Some monuments and statues instill a sense of pride, beauty, and country—those unforgettable works of art that you saw on field trips and in the pages of history books. But there are also less-explored monuments—odes to the weird, the wonderful, and the just plain wacky. There are thousands of commemorative monuments out there and plenty of roadside guides and travel books to point you in the right direction to see them. These quirky monuments draw in tons of visitors per year; sometimes, it’s just too hard to resist the bizarre.

10 Boll Weevil Monument

There is nothing out of the ordinary about erecting a statue to commemorate a noble person or a period in history. However, a memorial for an insect is far less common. In Enterprise, Alabama, visitors have the unique opportunity to visit the Boll Weevil Monument, a statue of a woman proudly displaying a large boll weevil above her head. The monument was constructed in 1919 as a symbol of the perseverance of local farmers.

It seems that this particular agricultural pest wreaked havoc on the cotton crop and forced farmers to take up planting peanuts instead, a move that turned out to be extremely profitable for the town. The statue sits in the middle of Main Street and receives several visitors each year. The plaque on the monument reads, “In profound appreciation of the Boll Weevil and what it has done as the herald of prosperity, this monument is erected by the citizens of Enterprise.”

9 Carhenge

Nearly all of us have heard of Stonehenge, but you’d be hard pressed to find many who have heard of Carhenge. This bizarre monument sits in the grassy planes of Alliance, Nebraska, a memorial to the classic American cars of yesteryear. The cars, mostly from the 1950s and 1960s, are situated in a circle with their noses in the ground and yet more cars balancing on top of them. The roadside attraction was built in the 1980s and mimics the exact arrangement of Stonehenge.

The maker of this odd monument created it to commemorate his father. The property upon which it resides contains other automotive tributes, including a cemetery dedicated to fallen foreign vehicles. In 2011, Carhenge was put up for sale with an asking price of $300,000. That may seem like a steep price, but it is estimated that this quirky site attracts around 80,000 visitors per year from all over the globe.

8 Enema Monument

Why anyone would want to build an ode to an enema is beyond most, but such a monument does exist in the southern Russian city of Zheleznovodsk. The bronze memorial weighs 360 kilograms (800 lb), is 1.5 meters (5 ft) tall, and is balanced on the backs of three naked cherubs. The enema is considered a work of art by the director of the Mashuk-Akva Term Spa and is proudly displayed in the front courtyard of the building. The mountainous region where the spa is located is known for its digestive treatments, which involve enemas filled with natural spring water to help patients deal with intestinal discomfort. In this way, the enema actually serves as a symbol of local health services.

The statue cost a whopping $42,000 and was unveiled in 2008 to an excited crowd. A banner stuck on one of the spa walls read, “Let’s beat constipation and sloppiness with enemas.” The sculptor who created the enema said that she did so with irony and humor in mind. Her goal was to model the three angels after those seen in works from the Italian Renaissance. No doubt Botticelli would be proud.

7 Steve Jobs Monument

After the death of Steve Jobs, an interactive iPhone was erected in front of St. Petersburg’s National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics, and Optics. The memorial had a lit display with a slideshow displaying photographs and videos from the life and career of Jobs, focusing on his many achievements as CEO of Apple. The phone also had a large QR code on the back, which visitors were able to scan and be redirected to a website commemorating Jobs.

Despite being quite popular, the giant iPhone was taken down by Russian officials only a year after it was unveiled. The firm that originally put the memorial up decided to dismantle it the day after Tim Cooke, Apple’s newest CEO, announced his sexual orientation. A Russian news station reported that the monument was removed because of the country’s homosexuality laws involving minors and because it was revealed that there may be a tie between Apple’s products and national security. The college where the iPhone was displayed denies these claims and states that the phone was malfunctioning and needed to be repaired. The monument has not been put back up.

6 Shit Fountain

Artist Jerzy Kenar got tired of stepping out of his Chicago home and constantly stepping in dog poop. So, he decided to put his talents to good use and created a visual monument that would serve as a reminder to the dog owners of the neighborhood to scoop up what their pups leave behind. Enter Shit Fountain, a fecal-shaped bronze coil on top of a cement pillar with the monument’s title carved into the side.

The statue also has water trickling over the top of it in order to give it that freshly excreted look. The fountain is beloved by passersby, and people often have their photos taken squatting above the statue or mimicking quenching their thirst. The artist believes that it has helped local dog owners to be more conscientious and finds the work to be an important part of the neighborhood scenery.

5 The Headington Shark

The 8-meter-tall (25 ft) fiberglass Headington Shark is hard to miss not just because of its length, but more so because it appears to be crashing headfirst into the roof of a cozy British house. The shark was placed on the house’s roof on August 9, 1986, the 41st anniversary of the Nagasaki bombing, by the homeowner as a statement about the devastation brought on by the use of nuclear weapons. The local neighborhood council wasn’t particularly thrilled about the bizarre leviathan and attempted to have it removed. However, the homeowner successfully appealed to the British Secretary of the Environment on behalf of the shark and was able to save it from being taken down.

Visitors from around the world flock to New High Street to see the shark each year. Many come to celebrate the shark’s birthday. Drinks and cake are served, and the owner of the home signs copies of his book, The Hunting of the Shark. The home (shark attached) went up for rent in 2014 for just over £2,000 a month. The owner prefers to rent to individuals who don’t mind visitors taking photographs of the shark and who don’t mind answering the occasional question about its meaning. Ironically, however, he has asked that only tenants without pets inquire.

4 Die Badende

“Die Badende” translates to “The Bather,” and one look at the statue in the Inner Alster Lake in Hamburg, Germany, will tell you why. The huge sculpture of a woman’s head and bare knees was on display for only 10 days and gave the body of water the appearance of a giant bathtub. The Bather was 20 meters (67 ft) long and weighed more than 2 tons. Tourists came in droves to view the woman before she was removed weeks later by a large crane. Swimming through her parted legs was particularly popular among boats crammed with visitors.

Artist Oliver Voss created the sculpture as an advertisement for British beauty company Glory. The company wanted to make a “big splash” in thanking the German people for embracing their latest line of products. The advertisement proved very successful; customers and a large crowd gathered to watch the woman hoisted from the water. The movers had a large towel ready to conceal her lady bits from peeping eyes.

3 Jimmy Carter Peanut

The Jimmy Carter Peanut might give you nightmares, standing at 4 meters (13 ft) tall with a wide, toothy smile and no eyes. The peanut can be found on the side of the road in Plains, Georgia. The structure started out far from Georgia, however. It was actually constructed in Indiana in 1976 to honor Jimmy Carter’s visit to the state during his presidential campaign tour. Why was a giant, smiling peanut, of all things, used as a tribute? Well, before he was president, Carter was actually a peanut farmer.

The statue also possesses the same grin that was known so fondly as one of Carter’s most handsome traits during his years in office. In 2000, a car struck the poor peanut, causing it to topple over. But don’t worry: The peanut was restored to its former glory and can still be visited today. Not surprisingly, it’s the most (if not the only) photographed thing in Plains.

2 Jeju Loveland

The salacious monuments found on Jeju Island in South Korea were made to honor sexual acts. The park itself is called Jeju Loveland and arouses more than just curiosity from its many visitors. The theme park opened in 2004 and has a collection of more than 140 erotic statues depicting sexual encounters between both humans and animals. The goals of the theme park are to break down barriers and taboo feelings surrounding sex and promote the “natural beauty of sexuality.”

The park is roughly the size of two soccer fields, and it takes visitors about an hour to see all that it has to offer. The statues were created by graduate students from Seoul’s Hongik University and have an educational function as well. Many marriages in South Korea are arranged, and as such, couples can find themselves in the situation of being new to the delights of marriage. Jeju Loveland has become a popular spot for honeymooners to visit and receive a type of crash course in sex education. The theme park wants to be open to all types of visitors and even has a playground for anyone visiting with children.

1 Brownnosers

Brownnosers, created by Czech artist David Cerny, takes the term “brownnoser” to an entirely new (and literal) level. The two statues stand, or rather bend over, outside the Futura Gallery in Prague. The two figures are positioned side-by-side with the lower portions of their torsos protruding from a cement wall. Viewers are invited to climb ladders attached to the open anuses of the figures and stick their heads inside the openings.

Inside the statue is a video depicting the Czech President Vaclav Klaus and the head of the National Gallery spoon-feeding one another. The video shows the two men (really actors) in masks, feeding each other to the tune of Queen’s famous song “We Are The Champions.” The piece is meant as a criticism not only of the political situation in the Czech Republic, but as a physical manifestation of the artist’s disdain for the National Gallery. In fact, Cerny’s hate for the gallery runs so deep that he actually refused to accept the award they gave him. He stated that upon meeting the curator of the museum, “It was hate at first sight.”

Lee DeGraw is a freelance writer with an inquiring mind.

It’s inevitable that we will always want to commemorate our renowned men and women by building monuments to them. The monument is a sign that the person is honored and remembered. It’s also just as inevitable that we remember the notorious evildoers of history—either out of a sense of justice, a wish to prevent future horrors, or simple morbid fascination. But what if some of these saviors and scoundrels were the same people?

Rarely is history divided neatly into spotless saints and vicious villains. Sometimes, those we lionize have dark deeds lurking in their pasts. The polished stone of some monuments hides such darkness. At best, these memorials seek to recognize the achievements of a person in spite of their misdeeds, overlooking the vices while celebrating the virtues. At worst, the statues’ builders put them up with full knowledge of the figure’s crimes—with some monuments raised on the very bloodstained ground where the victims perished.

