known as helots that consisted, at any given time, of a much larger percentage of the population than the free Spartans themselves, and the Spartans felt fear was a good way to keep people in line, which only worked for a time as the helots did ultimately successfully rebel.

Now, when it comes to the facts, the Spartan won-loss record in battle was a little under 50%, which for warriors with such a reputation, is pretty bad. There is still some reason to believe that Spartans had slightly better unit organization and that many of their regular troops were slightly above the regular Greek average in terms of skill, but not to any amazing level. Further, individual skill only mattered for so much, as most battles back then consisted mainly of forming into a phalanx and smashing your soldiers into your enemy counterparts.

5. Scientists Have New Evidence Of City-States Dotting The Maya Lowlands

Back in 2016, surveyors flew over the area that once comprised the Ancient Maya Empire, and used laser imaging to map 830 square miles of the ruins — which is an area larger than the island of Maui. When the surveyors looked at the results, it proved a theory that had fallen out of favor and took their breath away. Many archaeologists had theorized that the Maya, who had an extensive economic and social system, had interconnected city-states dotted throughout the Maya Lowlands. But that theory had started to fall out of favor for lack of direct evidence. 

However, this laser imaging changed everything, and in one fell swoop revealed over 60,000 new potential sites of interest. These included 60 miles of causeways, roads, and canals to connect cities, large maize farms, houses of all sizes, and even defensive fortifications that suggested they had come under attack from the Western edges of their borders. All in all, it has given researchers a wealth of new Maya ruins to explore, and reminded us all just how advanced many ancient civilizations were. 

4. Are The Hanging Gardens Of Babylon Myth, Or Were We Looking In The Wrong Place?

The ancient stories tell of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, built by King Nebuchadnezzar II for his wife Amytis, because she missed the lush gardens of her native lands. They were said to have flowing waterfalls and all types of vegetation, with wonderful aromas of various plants wafting through the air — a magical oasis, in the middle of the desert. Now, the problem is that no evidence has ever been found in the site where Babylon once lay, and all records about it are after-the-fact stories, so some historians have started to believe it is nothing more than a historical mirage in the desert. 

However, Dr. Stephanie Dalley, a research fellow at the Oriental Institute of England’s Oxford University, believes that the only reason we have not found evidence of its existence is because we are looking in the wrong place. According to Dr. Dalley, who is an expert at reading ancient Mesopotamian texts, the Hanging Gardens were actually built in nearby Nineveh by King Sennacherib. Now, this is something that archaeological evidence backs up, as the ruins of Nineveh (Mosul in modern-day Iraq) have remnants of an aqueduct system, artwork depicting lush, hanging gardens, and an inscription from Sennacherib bragging about how he had managed to bring water a long distance. 

3. Homer’s Epics Iliad And Odyssey Were First Written Down By A Woman

Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey combine to create one of the greatest epics of all time, but for all the cultural importance they have had over the years, we know precious little about their actual origination. This is largely because Homer remains a pretty big mystery to historians, other than his being an ancient bard who didn’t actually put pen to paper himself. That second part is quite normal, of course, as most Ancient Greek legends were passed down through oral storytelling and embellished over time. 

The bigger question for many historians is who really transcribed them. Andrew Dalby, the author of “Rediscovering Homer” suggests that it was a woman who finally recorded the stories for posterity. He theorizes that because being a public poet and getting to put on a live performance was a male’s job, they wouldn’t want to give up that position for a long slog writing down a poetic epic, especially since it was unlikely to net them much of a return. He suggests that a rich backer, who would have had to buy all the necessary goatskin, had a woman pen the epics anonymously. 

2. Permanent Human Settlements May Have Predated Ancient Agriculture

One of the most commonly accepted pieces of wisdom when it comes to the rise of human civilization, is that humans only formed communities after they created agriculture, which they did as a necessity. In other words, the human community only exists because we had to stop being nomadic hunter-gatherer raiders who clubbed each other to death over territory, and settle down and grow food instead. However, recent evidence has not only put that theory into question but almost entirely overturned it, at least as any kind of absolute truth. Archaeologists have found evidence of permanent human settlements from hunter-gatherer tribes in the area that is now Israel and Jordan, some dating as far back as 14,000 years ago. 

This suggests that the idea that humans could only come together and stop being loosely connected tribes of a few nomadic hunters (at best) when they had no choice but to work together is nothing more than hokum. Humans are social creatures who generally like being around other humans, and would want to have their company to enjoy whether they needed that arrangement for efficient resource management or not. 

1. Ancient Native Americans Burned Down Many Trees In The Plains States

If you’ve ever visited the area, you might wonder why the Great Plains of the United States have so few trees. Many of the early settlers were so shocked by these long grasslands they were convinced that the plains would be a bad place to grow crops, and often made dangerous trips up to Oregon instead.

The truth is, long before European settlers came to the continent, there is reason to believe the Great Plains were once covered in forestland. As to how most of it disappeared, multiple potential explanations have been put forth. The area, while still getting a lot of rain, has more of a chance to experience temporary drought than many surrounding areas, gets hit by a lot of lightning strikes, which can cause fires, and the Native Americans were known to burn down trees to create land better for grazing for game animals. 

What we don’t know is how much effect the Native Americans’ burning had, as we have no idea how sophisticated their methods were. We also don’t know how big an offender lightning strikes may have been, creating fires that could race across the landscape at speeds of 15-20 kilometers per hour. Either way, the landscape was irreparably altered, and we can only imagine what it once looked like.

Photography has come a long way. At times, it’s hard to believe that black-and-white photographs were the only type available some decades ago. Nowadays, we have so many options. And let’s not even talk about current photography fads like the selfie.

But we do not have a monopoly on photography fads. In fact, the people who lived when the camera was invented seem to have had better—and weirder—photography fads than we do.

10 Postmortem Photography

Postmortem photography was a bizarre genre that involved live people taking pictures with the body of a dead relative. It was common in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Photographs were expensive at the time, and most people didn’t take pictures throughout their lives. The only opportunity was after their deaths. In fact, it was often the only picture of the deceased person.

Postmortem photography was possible because most people died at home. Most pictures were of children because infant mortality was high at the time. The children were dressed up—sometimes surrounded by flowers and toys—before the picture was taken. Their mothers even carried the kids sometimes. The pictures often looked as if the dead children were just napping.

Older children and adults were propped up with belts, pulleys, and levers. Some even stood as if they were alive. The eyes were often dead giveaways, and photographers sometimes added glass eyes to make it seem like the dead person was looking at the camera.

Considering that transportation was unreliable and dead people became stiff after a few hours (called rigor mortis), relatives often sent for the photographer before the person died. The photographers sometimes arrived after rigor mortis had set in. But that was usually not a problem because they were experts at manipulating stiff corpses.

Postmortem photography slowly disappeared as advances in medicine made people live longer. More people also died in hospitals instead of their homes. Cameras and photographs also got cheaper over time, and most people had other pictures of themselves and their relatives.^[1]

9 Hidden Mother Photography

Early photography had long exposure times. The subject needed to remain still for 30 seconds before a picture could be taken. It is difficult to have an adult sit still and stare at a camera for 30 seconds. It is almost impossible to have a child in such a position.^[2]

This was why mothers sometimes hid in the background while holding their children in place. This was called hidden mother photography. Most mothers covered themselves with clothes to blend in with the background. Others were disguised as chairs, backdrops, curtains, or whatever would hide them from appearing in the photograph.

8 Spirit Photography

Spirit photography was another genre inspired by the long exposure times of early cameras. Subjects of early photographs were required to remain still to prevent ghosting. As you probably guessed from the name, ghosting means the subject appeared faint and transparent—as if they were a ghost.

In 1861, photographer William H. Mumler discovered a method of creating consistent ghosts in his photographs. It is believed that Mumler created his ghost pictures by inserting the glass plate of a previous photograph of the supposed ghost in front of a fresh glass plate he was using for his latest subject.

Instead of creating a unique genre of photography, Mumler used his knowledge to defraud his clients. He claimed that he could take real photographs of ghosts and soon had clients swarming to his shop to take pictures with ghosts of their late relatives. His clients included Mary Todd Lincoln, who took a picture with the ghost of her late husband, Abraham Lincoln.

People soon exposed Mumler’s ghost pictures as fake. There were claims that he raided the homes of his clients to steal pictures of their late relatives to use for his ghost glass plates. This was probably true because the ghost was sometimes a living relative. This effectively shattered Mumler’s photography career even though a court acquitted him of all charges.^[3]

7 Smileless Photographs

People rarely smiled in early photos, especially in pictures taken during the 19th and early 20th centuries. There were several reasons for this. Early photography was considered an extension of painting, and paintings were supposed to look natural. This means that smiling and anything other than a flat facial expression was not allowed.

There was also postmortem photography. As we already mentioned, pictures taken during postmortem sessions were often the only picture a family had of their late relative. The pictures were intended to immortalize a dead person—and a natural look was the most favored facial expression.

Another reason was the long exposure times of early cameras. As we already mentioned, subjects were required to remain still. This meant that they were required to maintain a single facial expression to avoid ending up with a blurry mouth. Most subjects opted to have a face with a flat facial expression because it was the easiest to maintain.

Another reason was the fact that Victorians did not smile. There was the widespread belief that only idiots smiled. Nobody wanted to be considered an idiot because they smiled in a photo.^[4]

6 Headless Portraits

Early photographers manipulated pictures a whole century before computers and image editing software came along. Image manipulation started right after the invention of the first cameras when some photographers discovered a method of cutting and pasting two pictures together to create a new one.

Swedish photographer Oscar Rejlander used this technique to create the headless portrait genre in the 19th century. As you may have guessed from the name, one or several subjects in a headless portrait appeared without heads. The subject or somebody else in the picture held the head in their hands or on a plate.

The headless person or the other subject sometimes held a bloodied knife to make it seem like they had cut off the head. While this type of portrait can be easily created with the photo editing software available today, it was a chore to make in earlier times and was not as easy as it looks.^[5]

5 Builder’s Photo

Locomotive and car manufacturers used the builder’s photo (aka official photo) to showcase their new or upgraded products. The shot either covered the front and side of the product or just the side. The locomotives were often without carriages, and the images were sometimes edited to remove the backgrounds.

Some manufacturers painted their locomotives gray so that they would look good in the black-and-white photographs. Darker areas of the locomotive were also painted in bright colors to make them appear brighter. The locomotives were repainted in their real colors after the photograph was taken.

Railroad companies hung the pictures in their offices and used them on postcards and in advertisements. Locomotive enthusiasts also got caught up in the fad. However, their pictures were called roster shots.^[6]

4 Pigeon Photography

In 1907, Dr. Julius Neubronner filed a patent for the pigeon camera. As the name already hints, the camera was strapped to a pigeon. A timer allowed it to automatically take pictures when the pigeon was in flight.

The camera was a win for aerial photography at the time. In fact, its pictures are among the earliest aerial images ever taken. Before the pigeon camera, people took aerial photos with cameras attached to balloons and kites. However, kites and balloons were slower and could only travel limited distances.

This becomes more interesting when we realize that Dr. Neubronner never started off to create a camera for aerial photography. He invented the camera to document the routes flown by the pigeons.

This is not to say that the pigeon camera did not have its flaws. While useful for aerial photography, it was unreliable for surveillance because it shot images at random. This was why it lost its place to airplanes when World War I came along.^[7]

3 Manual Retouching

People started searching for ways to look better in pictures right after the invention of photography. But there were no computers or photo editing software during the Victorian era. The Victorians solved this problem with pencils to manually retouch the glass plates used to create the photos.