Read on for the following murderers immortalized in stone and metal . . .

10 Nathan Bedford Forrest

The Murderer:

In the mid-19th century, a longstanding national dispute over the future of black slavery in the United States erupted into the Civil War. The slaveholding Confederacy was determined to keep its traditional rights, even if it had to form its own nation to do so; the Union was equally determined to keep the US together and eventually ensured that slavery was abolished. They even recruited former slaves to fill out the ranks of the US Army.

Confederate generals from the US Civil War weren’t all cut from the same cloth—they ranged from diehards who never gave up on their lost cause to those who worked for reunion and reconciliation after the war ended. General Nathan Bedford Forrest falls on the dark end of the spectrum. A tenacious fighter, he was equally tenacious and uncompromising in his views of black Americans. He had been a slave trader before the war, something considered a disreputable profession even in the prewar South. After the war, he was instrumental in organizing the Ku Klux Klan. He was no gentleman.

The Mayhem:

Forrest’s biggest act of notoriety came during the war at Fort Pillow, Tennessee. The fort was held by Union troops, many of them black men. The Southerners as a whole, having lived for generations in fear of blacks gaining weapons, found the idea of such soldiers to be repugnant. Their government had even announced that captured black soldiers would be kept as slaves or executed. These threats were largely for nothing, since the US government vowed to enslave or kill Southern prisoners in retaliation, and a stalemate ensued. Forrest, though, acting on his own initiative out in the field, allowed a far uglier outcome to play out.

Forrest’s men, having besieged the fort for hours, finally managed to storm it when the defense collapsed. The defenders—white and black Union soldiers together—threw down their weapons, expecting to be taken prisoner. The white ones were.

The black soldiers, however, were massacred wholesale. Surrendering troops were killed by the dozens, their killers deaf to their cries for mercy. Many fled to the banks of the Mississippi River, where Forrest’s men bayoneted them in droves. As Forrest put it in his after-action report: “The river was dyed, with the blood of the slaughtered for two hundred yards. The approximate loss was upward of five hundred killed, but few of the officers escaping. [ . . . ] It is hoped these facts will demonstrate to the Northern people that negro [sic] soldiers cannot cope with Southerners.” Nearly 300 Union soldiers died in the battle, most of them black—and most after surrendering.

Debate has raged ever since about whether Forrest specifically approved the massacre or not. But as the senior officer on the scene, Forrest bears command responsibility for the events, and he certainly seemed to approve of the results.

The Monument:

An equestrian statue of Forrest was erected in Memphis, Tennessee. Completed in 1905, the bodies of Forrest and his wife were reinterred beneath it. The statue’s inscriptions extolled Forrest’s war record; it is unclear whether the words mentioned Fort Pillow in any manner.

It stood in a city park for 112 years, many of them controversial. Finally, on December 20, 2017, the 157th anniversary of the beginning of Confederate secession, city officials executed a plan to tear down the statue, citing its inflammatory nature.^[1]

9 Nat Turner

The Murderer:

Slaves at any period in history have been faced with a bunch of unpromising choices: endurance, escape, suicide, or rebellion. Many slaves in the American South, like the famed Frederick Douglass, took the path of escape, cementing the reputation of the famed Underground Railroad. But some chose active resistance. Nat Turner, a black slave living in Virginia in the 1830s, was one who chose this path. A preacher among his fellow slaves, Turner reported hearing divine voices for years, urging him to fight for his own freedom and the freedom of all black slaves. Describing one of his visions, Turner said, “I saw white spirits and black spirits engaged in battle, and the sun was darkened—the thunder rolled in the heavens, and blood flowed in streams.”

To strike back against the slave society around him, Turner would eventually act on those visions, and his rebellion would blur the line between a military campaign and a festival of atrocities.

The Mayhem:

Turner triggered his planned rebellion in the predawn darkness of August 21, 1831, when he and several fellow slaves broke into the house of the slaveowning Travis family. At Turner’s command, his men slaughtered the man and woman of the house in their beds. Despite being urged to participate, Turner dealt no fatal blows himself. While the rebels were marching away, they belatedly remembered the untouched Travis infant, asleep in its cradle. Turner sent one of his men back to finish the job.

Turner’s growing band proceeded from farm to farm, absorbing local slave recruits and generally spreading merciless murder as they went. They did spare some poverty-stricken whites along the way; Turner deemed them equals who weren’t part of the oppressive slave system. Also spared were fellow blacks, whether or not they wanted to join the rebellion.

That mercy did not extend to white women or children above the poverty line. The carnage continued until approximately 60 whites lay dead, killed with blades and clubs (as gunshots would have alerted the countryside). Turner only managed to put aside his apparent personal reluctance once, in order to kill a young girl named Margaret Whitehead. Chasing her into a field, he hacked at her over and over again with a sword. When she refused to die, he resorted to using a fence rail to beat her to death.

The Monument:

The flames of Turner’s rebellion were soon stamped out. His group lost a pitched battle with local militia soon afterward, and many of them—including Turner himself—were captured and hanged. The hysteria that followed led to many blacks being lynched throughout the South. For decades, opinions on Turner ranged from his being a vengeful sadist at worst to a wanton zealot at best—but perspectives seem to have shifted in recent years.

Richmond, the capital city of Virginia, voted in September 2017 to include Nat Turner on a memorial celebrating noted black American advocates for freedom and civil rights.^[2] When construction is completed, his likeness will stand alongside those of Martin Luther King Jr., Wyatt Tee Walker, and other nonviolent activists. Debate remains over whether Turner is in the same caliber as these others. But Virginians, at least, seem to have decided that his murderous means have not tarnished his noble ends.

8 Genghis Khan

The Murderer:

Conquering much of the known world makes you a pretty memorable guy. From East Asia to Central Europe, Genghis Khan’s Mongol armies swept away all resistance before them. The man at their head, a cunning warrior and resourceful leader, also had a cruel streak running through him. Even in a time when invading forces routinely mistreated defeated enemies and defenseless civilians, the Mongols under Genghis’s command gained a fearful reputation for ruthlessness. This reputation was useful for frightening enemy cities into submission without a single skirmish—but the Mongols’ bite was still much worse than their bark.

The future khan, born Temujin, was no stranger to heart-wrenching violence. Before his tenth birthday, his father had been poisoned by a rival clan. Temujin himself later killed his older half-brother in order to take charge of the family household. His most macabre achievements, however, operated on a much larger scale. Under his authority, the Mongols perfected terror as an art form.

The Mayhem:

As an expanding empire, the Mongols much preferred intact, subservient nations to smoking ruins, but they were more than willing to annihilate defiant enemies with extreme prejudice. There are many examples of wanton killing by the Mongols in these cases, but the sack of the great Silk Road city of Merv (in modern-day Turkmenistan) serves as a chilling example.

Fueled by the wealth of the Silk Road, Merv had become known known for its fine goods and scholars. Numerous libraries crowded inside Merv’s walls, and some of the greatest scientific minds of the Islamic Golden Age gathered there to develop their theories. Situated at a key oasis, it was renowned as a pearl among the desert dunes.

Unfortunately, that status also made it a target. In 1221, Genghis was in the process of conquering the region around Merv. As usual, the Khan promised death to any city that dared to defend itself. Nonetheless, Merv’s inhabitants were determined to resist. The Mongols approached the walls shepherding numerous human shields before them, prisoners from other local cities that had already fallen. It is not known whether the defenders held their fire when confronted with these innocents, but it is probable that many of the prisoners were killed either by defensive fire from the city or by the Mongols ordering them forward.

When besieging a city, Genghis’s men were known to lob disease-ridden corpses over the walls using catapults. This early form of biological warfare spread both contagion and terror among the defenders. Still, Merv’s inhabitants resisted. After the Mongols breached the walls, the citizens fought them block by block. Though the Mongols were unused to street fighting, and suffered heavy casualties as a result, they eventually prevailed. That was when the slaughter and destruction truly began—all at the khan’s command.

Most of the buildings in the city were put to the torch, including the irreplaceable libraries. The surviving inhabitants were marched out through the gates, where a small proportion of skilled artisans and young women were reserved to be sent back to slavery in Mongolia. All the rest were butchered. Ibn al-Athir, one of a handful who managed to escape, later described the scene:

If any one were to say that at no time since the creation of man by the Great God had the world experienced anything like it, he would only be telling the truth [ . . . ] a single city whose inhabitants were murdered numbered more than all the Israelites together. It may well be that the world from now until its end . . . will not experience the like of it again. [ . . . ] [The Mongols] spared none. They killed women, men and children, ripped open the bodies of the pregnant and slaughtered the unborn.

Contemporary Muslim scholars estimated the number of dead at 700,000. Many modern historians consider this an exaggeration. Merv’s prewar population has been estimated at 70,000, but this population was swollen by refugees fleeing the Mongol advance. A still mind-boggling figure of 100,000 deaths is entirely plausible.

The Monument:

Genghis Khan remains a controversial figure whose perception varies depending upon the region. In places the Mongols devastated, Genghis is remembered as an unparalleled butcher and destroyer. Those territories he united in relatively peaceful ways, like much of modern Mongolia, revere him as the courageous founder of the Mongol state. Fittingly, his most impressive monument is in Mongolia itself.