Sharp pencils were used to make body lines bolder. Blunt pencils were used to make darker areas of the body appear brighter. The cheeks were often shaded because they usually appeared darker in the finished image. Photo editing was so common during the Victorian era that almost every picture was manually retouched.^[8]

2 Hand-Colored Photographs

Some 19th- and early 20th-century pictures appear in color even though colored photography was only perfected in the mid-20th century. How was this possible? By painting over pictures, of course.

Johann Baptist Isenring started the hand-colored photograph fad when he painted over a black-and-white photo with pigment and gum Arabic. Several other photographers soon joined the fad. A popular photographer was Yokohama Matsusaburo, who doubled as a painter and lithographer.

Matsusaburo created his first colored photograph in the 1860s and was renowned for his hand-colored pictures. Hand-colored photography reached its height at the beginning of the 20th century but died a swift death when stable color films and color prints became available in the 1950s.^[9]

1 Red Shirt School Of Photography

The “Red Shirt School of Photography” was a genre that appeared after the perfection of colored photography. The genre was unwittingly started by several magazines, which were all accused of deliberately adding red items in their pictures.

Rumors say that photographers working for the magazines traveled with red shirts, red umbrellas, and any other red items they could lay their hands on. They added these items to their photographs to make them look appealing. National Geographic was one of the magazines accused of starting the fad.

Colored pictures fascinated people when color cameras became mainstream in the 1950s. Editors soon realized that readers focused on the colors in the picture instead of the lines and movements that were the focal points during the era of black-and-white photos. So the editors concentrated on attracting more readers by using appealing images.

In fact, editors selected the pictures based on color. This was why photographers preferred taking pictures that included sharp and appealing colors like red. Some photographers traveled with actors wearing bright clothing or using bright accessories and made them walk into a scene just before taking the picture. The genre died in the 1960s.^[10]

Another April Fools’ Day has come and gone. Like every other year, we saw people and corporations come up with elaborate April Fools’ pranks. Some were so well-thought out that many actually fell for them.

Some of these successful ruses were even unveiled before April Fools’ Day to make them look more truthful. Other pranks weren’t so good and reeked of April foolery from afar. Here are ten interesting April Fools’ Day pranks we saw this year.

10 Tinder Height Verification

April Fools’ Day jokes issued before April 1 are often more difficult to detect, so it’s little wonder that so many people fell for Tinder’s height verification hoax.

On March 29, Tinder published a blog post in which it informed users about its plan to introduce a Height Verification Badge (HVB) to end what it called “height fishing.” It said male users often claimed they were taller than they really were. The HVB would stop that.

Tinder said male users would input their height into the app and take a picture of themselves standing beside a commercial building. Then Tinder would use some undisclosed method to verify their real height. Users get the height verification badge if they are telling the truth.

Tinder said the update was targeted at people shorter than 183 centimeters (6′), since they were the most likely to overreport their height. It added that only 14.5 percent of American men are over 183 centimeters, so it expected an 80-percent reduction in the number of users claiming to be over 183 centimeters.^[1]

Several male users condemned the badge. One man even requested for a weight verification badge to identify women who used old pictures and lied about their weights. Another man tweeted that the badge was an attack on men and unacceptable. This continued until April Fools’ Day, when Tinder revealed the whole thing was a prank.

It is surprising that a lot of users fell for the prank, even though the blog post ended with, “Tinder’s HVB is coming soon to a phone near you.” This was probably because the post was published three days before April Fools’ Day. Tinder also went all out for the prank and even created a video tutorial explaining how the new height verification tool worked.

9 Roku Pet Remote

Roku also pulled an elaborate April Fools’ Day prank. Like Tinder, it also published a blog post three days before April 1.

On March 29, Roku introduced a new product it called the Roku Press Paws Remote for dogs. Roku said it created the product after a study revealed that users sometimes left their televisions on to entertain their dogs while they were away.

However, the dogs often got bored with watching whatever their owners forced them to watch. They could not switch channels because they cannot use the human remote. So Roku came up with a special dog remote with paw-shaped buttons. It has shortcut buttons that switch to preprogrammed channels like Animal Planet.

Roku also claimed the remote has a Bark Assistant Technology that allows dogs to pause, play, or mute the television. A third feature was a built-in Sub-WOOFer that produces high-frequency sounds for the dog. Roku mentioned the remote would go on sale on April 1, 2019, for “$€£19.99.”^[2]

8 Google Tulip Allows People Talk To Their Plants

On April Fools’ Day, Google revealed it would be adding a program it calls Google Tulip to Google Assistant. The new program would allow users talk to their plants, especially tulips, through the Google Assistant. The program also allows humans to understand whatever their tulips are saying. Google said Google Tulip was jointly developed by its engineers and a team from Wageningen University & Research, Netherlands.

Google claimed to have created the program after observing that tulips listened to human conversations and talked to other tulips and even humans. Google said the tulip plants often asked humans for sunlight and water. However, humans do not hear because we do not understand the tulips’ language, which Google calls Tulipish.^[3]

7 LEGO Find My Brick App

The LEGO Group is one company that has been creating April Fools’ pranks people wish were real. Last year, we mentioned that they claimed to have created the VacuSort, a vacuum cleaner that picks up LEGO bricks scattered on the floor. Many people fell for the prank but later asked LEGO to really create the vacuum when they realized it was a hoax.

This year, LEGO said it had created a Find My Brick app that allows users to find LEGO bricks by color. Users must open the app, click on any color of brick they want to find, and aim their phone’s camera at a pile of LEGO bricks. The app highlights every brick of the selected color in the pile.

People fell for the app, just as they did with VacuSort. Yet again, they asked the LEGO Group to create the app for real when it was revealed to be a hoax. An augmented reality (AR) engineer even offered to help build the app.^[4]

6 Google Maps Snake Game

Google added a Snake game to Google Maps for April Fools’ Day this year. Interestingly, it can actually be played. The game is available on the Google Maps app or on a standalone website Google set up for that purpose.

Players are required to navigate a snake through popular cities like London, Sydney, and Tokyo, without running outside the map. They can also pick up passengers to earn more points. The game has been available since the end of March, and Google says it will be available for a week.^[5]

5 Ant Financial’s Fraud-Busting Phone

Ant Financial is an affiliate of the Chinese Alibaba Group. It handles payments for the group and used to be called Alipay. It joined the April Fools’ Day fad this year when it announced the launching of the “Fraud-Busting intelli-Phone” (FBi-Phone). The initialism is clearly a pun on the FBI.

Ant Financial said the FBi-Phone allows users to identify scammers and counterfeit products. It claimed the phone could detect counterfeit products, including cooking oil, wine, and Swiss watches, using its infrared and smell sensors.

It also claimed that the phone could identify human and robot scammers using artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, cognitive computing, pattern recognition, and several other unnamed technologies. If the caller is a robot, a female Ant Financial robot will engage the offending robot in conversation while calling the police.

To remove doubts that the announcement was an April Fools’ Day prank, Ant Financial mentioned that it had created a real product while other companies were coming up with elaborate pranks for April Fools’ Day. However, it subtly indicated that it was a joke when it mentioned that the phone would be available for sale “someday.”^[6]

4 Google’s Screen Cleaner Update

Google had lots of April Fools’ Day pranks lined up for us this year. On April 1, it announced its plan to release an update called Screen Cleaner to its file manager app, Files by Google. The Screen Cleaner would allow users clean the physical screen of their phone with just the click of a button.

Google claimed the Screen Cleaner works by creating “haptic micromovement pulses” to displace grease, smudges, and dirt on phone screens. Thereafter, the app creates a magnetic field around the phone to prevent dust from gathering on its surface. It also has a pleasurable smell.^[7]

3 Adobe Smell Allows Users To Smell Your Logo

Adobe joined the April Fools’ Day bandwagon this year when it revealed that users of Adobe Capture could use the app to capture scents that could be added to logos. Just imagine smelling McDonald’s fries when you see the McDonald’s logo on your phone.

In a blog post published on April 1, Adobe claimed it had uploaded thousands of scents on the Adobe Capture app, using its Adobe Scent-sei technology. Users could mix these scents to create a unique smell for their logo.

Users willing to create a new scent are required to open the Adobe Capture app and click on Smells. Then they take a picture of the product containing the scent. They adjust a slider to control the intensity of the smell and click on the capture button when they were satisfied.

The app creates the smell by finding or mixing, if necessary, the scents preloaded by Adobe. Users can preview the scent by smelling their phone’s charging port. Adobe added that the scent could then be used in apps that supported scents.^[8]

2 T-Mobile BoothE

On April 1, T-Mobile published a blog post to introduce the T-Mobile BoothE, a soundproof phone booth exclusive to T-Mobile users. The phone booth allows users make calls in private and in total quiet. It also has charging facilities complete with charging cords for people wanting to juice up their batteries.

T-Mobile added that the booths also have a trademarked screen that can be connected to the phone. The screen can be used for browsing or video calling. It also has pictures of different locations that can be used as backgrounds for selfies.

The prank was promoted by John Legere, the CEO of T-Mobile US, who tweeted that T-Mobile will be rolling out sample booths soon. He added that AT&T and Verizon customers could try the sample booths even though it was supposed to be exclusive to T-Mobile users.

Many people fell for the elaborate prank. It was so successful that T-Mobile later mentioned it would also release the Mobile EditionE, a mobile portable version that could be worn over the head.^[9]

1 OnePlus Electric Car

OnePlus is a Chinese phone maker trying to break into the US phone market. So it’s no surprise that they joined the April Fools’ Day fun.

On March 29, OnePlus announced it was working on an electric car it called the Warp Car. It said the automobile could travel all day with just 20 minutes of charging. It was also 3-D printed, and users could print the whole car or just make parts with their 3-D printer.

OnePlus added that the car lacks any internal or external lights. Instead, users will switch on their phone’s flashlight and put it inside the phone holder, where several tunnels and mirrors will reflect the light inside and outside the vehicle.

OnePlus added that the steering can be replaced with a smartphone, and users will only need to swipe to control their car. The steering wheel also has a button that allows the driver to take selfies on the move.

OnePlus did not release full pictures of the car, just black, silhouette-like images that only showed its supposed curves. Some readers realized it was a prank after OnePlus recommended that the car only be used by people between 168 centimeters (5’6″) and 173 centimeters (5’8″) tall. It said the limitation was caused by the “positioning of the pedals.”^[10]

Certain companies are known for having a ruthless reputation when it comes to protecting their intellectual property. Disney and Apple, for instance, are no strangers to sending cease and desist letters to fans and companies for infringing on their copyright. While most C&D orders aren’t particularly noteworthy, here are 10 that are funny, shocking, or just downright interesting.

Related: Top 10 Craziest Copyright Claims Ever Made

10 Bud Light Sent Modist Brewing a Medieval C&D

On December 1, 2017, Modist Brewing Co. released their Dilly Dilly Mosaic Double IPA. Just a couple of hours after the launch, Bud Light—who used the phrase “dilly dilly” in their medieval-themed marketing campaign—sent Modist Brewing an unusual cease and desist letter. A medieval-style town crier showed up at Modist’s offices and read the C&D from a scroll.

The crier stated that while Bud Light was fine with Modist selling the current run of beer, they weren’t to use the name thereafter. The wording referenced Bud Light’s adverts, stating that failure to comply “shall be met with additional scrolls, then with a formal warning, and finally a private tour of the pit of misery.”

The video of the moment went viral, but when asked whether they were in on it, Modist said, “Nope. Not even for a dillisecond.”^[1]

9 The Lord of the Rings vs. The Lord of the Bins

When Dan Walker and Nick Lockwood both lost their jobs because of the COVID-19 pandemic, they decided to set up their own small business: The Lord of the Bins, a waste disposal company. As well as punning on the name of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, the typeface they chose was similar to that used for the titles of Peter Jackson’s film adaptations. Their motto is similarly suggestive of the fantasy series: “One ring to remove it all.”