The 2008 memorial, at 40 meters (131 ft) high, is the world’s largest equestrian statue.^[3] It stands on the plains east of Ulaanbaatar. In the pavilion beneath the statue, visitors can explore a museum, browse a gift shop, or try on traditional Mongolian clothing. The statue complex will form the nucleus of a planned theme park, as well.

The khan’s statue faces east, turning its back on the ruins of Merv and the countless other places his armies wiped off the map. His memorial builders say this symbolizes his triumphant return after his many victories. But the inhabitants of Merv certainly would have preferred that he never left home at all.

7 Enver Pasha And Talaat Pasha

The Murderers:

Relations between Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks have never been friendly, with ethnic and religious tensions always bubbling beneath the surface. Yet these tensions peaked during the last tottering days of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. The Armenians, subjects of the empire, desired a nation of their own. Turkish officials feared this would endanger their own shaky authority. During World War I, these leaders saw a chance to shore up their regime by improving upon prior spontaneous outbreaks of anti-Armenian violence. It was the industrial age, after all. Murder could now be accomplished on an industrial scale.

For most of the 1910s, the de facto rulers of the empire were a trio known as the Three Pashas (“pasha” being an honorific): Grand Vizier Mehmed Talaat Pasha, Minister of War Ismail Enver Pasha, and Minister of the Navy Ahmed Djemal Pasha. All three were members of the progressive Young Turk Party, which seized power in a 1913 coup. The trio collectively steered the course and policies of the empire. They advocated Turkification, the purification of the Ottoman population and culture to reflect Turkish roots, excluding all minorities. On top of that, they also nursed powerful hatred for the Armenians; Talaat told a Danish diplomat as early as 1910 that, “If I ever come to power in this country, I will use all my might to exterminate the Armenians.” In 1915, Talaat and his co-rulers got their chance.

The Mayhem:

At the beginning of 1915, Enver Pasha led Ottoman forces to a disastrous defeat by the Russians at the Battle of Sarikamis, causing outcry on the home front. His government was anxious to shift the blame. Accusing the Armenians of widespread treachery was a safe bet—some ethnic Armenians did fight in the Russian army, and it played off the preexisting resentments of the majority population. This allowed the Pashas’ desire for extermination to be put into action.

The plan unfolded in measured stages. First, most of the able-bodied Armenian men, already drafted into the imperial army, were disarmed and segregated into labor battalions to reduce the chance that the executioners would face any substantial resistance. Soon afterward, these men, most of whom had fought steadfastly for the empire against its enemies, were left defenseless at the mercy of government-encouraged mobs. “Mercy” didn’t really apply; most of the soldiers were soon dead.

Next, the government turned on Armenian civilians. Evicted from their homes, many were slaughtered in the streets. Others were killed en masse through burning, drowning, poison, and gas. Those not killed were ordered on forced marches through a harsh landscape of mountains and deserts, all the way to the Ottoman province of Syria. Staggering along, they endured extreme temperatures, starvation, and brutalization from guards and local tribesmen alike. Any who survived the trek—and the plentiful robbery, rape, and murder en route—arrived at some of the world’s first concentration camps. The Ottomans provided almost nothing for their prisoners’ welfare in these camps. Starvation, a punishing climate, and disease took a frightful toll.

Within a few years, approximately one million Armenians had been annihilated.

The Monument:

For all their bloody labor, the Pashas’ regime soon toppled anyway. By 1922, the empire had broken up, replaced by the officially secular nation-state of Turkey. In exile abroad, both Talaat and Djemal were promptly assassinated by Armenian revolutionaries seeking revenge, part of a program named Operation Nemesis. Enver Pasha probably escaped their fate only by dying on his own terms first, in a headstrong attack against Soviet forces in 1922. Only a few years after the outset of the Armenian genocide, its principal architects were dead.

Turkey, however, still felt it owed a debt of gratitude to these men for their prominence in maintaining the old empire. Decades later, the Turkish government brought home the bodies of Talaat and Enver and reinterred them in a place of honor in 1943 and 1996, respectively, with the former sent as a gesture of goodwill from Adolf Hitler himself.^[4] The Abide-i Hurriyet (or Monument of Eternal Liberty), a memorial complex in Istanbul, now holds the remains of two of the Three Pashas. Each grave is constructed of clean and stately stone, topped by a muscular arch, and shaded by tulip trees.

The Pashas’ impressive memorials stand far from the main sites of their atrocities in Syria and Western Anatolia. Still, of those involved in the horrific events, the Pashas are the only ones memorialized within Turkey. Since the Turkish government still insists that the Pashas’ actions were necessary for national security, it does not recognize the events as a genocide. Therefore, it has allowed no monuments to the victims to be erected within Turkey itself. The only Armenian genocide memorial in Turkey, constructed in an Armenian cemetery in Istanbul, was built under the authority of occupying Western powers at the end of World War I, but in 1922, the Turkish government dismantled both cemetery and monument, using the tombstones and other materials to build a public park on the site. Though the Pashas were dead, their desire to wipe Armenians from the face of Turkey was still alive and well.

Today, there are signs that some Turkish citizens remember the Pashas in a less-than-fond fashion. The graves at the Monument of Eternal Liberty seem to be poorly maintained, and some citizens join together in genocide memorial events each April. But for now, there remain no monuments to the dead Armenians in Turkey itself—only those honoring their killers.

6 John Mason

The Murderer:

Once-celebrated atrocities committed by European Americans upon Native Americans could fill an entire article by itself; many readers will be familiar with the 19th-century events at Wounded Knee, Sand Creek, and the Trail of Tears. But the history goes back much further. In 1637, only a year after the English Connecticut Colony was established at Long Island Sound, the colonists were already embroiled in a major confrontation with the local Pequots. Tensions with the Pequots, allies of England’s Dutch enemies, had been high from the start. But small attacks and counterattacks on both sides, fueled in part by a region-wide famine, escalated the ongoing violence to a new and horrific level.

Captain John Mason was an English Puritan and former soldier living in Connecticut at that time. By his mid-thirties, he was already known for his military exploits in the colonies: He commanded the first American naval force, which routed pirates from New England waters, and he helped build the first fortifications in Boston Harbor. When tensions with the Pequots reached a fever pitch, he was a natural choice to lead the Connecticut militia. Discussions among the colonial leaders produced a decision to make a disabling (and deadly) surprise attack.

The Mayhem:

In late May, Mason set out with his colonial militia and hundreds of Native American allies, who were themselves traditional enemies of the Pequots. The combined force managed to approach the main Pequot village along the Mystic River without being discovered. The village was strongly defended with a thick wooden palisade, but crucially for the coming hours, it had only two gates through which the villagers could exit.

Some of Mason’s men assaulted one of the gates, but the startled Pequots fought back with surprising effectiveness. Half of the assault party had been wounded within minutes, and they were in danger of being cut off and surrounded within the compound. To turn the tide, Mason chose a devastating tactic: He set part of the village on fire.

Such a desperate measure, used to cover the retreat of his men, could be understood as reasonable. But the next actions of the colonists reached the height of cruelty. As their native allies watched in disgusted horror, and the wind off the river fanned the flames, the militiamen blockaded the two exits of the palisade. Any Pequot who tried to flee through those entrances—man, woman, or child—was cut down by hand. Each of the over 400 Pequots inside the village faced a terrible choice: death by fire or death by sword. Mason’s second-in-command, John Underhill, later recalled:

[T]he fires [ . . . ] meeting in the center of the Fort blazed most terribly, and burnt all in the space of halfe an houre; many couragious fellowes were unwilling to come out, and fought most desperately through the Palisadoes, so as they were scorched and burnt with the very flame, and were deprived of their armes, in regard the fire burnt their very bowstrings, and so perished valiantly. [ . . . ] [M]any were burnt in the Fort, both men, women, and children, others forced out, and came in troopes to the Indians, twentie, and thirtie at a time, which our souldiers received and entertained with the point of the sword; downe fell men, women, and children.

When the smoke cleared, a majority of the Pequot tribe lay dead in and around the ruins of their village.

The Monument:

With the Pequot’s strength broken, the war ended soon after the Mystic massacre. For his actions, Mason was promoted to major; he went on to serve the colony of Connecticut for decades in a number of important governmental and military posts. Such was his stature in the colony that when official records mentioned him, they simply called him “the Major.” That respect carried forward into United States independence. More than 200 years after his death, a larger-than-life bronze statue of him was erected in the town of Mystic. The site was chosen because it was believed to be the exact spot on which the Pequot village had stood—and on which Mason had exterminated them.

The remnant Pequots in the region, who had gradually recovered their cultural and tribal identity, protested the statue and its placement from the start. Their arguments fell on mostly deaf ears until the 1990s, when Connecticut authorities reexamined the issue. What followed is perhaps the most balanced modern example of weighing old monuments’ historical value against modern standards of heroism and villainy.

A Pequot spokesman launched a petition that sought compromise. He suggested the statue be moved to an alternative location, out of respect for the massacred Pequots, and have a new inscription that honored Mason’s other considerable contributions to Connecticut, without celebrating his role in the Mystic atrocity. The original plaque had omitted anything else about his achievements, mentioning only (and glowingly) Mason’s command during the fighting.^[5]

After much discussion, a consensus was reached that followed the outlines of this plan. Mason’s statue was reinscribed with a more nuanced description of his actions and moved to a location near Mason’s home in the town of Windsor. It remains there today, considered by locals to be an intentional monument to the complexities of history.

5 Hernan Cortes

The Murderer:

Zeal is a powerful thing; overzealousness can take that power and use it for ugly ends. The conquistadors who led Spanish colonization in the Americas had zeal coming out of their ears. They came from a long line of re-conquistadors. The Reconquest of Spain to drive out its Muslim Moorish invaders had lasted 700 years, culminating in final victory in 1492, the same year Columbus discovered unknown lands across the sea. Over the course of those seven centuries, Spanish militarism and Catholicism had been fused into a robust and uncompromising hammer—and when they landed in America, almost everything looked like a nail.

Hernan Cortes came to Spanish America in his teens, and he quickly made a name for himself in the colonies at Hispaniola and Cuba. Quick wits, personal courage, and keen ability enabled a fast rise in colonial society. By age 20, he owned a large estate and numerous slaves, and before he was 30, Cortes was serving as mayor of the thriving Cuban capital of Santiago. Yet he was unsatisfied. The mainland of North America, a newly discovered land called Mexico, beckoned. There, Cortes decided to carve out more territory and glory for himself. His venture would yield enormous wealth, enormous upheaval, and enormous slaughter.

The Mayhem:

Volumes can be (and have been) written about Cortes’s conquest of the Aztec Empire in Mexico, with some historians arguing that the entire enterprise deserves to be remembered primarily as an atrocity. Debate continues to this day. A narrower focus, however, on the Mexican city of Cholula, provides a clear-cut example of mass murder on Cortes’s part.

Cortes, after allying with some native peoples oppressed by the Aztecs, was alternately fighting and negotiating his way inland toward the Aztec capital. The bustling city of Cholula stood in his path. With a population around 100,000, the city was an important trade and religious nexus in Central Mexico. Its goods traveled far and wide, and worshipers came from miles around to visit its great pyramid, Tlachihualtepetl (the largest pyramidal structure in the world, by volume). Its leadership welcomed the Spanish peacefully, though Cholulan distrust of the Spaniards’ native Tlaxcalan allies meant the allies had to remain outside the city. Unfortunately for the Cholulans, their most dangerous foes were already inside the walls.

According to some reports, Cortes expected treachery, noticing hints that the Cholulans were perhaps preparing to ambush the Spanish. Historians have also pointed to Cortes’s need to frighten the Aztec emperor into submission by making a violent example of one of his cities. But whatever the reasoning, Cortes quickly gathered the Cholulan nobility in one vulnerable place, the courtyard of the great temple. He made sure they were unarmed.

After a speech accusing them of betrayal, Cortes proceeded to execute the king of Spain’s penalty for traitors: massacre. The crowd of defenseless noblemen, priests, merchants, and their families was set upon by the fearsome Spanish soldiers, who hacked and slashed their way through the assembled humanity with relish. Cholulans soon were dying by the hundreds, victims of either Spanish steel or the stampeding feet of their panicked neighbors. The disaster was completed by the Tlaxcalans, who now rushed into the city to destroy their traditional enemies.

By the time the Sun set, thousands of Cholulan corpses lay amid the rubble, with much of the remaining population fleeing before the combined Spanish-Tlaxcalan onslaught. The great city would never recover.

The Monument:

Cortes went on to a celebrated career of conquering new provinces for the Spanish Empire, as well as administering several as a high royal official. While his administrations were also marked by scandal and arrogance, many in the Spanish sphere venerated his success against very long odds. Several monuments to him exist, including one near his birthplace in Medellin, Spain, which was vandalized with red paint in 2010.

Most controversial, though, are depictions of Cortes in Mexico itself. Many Mexicans have resisted monuments to the conqueror, protesting their erection and attempting to destroy them when possible. Yet in the 1980s, Mexican president Lopez Portillo insisted on memorializing Cortes’s beneficial contributions to “mestizo” culture, a fusion of Spanish and Native American cultures. After several defeated attempts, he succeeded in having a sculpture named El Monumento al Mestizaje placed in the town square of a Mexico City suburb.^[6] Far from the victorious figure of the Medellin statue, the Monumento al Mestizaje depicts an unheroic scene of Cortes, his mistress Malinche, and their son Martin, one of the first mestizo families, sitting quietly together.

Even this subdued depiction failed to escape the wrath of the descendants of Cholula and the rest of Mexico’s native places. Protests raged until Portillo agreed to move the statue to an out-of-the way park, where it has remained ever since. At least so far.

4 Vlad Tepes

The Murderer:

Before the Dracula vampire legend, the man behind it was known simply as Vlad III of Wallachia or, more sinisterly, as Vlad Tepes (“the Impaler”). While nothing in history suggests he was a bloodthirsty member of the undead, Vlad the man was consumed by a lust for power—and a willingness to commit wholesale cruelty in pursuit of it.

In the mid-1400s, the Balkan province of Wallachia was at the center of numerous upheavals. Wallachian nobles warred with each other for supremacy, the kingdom of Hungary to the north sought to regain its former province, and the Ottoman Empire to the south looked to add Wallachia to its domains. Vlad III’s father, Vlad II, emerged in the power struggles as voivode (prince) of Wallachia, managing for a while to maintain his position in the dangerous atmosphere. For a number of years, the Ottomans held two of his sons—including the future Vlad III—in prison as hostages, ensuring that Vlad II kept paying them tribute. Prison cannot have been good for the future prince’s psyche.

The Mayhem:

After his father died at the hands of Hungarian invaders, Vlad III began to pursue the throne on his own. In dizzying revolving-door diplomacy, he at various times allied with and fought against Ottomans, fellow Wallachian noblemen, and the Hungarians, being twice removed from power but always returning again. Understandably, he was terminally insecure about the safety of his throne. Out of a desire to cement his authority, he turned to mass murder.

His methods first came on display in a trade dispute with Saxon settlers in Transylvania. When the Saxons resisted his domination, Vlad had their villages burned to the ground, with many Saxons perishing in the flames. Those who survived the blaze were executed by a devious multitude of other methods. Not even infants were spared.

His favorite means, that which gave him his nickname, was impalement. The Ottomans had practiced it as a method of torture and execution for a long time, and Vlad had undoubtedly witnessed it during his imprisonment. It proved a gruesome inspiration. Long, sharp poles were rammed into the victims’ bodies, piercing them from front to back (or back to front). The poles were then erected as a warning, leaving the victims to die in agony over the course of hours or days. Few who saw such a sight ever forgot it.

Turning his wrath on the Ottomans when they fought against him, Vlad raided their territory with horrific efficiency. As he wrote: “I have killed men and women, old and young . . . 23,884 Turks and Bulgarians without counting those whom we burned alive in their homes or whose heads were not chopped off by our soldiers . . . ” Soon afterward, Vlad petitioned the Hungarian king for military help against the Ottomans. As proof of his sincerity, he sent a representative sample (two sacks full of severed heads, noses, and ears) along with the message.

Vlad’s own native citizens were not safe, either. Whether they were suspected of disloyalty, had committed criminal acts, or had simply displeased the prince in some way, Vlad had no qualms about quickly and brutally executing them. These killings had a double purpose—they were intended both to convince his population that crossing him meant death and to impress foreign enemies that he would be merciless if they attacked him. The Ottoman imperial army, approaching Vlad’s capital to punish him for his raids, was turned back by this psychological warfare. As one Turkish chronicler put it:

In front of the wooden fortress where he had his residence he set up at a distance of six leagues two rows of fences with impaled Hungarians, Moldavians and Wallachians (and Turks we may add). In addition, since the neighbouring area was forested, innumerable people were hanging from each tree branch . . .

Witnesses numbered the corpses in the “forest of the dead” at 20,000. The sultan himself, at the head of the army, ordered a withdrawal. Reportedly, he said in amazement that there could be no victory against such a man as Vlad, who commanded with such absolute power and viciousness.

The Monument:

Even though Vlad’s campaign of terror worked to hold off the Ottomans, it could only work for so long against his own people. After years of living in terror of their prince, a critical mass of Wallachians eventually deserted Vlad, siding with his enemies. The Ottomans backed a rival Wallachian claimant to the throne, and the combined forces killed Vlad in battle. His corpse was torn to pieces.

While Vlad did not survive into old age, his country did. His ruthless quest to secure his throne had also secured breathing space for the Wallachians. Wallachia maintained its independence from its larger neighbors and united with Moldavia to form the nation of Romania in the 1800s. In the nationalist sentiment that followed, many Romanians celebrated Vlad as a brutal but effective guardian of their people. Such a figure clearly deserved a monument.

Outside Bran Castle, an impressive white statue of Vlad looms over the landscape, showing the medieval prince as lord of all he surveys.^[7] On horseback, in a warrior’s attire, Vlad looks every inch the stainless national hero. But the Romanian word “Tepes” on the pedestal gives a hint at the wider truth.

3 John Doyle Lee

The Murderer:

Mormons today are often viewed as benign, placid, and borderline pacifistic—yet the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints contains a lot more violence than one might expect. Joseph Smith, the founder of the church, died at the hands of an anti-Mormon mob, along with his brother. For self-defense, the Mormons formed their own armed militias. This militia force, determined to preempt any more anti-Mormonism, wound up committing their own atrocity in turn.