But it wasn’t long before the Brighton-based company received a cease and desist order from Middle Earth Enterprises—which owns the film and merchandising rights to Tolkien’s series—demanding that Walker and Lockwood change the name and tagline.

“It’s just bully-boy tactics,” Lockwood told The Sun. But despite believing that their business wouldn’t cause any harm to The Lord of the Rings, Walker said, “We can’t afford to fight them. We’re just trying to make people smile and make a living.”^[2]

8 T-Mobile Is Protective of Pink

Telecommunications company T-Mobile is extremely protective of the pink color of their logo, which is technically Pantone’s Rhodamine Red U. As well as appearing in all of their marketing, the company’s former CEO, John Legere, was always repping the color—from his T-shirt to his shoes and sometimes even his hair.

Back in 2014, T-Mobile sued their rival AT&T for using a plum color in their marketing for subsidiary company Aio Wireless. Federal District Court Judge Lee Rosenthal sided with T-Mobile, stating that the similar colors mean that “potential customers will be confused into thinking that Aio is affiliated or associated with T-Mobile.”

However, T-Mobile doesn’t just go after its direct competitors, with whom customers may legitimately get confused. The company has also sent cease and desist letters to an IT firm, a smartwatch maker, and an insurance company. Although T-Mobile seems particularly militant about safeguarding its shade of magenta, it isn’t the only one that has trademarked a color. There’s Tiffany blue, Barbie pink, and UPS brown. ^[3]

7 A Napoleon Dynamite Actor Sent a C&D to His Twin Brother

Efren Ramirez is best known for playing Pedro Sánchez in the comedy movie Napoleon Dynamite (2004), but the successful film effectively ended his relationship with his identical twin brother. Carlos Ramirez started to attend events as his twin brother whenever Efren was too busy to go. In 2008, Carlos told TMZ, “I did attend an event without his knowledge as I was being immature and wanted to get back at him for a personal matter which involved the girl I was dating at the time.”

When Efren found out, he sent Carlos a cease and desist order, threatening to sue him for more than $10 million if he impersonated him again. Carlos immediately stopped and hopes to salvage their relationship one day. “I think it’s safe to say the magnitude of Napoleon Dynamite and everything that has come along with it has ruined my relationship with my twin,” he lamented.^[4]

6 Netflix Shut Down a Stranger Things Bar

In the summer of 2017, brothers Danny and Doug Marks opened a Stranger Things-themed pop-up bar in Logan Square, Chicago. Called The Upside Down, the bar sold themed cocktails—such as the syrup-flavored Eleven’s Eggos—and was decorated with the iconic Christmas tree light alphabet wall from the show. The bar was immediately successful, and the brothers were hoping to keep it running through October for both the Season 2 premiere and Halloween.

But not long after opening, the Marks were sent a humorous cease and desist letter filled with references to the show. “Unless I’m living in the Upside Down, I don’t think we did a deal with you for this pop-up,” the letter from Netflix read. The brothers were allowed to finish out their original six-week run but had to shut up shop after that. “We love our fans more than anything, but you should know that the demogorgon is not always as forgiving. So please don’t make us call your mom,” the letter ended.^[5]

5 In-N-Out Sent a Punny C&D to Seven Stills Brewery

In July 2018, San Francisco-based craft brewery Seven Stills announced the release of a “Neopolitan milkshake stout” styled after fast food chain In-N-Out. Called In-N-Stout, the design of the can copied the red, white, and yellow color scheme used by the burger joint and even used their iconic palm tree design.

Seven Stills co-owner Tim Obert said that the company “expected to receive the cease and desist,” but the puns littered throughout the letter came as a surprise. In-N-Out said that the “use of our marks by third parties ales us,” as well as “we are attempting to clearly distill our rights by crafting an amicable approach with you, rather than barrel through this.”

Seven Stills complied with In-N-Out’s demands and released the stout with a different name and packaging.^[6]

4 Carl Sagan Sued Apple

Apple is known for aggressively sending out C&Ds to companies that try to use the word “pod” or an apple as their logo (even pears aren’t safe!). But Apple got a taste of their own medicine back in the early ’90s after it was revealed that their Power Mac 7100 had been given the codename “Carl Sagan.”

The name was selected due to Sagan’s catchphrase “billions and billions,” with the idea being that Apple hoped to make billions and billions of dollars from sales of the computer (they didn’t). However, the astronomer didn’t appreciate his name being used, fearing it suggested that he personally endorsed the product.

After Sagan sent a cease and desist letter, Apple changed the product’s codename to “BHA,” which stands for “Butt-Head Astronomer.” He didn’t appreciate this either and sued Apple for libel. When that failed, he sued the company for using his name in the first place. A settlement was reached out of court.

The final codename of the Mac ended up being “LAW” for “Lawyers Are Wimps.”^[7]

3 George Lucas Sent a C&D to Queen

Freddie Mercury was famous for his extravagant performances. When Queen was touring during the late ’70s and early ’80s, Mercury would come out for the encore on the shoulders of a buff security guard dressed up as Superman or Santa Claus. Walt Versen, Queen’s head of security, then suggested that he dress up as Darth Vader, what with the Star Wars movies being so popular at the time.

Verson-as-Vader heard Mercury perform “We Will Rock You” from below around a dozen times, which he described as “a unique experience” in a 2019 interview. When the Vader costume was suddenly scrapped, Verson wasn’t sure what had happened, but he later found out that George Lucas didn’t appreciate his character being Mercury’s stead and sent a cease and desist letter.