John Doyle Lee was a prominent figure in the early Mormon Church, a friend of Joseph Smith and adoptive son of church president Brigham Young. His efforts in establishing the Mormons in their new homes in Utah, after they had moved westward to escape US interference, earned him a high place in the state’s history. The great degree of trust placed in him resulted in his elevation to the rank of major in the Mormon militia—a promotion that would eventually put him in position to commit a massacre.

The Mayhem:

In 1857, when a wagon train from Arkansas, the Baker-Fancher party, began crossing Mormon territory en route to California, local Mormons grew extremely anxious. Prior concerns about the US government staging an attack on the Mormon settlements had led Brigham Young to declare martial law. This, added to the general Mormon distrust of strangers, caused Mormon leaders in Southern Utah to apparently regard the Baker-Fancher party as a threat and a possible infiltration force cooperating with federal authorities.

Accordingly, those leaders hatched a plan to drive off or eliminate the emigrants by enlisting local Paiute natives to attack them, reinforcing the Paiutes with Mormon militiamen dressed in native clothes. This way, Utah would be rid of the interlopers, and the casualties could be blamed on the Native Americans. The conspiracy laid, the Mormons mustered their forces and attacked the wagon train at Mountain Meadows, in present-day Washington County, Utah.

The Arkansans fought back with unexpected vigor, however, and the fight settled into a siege of the emigrants’ encampment. Things went downhill fast when Major Lee and his men began to suspect their true identities had been recognized. Fearing discovery and retaliation by US authorities, they decided to make sure none of their adversaries escaped to tell the tale.

Lee and some of his men removed their disguises and openly approached the besieged emigrants, claiming to have negotiated safe passage for them through the Indian encirclement. Thirsty and exhausted, the Arkansans agreed, accepting an escort of one Mormon militiaman per person. They felt safe. Then, at a prearranged signal (Lee’s shout of, “Do your duty!”), each escort turned on his charge.

Muzzles flashed, knives were unsheathed, and musket barrels became clubs. Neither man nor woman escaped. By some accounts, two teenage girls temporarily escaped down a ravine, only to be hauled back, raped, and added to the growing body pile. The only survivors were 17 children aged six and under—those not killed in the confusion. Lee and his officers had decided that children that young wouldn’t be able to reveal what happened.

Within a week, the orphans had been distributed among Mormon families, an auction had been held to sell off the personal effects of the deceased, and wild animals were already rooting through 120 shallow graves at Mountain Meadows.

The Monument:

Major Lee was the only member of the perpetrators ever brought to justice, and it took over a decade for a trial to take place. That justice, though leisurely, was strict: Lee was convicted and shot to death by a US Army firing squad. Fittingly, the execution site was Mountain Meadows, though Lee received a much more respectful burial than he gave the Baker-Fancher party.

The major went un-memorialized until 2004, when the Utah city of Washington commissioned a local sculptor to produce a 2.1-meter (7 ft) bronze statue of him. The intent was to honor Lee’s role in the founding and settling of the state of Utah. Yet, while the statue lay in storage, a storm of public debate over Lee’s murderous record delayed its installation. Finally, the sculptor bought it back from the city and erected it at his own private gallery, where it remains on display today.^[8]

2 Jean-Jacques Dessalines

The Murderer:

Like Nat Turner, Jean-Jacques Dessalines was a former slave exacting retribution on the white slave society that had brutally exploited him. Unlike Turner, Dessalines acted with systematic ruthlessness, from a newfound position of absolute authority.

In 1804, the original slave rebellion in Haiti against French colonization was only 13 years old, yet it had achieved extraordinary success. Through a confused dust cloud of cyclical alliances and betrayals between black slaves, mixed-race creoles, white colonists, and representatives of the French revolutionary government, a coalition of blacks and creoles had finally emerged to control the island. Even though many whites had been killed or fled after earlier French defeats, a substantial white minority population remained in Haiti.

Jean-Jacques Dessalines had done well by the revolution. The 1790s had seen him rise from a lowly laborer in plantation sugarcane fields to one of the top generals among the Haitian revolutionaries. He led his troops with great personal courage in numerous battles. He also became known for his heavy-handed tactics, burning enemy villages and taking remarkably few prisoners. After collaborating with the French to hand over his rival, fellow revolutionary Toussaint L’Ouverture, Dessalines became the supreme leader among the Haitians. He led them to a final victory over the French in 1803. Soon afterward, he proclaimed the Empire of Haiti, with himself at its head.

Most whites unwilling to live under black Haitian rule had evacuated with the defeated French army; the approximately 4,000 whites remaining seem to have chosen deliberately to stay. Yet Dessalines considered this remnant to be a cancer that could threaten the fragile new Haitian state—and he vowed to carve it out.

The Mayhem:

In early 1804, rumors began circulating that the remaining whites wanted to travel back to Europe and stir up sympathy for an invasion to retake the island and reimpose slavery on the Haitians. Dessalines and his ruling council immediately forbade any whites from leaving the country. That was only a temporary solution, however. A final one was not long in coming.

The emperor sent out an order to all his garrisons, proclaiming that all whites should be killed as quietly as possible, using blades and clubs, to avoid alerting other victims that the killings were taking place. Apart from a few show executions, though, the orders were not widely obeyed. Some of the Haitian soldiers held back out of mercy; others may have considered the whites (who had until recently run the colony’s economy) to be worth more alive. Either way, the restraint only delayed the colonists’ doom.

Aware that his orders weren’t being followed, Dessalines began touring across Haiti, visiting each settlement in succession. When he came to town, it spelled death for every colonist who remained.

After Dessalines and his personal guard arrived, they would order all white colonists hauled out into the streets to be massacred. An orgy of rape and murder would follow—with neither French adults nor French children being spared. When at last the violence had sputtered out, Dessalines would proclaim a general pardon for all whites in the town who had hidden to escape the slaughter. This was only a ruse to draw them out, however. Any who emerged from hiding were quickly killed as well.

In some instances early on, the majority of white women were spared. Then some of Dessalines’ advisors pointed out that white women could still some day give birth to white men and were therefore still a threat. Convinced by this logic, Dessalines expanded his execution order to genocidal scope. Any white women who refused gunpoint marriage to a black Haitian were put to death as well.

By April 1804, nearly 4,000 whites had died in the killing. Apart from a few captive wives and doctors, no French persons remained in the former French colony.

The Monument:

Dessalines did not last long in the volatile world of Haitian politics. He was assassinated in 1806. But his role in the nation’s independence was indisputable. In repeated surges of pride in Haiti’s accomplishments, heroic statues and busts of him were erected in Port-au-Prince, Gonaives, and even by the Ecuadorians in far-off Quito.^[9]

Haitians today look back on the achievements of their revolution with justifiable pride. It was the only truly successful slave rebellion in history and the only revolution to ever succeed without external assistance. Without the skills of Haiti’s revolutionary leaders, the victorious outcome would not have been possible.

1 Nana Sahib And Tatya Tope

The Murderers:

In 1857, British India was a powder keg waiting to explode. The native population, infuriated by the arrogance of the imperialist British and concerned about potential threats to their continued culture and religion, rose up in revolt that spring. The ensuing rebellion claimed many lives and is known for numerous atrocities on both sides.

Nana Sahib, the heir to an Indian state absorbed by the British domain, was initially caught off guard by the rebellion. Having befriended many of the well-to-do British stationed at the city of Cawnpore (now Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh), he was reluctant to immediately throw his full support behind the conflict. Yet his enthusiastic supporters were eager to restore Indian self-rule. They, including his lieutenant and best tactician Tatya Tope, urged him to definitively take a side. Eventually, Nana Sahib did, to devastating effect.

The Mayhem:

The colonial European civilian population at Cawnpore fled to the protection of the small British garrison, housed in a barely defensible (and largely open-air) compound known as the Entrenchment. For weeks, Nana Sahib’s forces pounded the place mercilessly with cannon and musket fire, indiscriminately killing both armed Englishmen and noncombatants by the hundreds. Finally, the British commander accepted a cease-fire offer from Nana, under which all his remaining people could evacuate to British-held territory.

The bleary-eyed survivors marched down to the river to board boats, only to find Nana Sahib’s men, led by Tatya Tope, lying in wait. The rebels sprang a vicious trap, again annihilating the British, regardless of age or sex. Hundreds more died, whether burned alive in the boats, drowned in the Ganges River, or shot and stabbed at the water’s edge.

Tatya hoped that the atrocity would force Nana to stop straddling the fence between opposing the British and appeasing them. It did. After this, there was no going back. Nana Sahib would spend the rest of his life opposed to the British.

Nearly all the remaining British men died at the river or were summarily executed. But approximately 200 women and children were spared to serve as hostages and herded into a small house in a city known as the Bibighar. They remained there, wretched and wracked with disease, for nearly three weeks, until the approach of a British relief force. With that, someone in the Indian leadership, most commonly believed to be Tatya Tope, ordered the elimination of the captives. Wives, mothers, fiancees, children, and newborn infants fell shrieking under the cleavers of six butchers assigned to the task.

When the British soldiers arrived, a day too late, all they found was an empty house coated in tresses of hair and gallons of congealing blood—and a deep well in the yard outside, crammed to the brim with dismembered body parts.

The Monument:

British outrage at the treachery and massacres at Cawnpore grew into a storm of counter-atrocities as they laid waste to much of the surrounding area. Nana Sahib and Tatya Tope fought on for months but ultimately could not overcome their foes. Tatya was captured by the British two years later, tried for his part in the massacres, and promptly executed. Nana disappeared into the jungle-covered mountain ranges on the Nepalese border, where he is presumed to have died in later years. Debate still rages about the precise degree to which either man planned the massacres in advance. Still, like the British generals they fought against (and Nathan Bedford Forrest above), they bear an officer’s responsibility for the atrocities that took place under their command and for failing to halt the bitter violence once it began.

Monumentation at Cawnpore/Kanpur has unfolded in two phases. In the first phase, the victorious British erected a memorial park at the site of the Bibighar well, focused upon remembrance of the innocent victims. The centerpiece was a mournful angel figure, holding palm fronds to signify peace, standing atop the well itself. An Anglican cathedral, likewise dedicated to the victims, was also built in the city. The Memorial Well became almost a pilgrimage destination for the British and was soon the most-visited spot in all of British India.

All that changed with Indian independence in 1947. The new government promised the withdrawing British that their cultural sites would be protected, but the Memorial Well was quickly vandalized by locals. Soon afterward, government officials dismantled the entire memorial complex. Some of the marble ornamentation was simply destroyed; the angel was evicted and banished to the garden of the cathedral. Many locals apparently viewed the memorial as an imperialist eyesore.

The site is now occupied by Nana Rao Park, a civic green space dedicated to Nana Sahib’s memory and celebrating his status as a freedom fighter. Kanpur tourist websites praise the park’s fine plant nursery, swimming pool, and opportunities for badminton and yoga. When they discuss the site’s history at all, most emphasize the British atrocities that took place in and around Cawnpore. The most one site can say about the parallel Indian atrocities is a cryptic misdirection: “On the morning of June 27, a large British column led by General Wheeler made their way to the banks of the River Ganga where Nana Sahib had arranged 40 boats for their journey. [ . . . ] It led to a certain set of historical events, which made the legacy of Nana Sahib, a memorable one [sic].”^[10]

Statues of other Indian nationalists dot the park, including an impressive martial bust of Tatya Tope. His likeness has replaced the angel atop the blood-soaked well that Nana and Tatya made infamous.

It is left for the reader to determine whether these changes are for the better.

David F. Ellrod currently resides in Maryland with his wife, three daughters, and one very excitable dog.

Scientists are constantly making new discoveries about ancient tombs and monuments, usually to the effect of what they were used for. Some of those discoveries, however, involve secret passageways that hide secrets about the ancient world. Here are ten hidden passages that were found beneath ancient monuments and heritage sites you never knew existed!

Related: Top 10 Jaw-Dropping Hidden Spaces In Paris

10 Tunnel in the Great Pyramid of Giza

Most people are aware that the pyramids are home to networks of tunnels that take you between the various chambers. However, that’ s not to say that all the tunnels have been discovered or even that scientists know what they were all used for.

One of the more recent underground tunnel discoveries relating to the ancient world was an underground tunnel found not inside but underneath the Great Pyramid of Giza. The tunnel was discovered in March 2023 and is about 30 feet (9 meters) long. It sits close to the main entrance of the pyramid and was picked up using ultrasonic and radar testing.

As of now, scientists still aren’t sure what the tunnel was used for. However, one theory is that it may have been built to help distribute the weight of the pyramid more evenly. More testing will be needed to see if they can solve the mystery.^[1]

9 Teotihuacan

The Great Pyramid of Giza isn’t the only pyramid with a hidden tunnel beneath it. Another pyramid that holds secrets buried deep underground is Teotihuacan’s Pyramid of the Moon.

This pyramid is thought to mirror the great monuments of Teotuhuacan and perhaps represent the underworld. The tunnel is about 33 feet (10 meters) deep and runs from the Plaza de La Luna, the square near the pyramid, to below the pyramid itself.

Although scientists still aren’t sure what the tunnel was used for, they do know that the Pyramid of the Moon was a temple where human sacrifice was performed. So perhaps the tunnel had a similar sinister purpose. It will take more digging and testing to find out for sure.^[2]

8 Talatal Ghar

Talatal Ghar is an old military base and palace dating back to the 18th century. It’s located near Assam, India, and was built during the Ahom period in the country.

At first glance, Talatal Ghar is just another army base and 18th-century palace. However, looking a little closer, you’ll quickly unearth the base’s secrets. You see, Talatal Ghar has two secret tunnels that are built around three stories underground.

One tunnel is nearly 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) long, while the other tunnel is almost 10 miles (16 kilometers) in length. The shorter tunnel connects Talatal Ghar to the Dhikow River, while the longer tunnel leads to the nearby Garhgaon Palace.

Unlike some of the other secret tunnels hidden beneath historical sites, scientists actually know the purposes of these passages. The Ahom period was a period of war, and as a result, these tunnels were used as escape routes from the palace during the Ahom wars.^[3]

7 Chand Baori

Another Indian heritage site that’s home to secret tunnels is Chand Baori. Chand Baori is a stepwell, or a well or pond with a series of steps leading down to the water, located in the state of Rajasthan.

This type of stepwell was actually pretty common throughout India and was used as a place to gather water, cool down on hot summer days, or hold religious rituals. Many stepwells were built near forts and palaces to make them easy for people to access. The stepwells were popular from around the 7th century until the 18th century.

What’s really interesting about these stepwells, however, is that there was often more to them than meets the eye. Many of them actually provided secret access to an underground tunnel network throughout the Rajasthan state, used to serve as a transportation system in case of an emergency.

Chand Baori is one of these stepwells and grants access to the tunnel network, which extends to various other local monuments and heritage sites, including Amber Fort.

Despite all the intrigue of the stepwell tunnels, there’s some debate as to whether they really do date back to the 8th century. Some historians argue that these may have been built more recently, in the 20th century, in order to draw tourists to the area. It’s up to you to decide which story you believe.^[4]

6 The Colosseum

The Colosseum draws thousands of visitors each year, providing a glimpse into ancient Roman culture and some of their more brutal customs and traditions. While tourists have long been free to wander through the Colosseum and get a feel for what it might have been like to watch a game in this ancient monument, they haven’t always been able to go beneath the Colosseum.

The Colosseum had a network of tunnels and passageways hidden underground where gladiators would prepare for their fights. These passengers were invisible to spectators and have remained invisible to tourists for a long time as well.

In 2021, however, several of these hidden underground passageways were restored, making it possible for tourists and scientists alike to learn more about them. So perhaps it’s time to plan a trip to Rome to explore some of the ancient world’s hidden passageways.^[5]

5 Manzana de las Luces

Manzana de las Luces is an old Jesuit religious complex that sits in San Telma, Argentina. The complex was built in the late 1500s and was part of a mission to promote Christianity in the New World.

Despite their lofty mission, the Jesuits weren’t welcome in Argentina, with indigenous groups threatening them with armed conflict. To protect themselves, the Jesuits at the Mazana de las Luces mission began to create a network of tunnels beneath the church that extended out to other churches around the city. The idea was to give them an escape plan in the event that the natives launched a serious attack.

Interestingly enough, these tunnels were never properly documented, making it challenging for scientists to uncover the true extent or purpose of the tunnels. The tunnels were originally found in the 1900s during a construction project, and other tunnels suspected to have been part of the network have been found over the years during other construction projects.

Sadly, many of these tunnels have since been lost to time. However, tourists can still check out a short section directly under the Manzana de las Luces mission.^[6]

4 Chauvin de Huantar

Chavin de Huantar is an ancient archaeological site located in the highlands of Peru. It is believed to have been built by the Chavin culture, which flourished between 900 BC and 200 BC. The site is known for its impressive architectural features, including a complex network of underground tunnels that were used for ceremonial purposes.

The hidden tunnels of Chavin de Huantar are an important part of the site’s history and significance. The tunnels were built using sophisticated engineering techniques and were designed to channel water and connect different parts of the site. They also played a role in the religious practices of the Chavin culture, as they were used for ceremonies and possibly as a way to communicate with the gods.

The passageways were discovered in the 1940s by Peruvian archaeologist Julio C. Tello. Since then, they have been extensively studied and explored by archaeologists and other experts. Today, Chavin de Huantar is considered one of Peru’s most important archaeological sites and a popular tourist destination. Visitors can explore the underground tunnels and other architectural features of the site, including the Temple of Chavin, a massive stone structure decorated with intricate carvings and sculptures.^[7]

3 Red Fort

The Red Fort is a Mughal Empire-era fort that sits in the Old City in Delhi, India. This fort is a UNESCO World Heritage site and attracts many visitors each year looking to learn a bit more about the country’s history.

Recently, however, scientists discovered that there was a secret hiding beneath the Red Fort. The tunnel, which connects to the Delhi Legislative Assembly, was discovered in 2021. It seems to have once been a tunnel used by the British to move freedom fighters around the city. Still, the exact history and purpose are up for much debate, and historians haven’t been able to find detailed records about it.

What’s more, much of the tunnel has been destroyed in recent years. Thanks to the construction of the Delhi Metro and sewer system, the full tunnel no longer remains intact. Despite this, Delhi officials have hopes of restoring at least a small section of the tunnel and making it available to the public to check out.^[8]

2 Taposiris Magna

The Taposiris Magna is an ancient Egyptian city that sits outside modern-day Alexandria. This ancient city is home to ruins, temples, and unique historical sites. However, it’s also home to a recently discovered network of tunnels that sits below one of the temples in the village.