It’s a shame that Lucas wasn’t a fan because the crowd certainly was. “Everybody just thought it was so funny, so Freddie,” says photographer Tom Callins, who captured one of the iconic images of Freddie riding the Star Wars villain.^[8]

2 Taco John’s Didn’t Want Anyone Else Using the Phrase “Taco Tuesday”

The phrase “Taco Tuesday” is ubiquitous, with the slogan being used by countless eateries to promote a discounted price for tacos on Tuesdays. But despite being so widespread, for years, Taco John’s—a restaurant chain in the Midwest and Mountain regions—owned the trademark and sent out cease and desist letters to other businesses that used the phrase.

Taco John’s proudly boasted about their ownership on their website: “Ever hear of Taco Tuesday®? We started it! We even trademarked it. That’s how seriously we take tacos.” Taco John’s may have trademarked it, but they certainly didn’t start it in the ’80s, as they claim. Thrillist reports that the earliest evidence of a special deal for tacos on Tuesdays can be found in 1933, while the exact phrase “Taco Tuesday” can be traced back to 1973.

Despite the C&D letters, there was no stopping the rampant use of the phrase. In 2023, Taco Bell filed a petition with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to cancel Taco John’s trademark, stating that the phrase “should be freely available to all who make, sell, eat and celebrate tacos.” Taco John’s conceded, with CEO Jim Creel saying that “paying millions of dollars to lawyers to defend our mark just doesn’t feel like the right thing to do.”^[9]

1 The North Face vs. The South Butt

In 2007, 16-year-old Jimmy Winkelmann decided to create a clothing company to poke fun at his classmates wearing North Face clothes despite not climbing mountains. He called his company The South Butt and used the slogan “Never Stop Relaxing” in a parody of The North Face’s “Never Stop Exploring.” The logo was also a riff on the outdoor clothing company’s icon; instead of three curves forming a mountain, Winkelmann flipped it upside down and removed one arch to evoke butt cheeks.

The North Face didn’t see the humor in it, though—despite Winkelmann’s business having only made around $5,000—and they sent him a cease and desist letter. Winkelmann lawyered up, leading The North Face to file a trademark infringement suit, and the resulting publicity drove far more traffic to The South Butt’s website. “Simply put, if it weren’t for the efforts of The North Face, The South Butt probably wouldn’t still exist,” said Albert Watkins, Winkelmann’s attorney.

In 2010, The North Face and The South Butt reached a settlement agreement, but the terms weren’t disclosed (aside from The South Butt ceasing operations).^[10]

Crucifixion is arguably the cruelest form of execution. When we read ancient sources, it is hard to distinguish the practice of crucifixion from other similar punishments like impalement.

The Romans learned it from their neighbors and used it especially in the provinces, mostly to discipline their subjects and discourage rebellions. Little did the Romans imagine that the crucifixion of a humble Jew in a lost corner of their territory would give the crucifixion an enduring fame.

10 Crucifixion In Persia

Many ancient rulers used crucifixion to send a message to their subjects about the things they should not be doing. During the reign of Persian king Darius I (r. 522–486 BC), the city of Babylon dismissed the Persian authorities and revolted against them around 522–521 BC.

Darius launched a campaign to recapture Babylon and laid siege to the city. The gates and walls of Babylon held for 19 months until the Persians broke the defenses and stormed the city.

Herodotus (Histories 3.159) reports that Darius stripped away the wall of Babylon and tore down all its gates. The city was returned to the Babylonians, but Darius decided to send a message that revolts would not be tolerated by crucifying 3,000 of the highest-ranking Babylonians.

9 Crucifixion In Greece

In 332 BC, Alexander the Great captured the Phoenician city of Tyre, which was being used as a naval base by the Persians. This was accomplished after a long siege that lasted from January until July.

After Alexander’s army broke the defenses, the Tyrian army was defeated and some ancient sources claim that 6,000 men were killed that day. Based on Greek sources, the ancient Roman writers Diodorus and Quintus Curtius reported that Alexander ordered the crucifixion of 2,000 survivors of military age along the beach.

8 Crucifixion In Rome

Crucifixion was not a general form of capital punishment under Roman law. It was only allowed under specific circumstances. Slaves could be crucified only for robbery or rebellion.

Roman citizens were immune to crucifixion unless they were found guilty of high treason. However, during later imperial times, humble citizens could be crucified for specific crimes. In the provinces, the Romans employed crucifixion to punish what they referred to as “unruly” people who were sentenced for robbery and other types of crimes (Metzger and Coogan 1993: 141–142).

7 Spartacus’s Revolt

Spartacus, a Roman slave of Thracian origin, escaped from a gladiator training camp in Capua in 73 BC and took about 78 other slaves with him. Spartacus and his men exploited the pathological concentration of wealth and social injustice of Roman society by recruiting thousands of other slaves and destitute country folks. He eventually built an army that defied Rome’s military machine for two years.

Roman General Crassus ended the revolt, which was the setting for one of the most famous cases of mass crucifixion in Roman history. Spartacus was killed, and his men were defeated. The survivors, more than 6,000 slaves, were crucified along the Via Appia, the road between Rome and Capua.

6 Crucifixion In The Jewish Tradition

Although the practice of crucifixion is not explicitly mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as a Jewish form of punishment, it is suggested in Deuteronomy 21.22–23: “And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree: his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day.”

In ancient rabbinic literature (Mishnah Sanhedrin 6.4), this was interpreted as the exposure of the body after the person was killed. But this view contradicts what is written in the ancient Temple Scroll of Qumran (64.8), which says that an Israelite who commits high treason must be hanged so that he dies.

Jewish history records a number of crucifixion victims. Perhaps the most notable is reported by the ancient Jewish writer Josephus (Antiquities 13.14): The king of Judaea Alexander Jannaeus (126–76 BC) crucified 800 Jewish political enemies who were considered to have committed high treason.

5 The Position Of The Nails

The idea that the nails pierce the victim’s palms is the dominant image we get from painters and sculptors who have represented the crucifixion of Jesus. Today, we know that nails through the palms are unable to support the body weight and likely to strip out between the fingers.

Therefore, it is possible that the upper limbs of the victim were tied with ropes to the crossbeam to provide additional support. There is, however, a simpler solution. The nails could be inserted between the ulna and the radius rather than the palms. The bones and tendons of the wrist are strong enough to hold the weight of the body.

The only problem with piercing the wrists is that it contradicts the description of Jesus’s injuries in the gospels. For example, in John 24:39, it is stated that Jesus had his hands pierced. Many scholars have tried to explain this contradiction with boring and predictable claims about errors in translation.

The reality is that none of the authors of the gospels had been direct witnesses of the events. The earliest of the gospels, the Gospel of Mark, dates to c. AD 60–70, about a generation after Jesus’s crucifixion, so it is not reasonable to expect a high degree of accuracy in such details.

4 Roman Method

There was not a standard way of conducting a crucifixion. The general practice in the Roman world involved a first stage where the condemned was flagellated. Literary sources suggest that the condemned did not carry the whole cross. He only had to carry the crossbeam to the place of crucifixion, where a stake fixed to the ground was used for multiple executions.

This was both practical and cost-effective. According to the ancient Jewish historian Josephus, wood was a scarce commodity in Jerusalem and its vicinity during the first century AD.

The condemned was then stripped and attached to the crossbeam with nails and cords. The beam was drawn by ropes until the feet were off the ground. Sometimes, the feet were also tied or nailed.

If the condemned was able to endure the torture for too long, the executioners could break his legs to accelerate death. The Gospel of John (19.33–34) mentions that a Roman soldier pierced the side of Jesus while He was on the cross, a practice to ensure that the condemned was dead.

3 Causes Of Death

In some cases, the condemned could die during the flagellation stage, especially when bone parts or lead were added to the whips. If the crucifixion occurred on a hot day, the loss of fluid from sweating coupled with the loss of blood from the flagellation and injuries could lead to death from hypovolemic shock. If the execution occurred on a cold day, the condemned could die from hypothermia.

Neither the traumas caused by the nail injuries nor the bleeding were the prime causes of death. The position of the body during the crucifixion produced a gradual and painful process of asphyxiation. The diaphragm and intercostal muscles involved in the breathing process would become weak and exhausted. Given enough time, the victim was simply unable to breathe. Breaking the legs was a way to accelerate this process.

2 Forensic Evidence

Analysis of the bones of a crucifixion victim published in the Israel Exploration Journal has revealed a form of crucifixion that is rarely displayed on paintings or mentioned in literary sources. In this case, the bone injuries showed that the nails penetrated the side of the heel bone.

Rather than the traditional position of the legs that we see in many depictions of crucifixion victims, the study suggests that “the victim’s legs straddled the vertical shaft of the cross, one leg on either side, with the nails penetrating the heel bones.”

This study also explains why the remains of crucifixion victims are sometimes found with the nails. Apparently, the condemned man’s family found it impossible to remove the nails, which were normally bent due to the hammering, without destroying the heel bone. “This reluctance to inflict further damage to the heel led [to his burial with the nail still in his bone, and this, in turn, led] to the eventual discovery of the crucifixion.”

1 Abolition By Emperor Constantine

Under the Romans, Christianity underwent a surprising transformation. It started as an offshoot of the Jewish religion, turned into an outlaw cult, became a tolerated religious expression, developed into a state-sponsored faith, and finally became the hegemonic religion of the late Roman Empire.

The Roman emperor Constantine the Great (AD 272–337) proclaimed the Edict of Milan in AD 313, decreeing the tolerance of the Christian faith and granting Christians full legal rights. This crucial step helped Christianity become the official Roman state religion.

After centuries of practicing crucifixion as a torture and execution method, Emperor Constantine abolished it in AD 337, motivated by his veneration for Jesus Christ.

The demography of ancient Greece has always been a hard subject to study. Although ancient sources provide no reliable statistical data on childbirth, mortality, life expectancy, and other related metrics, we do know quite a bit about practices and issues that affected population levels.

Ancient Greek folklore and imagery glorify the procreative energy of female sexuality. But we also know that under some circumstances, women wanted to avoid pregnancy or dispose of illegitimate, deformed, or sick children.

10 Silphium

There is plenty of recorded evidence that the Greeks were familiar with the contraceptive properties of a small tree known as silphium, which belonged to the Ferula genus. This plant was both discovered and marketed by the Greek colonists in Cyrene, an ancient Greek city on the North African coast near present-day Shahhat, Libya.

All attempts to transplant and cultivate the silphium tree outside Cyrene were unsuccessful. The overexploitation of silphium led to its extinction. By the first century AD, the plant was expensive due to the low supply, and the last historical reference we know is dated to the fourth century AD.

Clinical testing performed with extracts from plants of related species have shown them to be effective contraceptives in animals provided that the extract is administered within three days of mating. This suggests that silphium may have been used as an herbal morning-after pill similar to the morning-after pills marketed today (Wilson 2006: 182).

9 Magical Procedures

In ancient Greece, magical concoctions, spells, amulets, and incantations were believed to aid both reproduction and contraception. For some reason, the testicles of a weasel were believed to act in both directions.

According to an ancient Greek text known as Cyranides (2.7), the right testicle of a weasel “reduced to ashes and mixed in a paste with myrrh” was believed to aid conception when inserted into a woman’s vagina on a small ball of wool before the sexual encounter.

The contraceptive use of weasel testicles employed the left testicle “wrapped in mule skin and attached to the woman.” Since the text does not tell us exactly how the testicles should be attached to the woman, it is not possible to confirm or deny the effectiveness of this procedure (McKeown 2013: 35).

8 Male Contraception

Some ancient sources refer to a plant named periklymenon that was believed to act as a male contraceptive, but all modern attempts to identify it have failed. The renowned Greek physician Galen reported that the chaste tree was used by athletes to prevent erections. There are other references claiming that the leaves of the chaste tree were chewed by priests to decrease sexual desire (Wilson 2006: 182).