The tunnel network is more than 13,770 feet (4,200 meters) long and is about 6.5 feet (2 meters) tall. The tunnel is hidden about 65 feet (20 meters) underground and seems to be an exact replica of the Eupalinos Tunnel in Samos, Greece, which was used to move water.

This is most likely due to the fact that the tunnel dates back to the Ptolemaic period when Egypt was ruled by Greece. Scientists are still excavating at the tunnel to learn more about it, but as of now, it’s also thought to have been built to move water around the ancient city.^[9]

1 Royal Palace of Naples

The Royal Palace is a palace in Naples, Italy, that was owned by Ferdinand II of Bourbon during the 18th century. However, beyond the riches and treasures hidden within the castle’s walls are far more secrets beneath the Palazzo itself.

You see, beneath the palace lies a network of tunnels built by King Ferdinand II in the 1800s due to fear of a revolutionary uprising. The tunnels are huge, designed to fit military troops and horses and lead them from the barracks to the Royal Palace.

Interestingly enough, the tunnels are home to much more modern artifacts than you might think based on when they were built. During World War II, they were used as bomb shelters as well as a place to smuggle contraband vehicles before they were closed off in the 1950s. As a result, many of the artifacts within the tunnels date back to this more modern period.

The tunnels were rediscovered by accident when scientists conducted seismic testing on the area. Today, the tunnels can be visited by tourists, often as part of a tour of the Royal Palace of Naples.^[10]

Almost every town has monuments of some sort—war memorials, statues of people long dead, or pieces of art commissioned to celebrate a momentous national occasion, for example. Sometimes we recognize the names on them. Often we do not.

Most of these monuments have become part of the scenery; we walk past them and barely even notice them. However, there are some monuments that can never fade into the background, either because they are too big, too striking, or because they are just plain weird. Here, we take a look at just a few of them.

10 The Child-Eater Fountain At Bern

In 1545, the town council in the Swiss city of Bern commissioned Hans Gieng to create a statue to replace a 100-year-old one that had fallen into disrepair. What was there previously is not known. What Gieng created was enough to give the citizens of Bern sleepless nights ever since. The statue depicts a giant man eating a baby. He is holding another terrified infant as well as a sack also filled with babies.

It is unclear what the meaning behind the statue was intended to be, except, perhaps, don’t bring your children to Bern if they cry. The giant appears to be relishing his meal greatly as he swallows the head of a child.^[1]

The Kindlifresserbrunnen (which means “Ogre Fountain” or “Child-Eater Fountain”) is said to be cursed. According to local tradition, the fountain flows with wine on Christmas night, but if it is drank, the imbiber becomes possessed by the Devil. And perhaps develops an insatiable appetite for cherubs?

9 St. Wenceslas Riding A Dead Horse Upside Down

Wenceslas Square in Prague contains a statue of St. Wenceslas, the Good King of the popular “Good King Wenceslas” Christmas carol. The statue looks very traditional, though a little military for a saint, with Wenceslas proudly riding his horse, wearing a military uniform and helmet, and carrying a lance. It might be any statue anywhere in the world.

King Wenceslas is an important historical figure in Prague, ruling the nation in the early 10th century. He was said to be a fair king, unlike his brother Boleslaus the Cruel, who eventually murdered him. (Though with a name like that, it is little wonder he turned out to be a wrong ‘un.)

Tucked away in a corner of Wenceslas Square is another statue. Inside Lucerna Pasaz, you will find St. Wenceslas looking equally splendid, riding a horse which is not only dead but hanging upside down and suspended from the ceiling.^[2]

The artist, David Cerny, was believed to have created the piece as an attack, not on a beloved Czech icon so much as on the Czech president, Vaclav Klaus. What exactly he was trying to say is anyone’s guess.

8 Leshan Giant Buddha

There are giant Buddhas, and then there are giant Buddhas. The Buddha at Leshan is an immense 71 meters (233 ft) tall. Carved out of the sandstone cliffs in Sichuan province, China, the Buddha is said to be the largest pre-modern statue and the biggest stone Buddha in the world.

Work began on carving the statue, which overlooks the confluence of three rivers, in the eighth century. The statue remains relatively inaccessible due to the terrain, and this has helped to preserve the Buddha.

The construction was started by a monk named Haitong, who hoped that it would calm the turbulent waters where the three rivers met. When the construction was threatened by local officials, Haitong is said to have gouged out his own eyes to demonstrate his piety and sincerity. He was soon granted permission to continue, possibly because they were worried about what else he would cut off if they refused.

Unfortunately, Haitong did not live to see the completion of the statue, but he would have been pleased to know that the construction of the Buddha caused a buildup of debris in the river, which altered its course and did indeed calm the waters at the point where the Buddha’s eyes gaze.^[3]

Of course, even if he had lived to see it, he wouldn’t have been able to actually see it, so perhaps it was just as well.

7 The Alton Barnes White Horse

In 1812, a farmer named Robert Pile paid the grand sum of £20 to a man named Jack the Painter (who was, fortunately, a painter) to design and cut a horse into the hillside in Wiltshire, England. This was one of nine horses that were cut into the hills in this area during this time. No one seems to know why.

The design was carved out of the hill, with tons of soil scraped out and carted away. It was then packed with chalk so that it stood out in stark white against the green hills and could be seen from a great distance.

Jack the Painter, however, was something of a con man and subcontracted the work to another man who abandoned the job halfway through, after Jack had made off with all the money.^[4] Despite its inauspicious start, the Alton Barnes White Horse was finally completed after Robert Pile paid again for it to be constructed.

The horse measures roughly 55 meters (180 ft) high and 49 meters (160 ft) long. It has been relined with chalk a number of times since it was created and can still be seen galloping across the Wiltshire Downs looking for its companions today.

6 A Giant Thumb

Cesar Baldaccini was a French sculptor and part of the Nouveau Realisme (New Realism) movement. This French art movement created pieces using unusual materials. Baldaccini crafted a number of startling statues from compacted cars and other pieces of junk. One of his most famous works, somewhat undramatically, is a thumb.

Standing 6 meters (20 ft) high, the cast-bronze statue of the artist’s own thumb is the second one he produced.^[5] (The original was 12 meters [40 ft] tall!) Baldaccini famously did not discuss the meaning of his work. However, it seems clear that the meaning of this artwork is, well, thumbs up.

5 The Georgia Guidestones

The Georgia Guidestones were erected in 1980. Commissioned by a man calling himself R.C. Christian, the stones were constructed with fairly elaborate secrecy, and the real identity of R.C. Christian will, in all likelihood, never be known.

However, the stones themselves are a legacy of sorts. Constructed from six huge pieces of granite, the stones have instructions for the survival of the human race carved in eight modern languages. Among the commandments is the edict that population should be controlled, that reproduction should be “guided” to maintain the survival of the fittest, and that disputes between nations should be settled in a world court.

The stones include a few basic astronomical features, such as a hole in the rock through which the North Star can be viewed. The capstone can act as a kind of calendar, should you you need one. The reasons for these features are unspecified. However, perhaps more information is yet to come. The stones are rumored to have a time capsule hidden somewhere at their base, to be opened when Armageddon finally arrives.^[6]

So, watch these slabs.

4 Hand Of The Desert

The Atacama desert is one of the driest and most remote places on Earth. Some parts of the desert have not seen rainfall in decades. It is not the sort of place that would attract a lot of visitors. It was a strange choice of venue, therefore, for sculptor Mario Irarrazabal when choosing where to put his latest artwork—a giant hand measuring 11 meters (36 ft) high poking out of the desert.

The hand is said to represent all the victims of torture and injustice who suffered during the military regime in Chile and symbolize their indomitable spirit and the power of love to triumph over evil. Unfortunately, not everyone sees it that way. Despite its out-of-the-way location, the piece is a regular target for vandals and graffiti artists, which, we might think, also says something about the indomitable spirit of taggers.^[7]

3 The Hanging Man

If you walk down a street in the Old Town district of Prague, you might be startled to see a man suspended one-handed from a flagpole. Emergency services have received several calls from concerned bystanders who believed that they were witnessing a suicide attempt or a man in desperate trouble.

Fortunately, they were not. What they were actually looking at was a statue of Sigmund Freud created by David Cerny (who also made the previously mentioned upside down horse). The piece is said to represent Freud’s pathological fear of death.^[8] The man who spent his life interpreting the fears of others had a morbid dread of death.

Cerny is no stranger to controversy. He was the artist responsible for painting a Soviet tank pink. The tank was part of a memorial installed to celebrate the liberation of Prague after World War II. Cerny was arrested and briefly incarcerated for vandalism.

2 The Dunmore Pineapple

In 1761, the earl of Dunmore decided to build himself a summerhouse. He liked summerhouses. And he also liked fruit. So it seemed natural, to him at least, to build himself a summerhouse in the shape of a fruit.

At the time, the pineapple was the most exotic fruit ever seen in Scotland. The summerhouse’s pineapple stands 11.2 meters (37 ft) high. The structure has four “vases” at the base of the pineapple, which are, in fact, concealed chimneys used for the heating system that was put in for the hothouse below. The hothouse propagated a number of exotic fruits and vegetables, including, of course, pineapples.^[9]

All things considered, it is probably a good thing that bananas were not widely available in Britain until the end of the 19th century.

1 The Sinking Library

Outside the State Library of Victoria, you might be surprised to see what looks like a remnant of an ancient library sinking back into the ground. Constructed from Port Fairy Bluestone, the structure is 7 meters (23 ft) wide.

Created by Petrus Spronk, the piece, named Architectural Fragment, is one of several sunken pieces the artist has installed around the world and is meant to symbolize the fragile and transient nature of all that is human, which is pretty disturbing.

However, the piece is like one of those “glass is half-full” moments. You can see the sinking of the library as the destruction of civilization and the disappearance of knowledge. Or maybe it is a new civilization breaking through the barriers surrounding the old, bringing forward new vistas of learning and hope.^[10]

So, you know, you pays yer money, and you takes yer choice.

Ward Hazell is a writer who travels, and an occasional travel writer.

As the controversy about public statues to Confederates continues, some have said it makes no sense and serves no purpose to allow these monuments to stand. Others have said this just isn’t done and that in no other case does one allow statues of their enemies to be out in public like this. At best they should be stuck in a museum somewhere.

So the question is, are there times when such statues are allowed to remain out in the open for all to see? Statues of those one fought against and spilled blood fighting and died to defeat? And if so, why? Do these serve some purpose?

SEE ALSO: 10 Monuments More Controversial Than The Confederate Statues

10 Muslims in Spain

Spain was invaded and occupied by Muslims in 711AD. The occupiers were eventually driven back out of Spain, but only after around 800 years of on and off war and the terrible things that happen in war.

We might be surprised, then, that they not only allow statues of their once Muslim overlords. They also spend time and money maintaining them. Statues not only of the peaceful thinkers among their occupiers, like Averroes, but also of the rulers and military leaders, the people who were killing them, like Almanzor and Abd-al-Rahman-I.

So why do they do this? In part, it’s simple. Money. The history of Spain is interesting and it attracts tourists. But it might also be that this is part of a nation’s healing process. After enough time goes by, you want reminders out there of your history, of how you got to where you are, and part of that process includes putting up monuments to your enemies.^[1]

9 George Washington in England

From Olde England’s perspective, Washington was enemy number one. Not only did he lead the revolution that began the process of ending colonialism, but he had learned his military skills while serving as an officer in the King’s militia! What a traitor!

So why would anyone put a statue of George Washington up in England. Because, there he currently stands, in London, England. The heart of the capital of the country that he led a long hard war against. (A civil war, too!). Why would they do this?

Well, sometimes one’s enemy becomes one’s friend. The United States crossed the ocean to help England win WWI. Afterwards the state of Virginia offered the Washington statue to London as a gift, and England graciously accepted and set the statue up for all to see. (And perhaps they suspected they might need help from the United States again?) Also, since Washington had vowed after the American Revolution to never again step foot in England, they even honored his wish by standing the statue on some good old Virginia sod. Or—so the story goes.^[2]

8 Native Americans

The European colonies in North America fought numerous battles against the native peoples they found there in what we now call the American Indian Wars. These wars lasted for centuries.

Despite years of terrible war, statues honoring Native Americans have been put up in many public places around the United States. For example, a statue stands in Pilgrim Memorial State Park in Plymouth, Massachusetts to honor the Wampanoag chief who helped the Pilgrims when they arrived centuries ago. Utah, noting the sculptor was born in the Beehive State, put up a replica of the statue outside of their capitol building.

In 1911, a 48 foot tall, 270 ton statue was erected in Illinois. The statue, believed to be the world’s second-largest concrete monolithic statue, is informally called Black Hawk, the Native American leader in an Indian war fought in the area. Recently the statue, which stands in Lowden State Park, was showing its age, so people anted up hundreds of thousands of dollars to restore honor to their once enemy.^[3]

7 Gandhi in England

Mahatma Gandhi was another traitor to England. He was born in another English colony—India. After he studied law in London and they admitted him to the bar in the 1880s, he paid them back by leading another revolution against them. This was at least peaceful, at least on the part of those who were in revolution.

But again, in London there stands a monument to the great man who helped further the process of setting the sun on the English Empire. What a forgiving people. Maybe if you want to be honored in England you need to lead a revolt against them?^[4]

6 Mussolini in Italy

Mussolini founded Fascism in Italy. He led the Black Shirts to do terrible things to the Italian people. He even inspired Hitler who took the whole Fascist thing and really ran with it.

At the end of WWII, Mussolini wasn’t killed by the Allies, but instead by fellow Italians. And then his body was mutilated and hung naked upside down in Milan’s public square. Clearly, they really didn’t like him. Fascism was made illegal in Italy, but there was a problem. Mussolini and the Fascists had erected tons of statues to themselves during their reign.

Italy is famous for its statues. And they have a very long history. And they understood that sometimes you regret the loss of statues later on. So, what to do with the Fascist monuments?

One example of a solution is in a small Italian town where the local government for decades after the war used a fascist-era building with a massive bas-relief of Mussolini. It includes the nice fascist-y slogan (in Italian): “Believe, Obey, Combat.” In 2011, the national government ordered the town to do something about this. There were those who wanted to destroy the monument, but others who saw value in preserving the historic work. So, as a compromise, they now superimpose a quote on the monument—an LED-illuminated inscription by a German Jewish philosopher: “Nobody has the right to obey.”^[5]

5 Soviets in Bulgaria

The Soviets, like most totalitarian regimes, liked to erect statues of themselves all over the place. In Sofia, Bulgaria, for example, they put up a statue of themselves liberating Bulgaria from Nazi occupation (or was it of themselves occupying Bulgaria?!) After decades of occupation, Bulgaria threw off their Soviet overlords and joined the European Union and NATO.

You might think maintaining an old Soviet era monument in your capital would be out of the question. But they actually have left it stand. And it’s proving to be a bit of a problem since people keep vandalizing the statue, to the dismay of Russia. But this isn’t just random vandalizing, its people adding their own message. A message all the more powerful as a contrast to the underlying implicit message in the original—of Soviet domination.

The statue has been painted pink, covered in the colors of the Bulgarian flag, and perhaps most famously, the Soviet soldiers were painted as Western icons – Ronald McDonald, Santa, superheroes like Superman and Robin (Batman was apparently busy off fighting crime elsewhere).^[6]

4 Memorials in the U.S. to our World War Enemies

In 1935, Germany erected a POW memorial at the Chattanooga National Cemetery to honor German Soldiers who died in American POW camps during World War I. There are 78 German POWs buried there, including 22 German sailors who died in Hot Springs, NC, and dozens of German POWs who died in Georgia. Their remains were reburied in secret and the local papers were only told about it the next day.

There’s also a German POW monument in Utah. The German War Memorial to the Victims of War was erected in memory of the German’s who died while interred at Fort Douglas during WWI. Dedicated on Memorial Day, May 30, 1933, it includes the names of 21 German POWs who died 1917-1918. The memorial is now a monument for POWs of WWII as well – since 20 German, 12 Italian, and 1 Japanese WWII POWs were added to those buried there.^[7]

3 Italian Fascist Monument in Chicago

In Chicago stands an ancient roman column, a monument gifted to Chicago by Mussolini to honor his air commander, Italo Balbo. The gift was made in 1933, to honor a flight of 25 seaplanes that flew from Italy to Chicago (with some stops along the way). The column stands on a pedestal with words exalting fascism.

It not only remained during WWII, but stills stands today. In all the recent anti-monument fervor it was almost taken down, but then support from the local Italian community saved the monument. Some have argued that the one being honored, Italo Balbo, while yes he was a fascist, was also anti-Nazi and was against the racial laws. And, the feat the monument honors, the 1933 flight from Italy to Chicago, was still an accomplishment worth honoring.^[8]

2 Vichy France Leader Honored in NYC

What kind of enemy do people hate the most? How about someone who turns on their own country during a war? That’s what Henri Philippe Petain did. After becoming a war hero in WWI, he was honored in NYC with a ticker tape parade. During WWII, however, the hero turned traitor and collaborated with the Nazi’s, helping them to round up tens of thousands of French Jewish people for extermination.

In 2004, New York City decided to install plaques to immortalize everyone who had been honored with ticker tape parades. Since Petain had been so honored, he got a plaque. In light of all the monument destruction going on in the U.S., the Petain plaque was reviewed by a commission for possible removal. The commission found that it was clear some ticker tape parades were for people we would no longer call heroes, especially by modern standards. But “removal of the vestiges of past decisions risks leading to cultural amnesia.”^[9]

1 Communist Leader Vladimir Lenin In Seattle

For decades the United States was involved in a tense scary Cold War of brinkmanship with communist USSR, with both sides building up their militaries, including thousands of nuclear weapons, and proxy wars fought around the world.

But in a Seattle neighborhood stands a 16-foot tall bronze sculpture of one of the great icons of Communist Russia—Vladimir Lenin. The statue was rescued by an American veteran who mortgaged his house to save it from a Russian statue graveyard.

Like the Soviet statue in Bulgaria, people have had fun with the Lenin statue, decorating it in various ways. Someone painted his hands red, once he was given a tutu, and another time he was covered in Christmas lights.

Fremont’s website notes, “If art is supposed to make us feel, not just feel good, then this sculpture is a successful work of art. The challenge is to understand that this piece means different things to different people and to learn to listen to each other and respect different opinions.” Yes – that seems to sum this all up nicely.^[10]

About The Author: I’ve written a bit for Cracked.com, and have a little writing blog at jackrloun.wixsite.com/scritchandscrawl.