Modern testing of chaste tree extract on dogs has shown it to be an effective blocker of sperm production. Coitus interruptus was a known male contraceptive method, but it is unclear to what extent this method was employed judging by the scarce reference to it.

7 Abortion

Abortion was a well-known procedure in ancient Greece. Although the ancient Greeks knew both surgical and chemical procedures to interrupt a pregnancy, literary evidence suggests that surgical methods were discouraged due to the risk posed to the mother.

Socrates, whose mother was a midwife, said in Plato’s Theaetetus (149d), “With the drugs and incantations they administer, midwives can [during an early stage of the pregnancy] cause a miscarriage if they so decide.” Ancient Greek medical literature recorded the names of several plants that were used to terminate early pregnancies including rue, pennyroyal, myrrh, juniper, and birthwort.

Although abortion was considered controversial in some Greek cities, we have no evidence that it was a punishable crime. Ancient Greek medical texts indicate that abortion was often practiced by prostitutes (Wilson 2006: 1).

6 Infanticide

Infanticide was a well-known method of family planning. From a legal standpoint, a child had little protection until the amphidromia was conducted, which was the ceremony where the father named the child.

In general, the child could be killed without any legal trouble or moral controversies at any point before this ceremony took place. Moreover, in some ancient Greek law codes, infanticide was an advisable course of action under specific circumstances.

The term “infant exposure” (putting the infant outside) is used in ancient sources, presumably as a euphemism for infanticide in many cases. The outcome of the abandonment of an infant is either death or adoption by a third party (Hornblower and Spawforth 2012: 735).

Infant exposure is a repetitive theme in ancient lore and legends, and Greece is no exception (e.g. Oedipus, Paris, and Telephus). This literary evidence suggests that infanticide was probably a widespread method of limiting family size, although the exact extent to which it was employed is difficult to assess.

5 Deformed Infants

There is a very specific form of infanticide recorded in ancient Greece that has been strongly connected to Sparta. According to Plutarch (“Life of Lycurgus,” 16), every Spartan newborn had to be brought to the elders for examination:

If [the infant] was well-built and sturdy, they ordered the father to rear it [ . . . ]; but if it was ill-born and deformed, they sent it to the so-called Apothetae, a chasm-like place at the foot of Mount Taygetus, in the conviction that the life of that which nature had not well equipped at the very beginning for health and strength, was of no advantage either to itself or the state.

The reality is that Spartans were not the only ones concerned with deformed infants. In Book 7 of his work Politics, Aristotle supports infanticide in the case of deformed infants: “As to the exposure and rearing of children, let there be a law that no deformed child shall live.”

Even the Romans in the Law of the Twelve Tables (the foundation of Rome’s legal system) contemplated the killing of deformed infants (table 4, 1): “A notably deformed child shall be killed immediately.”

4 Homosexuality

The American scholar William Percy has argued that the encouragement of sexual intercourse between members of the same sex in ancient Greece, particularly the institutionalized Athenian pederasty, was aimed at controlling the population level. An interpretation along the same lines was already expressed by Aristotle (Politics 2.1272a 22–24), who argued that the goal behind the institutionalized pederasty of the Cretan society was to check the demographic growth.

It does not seem possible to confirm whether homosexual practices in ancient Greece were encouraged with the conscious purpose to check demographic growth. But it is reasonable to suppose that as the number of sexual encounters between members of the same sex increases, the frequency of sexual intercourse between members of the opposite sex is likely to be reduced.

Homosexuality might well have had an effect on population control—not as a strategy consciously aimed to check population levels but merely as an inevitable side effect of limiting heterosexual activity (Wilson 2006: 127).

3 Legal Regulations

Several aspects of population control had a legal regulation in ancient Greece. In the city of Gortyn (central Crete), we found detailed information concerning various laws inscribed around 450 BC (Hornblower and Spawforth 2012: 623–735).

The Gortyn law code (3, 43–48) allowed infant exposure in some cases: “If a wife who is separated (by divorce) should bear a child, (they) are to bring it to the husband at his house in the presence of three witnesses; and if he should not receive it, the child should be in the mother’s power either to rear or expose.”

Interestingly, the Gortyn law code (4, 9–13) also contemplated fines if a woman did not comply with this regulation: “If a wife who is separated (by divorce) should expose her child before presenting it as it is written [in this legal code], if she is convicted, she shall pay, for a free child, fifty-staters, for a slave, twenty-five.”

In the city of Thebes, the law did not allow infanticide. However, poor parents were allowed to sell their children.

2 Mortality And Life Expectancy

War was arguably the most important factor for adult male mortality, although maternal, neonatal, and infant mortality were also high. No reliable figures on demographic statistics have survived to our days, but some scholars have come up with different figures. Maternal death estimates range from 5 in 20,000, a truly low and probably unrealistic calculation, to 25 in 1,000. This rate would vary in different places at different times (Hornblower and Spawforth 2014: 161, 617).

Based on forensic anthropology data from Classical Greece cemeteries, infant mortality has been estimated at about 30 percent (Olyntus, northern Greece) assuming that the sample of human remains analyzed is representative of the wider population, which is uncertain.

The ancient Greeks coined the word amphithales (“blooming on both sides”) to refer to a child with both parents still alive. The fact that a special word was employed to refer to this situation suggests that life expectancy was low (McKeown 2013: 16).

1 Miscellaneous Birth Control Methods

Ancient literature records a number of additional contraceptive methods that are hard to classify and of dubious effectiveness. In the first century AD, the Greek physician Dioscorides recommended anointing the male genitals with cedar gum and applying alum to the uterus. Such practice was believed to make the womb unsuitable to host the male seed.

Other methods included the use of a suppository of peppermint and honey before intercourse and a peppery pessary after sexual activity to “dry out” the uterus and make it inhospitable for the fetus.