People think of churches and other holy sites as peaceful places full of sunshine and fresh air, totally safe and perhaps a little bit dull. But saving souls is serious business to some, especially before the modern age. Furthermore, the business of building sacred sites upon the ruins of pagans can leave behind some unusual ghosts.

From a spring dedicated to a pagan virgin goddess to churches made almost entirely out of human bones, here are holy places that wanted to make sure you get their message and don’t mind creeping you out to do it.

10Crypt Of The Chiesa Immacolata Concezione
Rome, Italy

This 17th-century church was built by Cardinal Antonio Barberini, a Capuchin Franciscan and brother of Pope Urban VIII, and was designed by Franciscan friar Michele da Bergamo. It houses several high-profile tombs and famous paintings, but its greatest attraction is the chapels in the lower levels.

Five subterranean chapels contain the remains of 4,000 Capuchin friars and poor Roman citizens from the 17th century onward, laid out in an artistic fashion. It took 300 trips from 1627–1631 to cart the carriages filled with bones and mummified remains into place. The earth covering the pavement of the cemetery is said to be from the Holy Land, and a memento mori inscription near the exit reads, “You are what we have been. You will be what we are.”

The remains are arranged in elaborate mosaics and built up into columns, arches, or floral designs. The crypts are even arranged based on the type of bone. There is a Crypt of Skulls, a Crypt of Pelvises, a Crypt of Leg and Thigh Bones, as well as the Crypt of the Resurrection (with a centerpiece painting of Jesus summoning forth Lazarus), and a Crypt of the Three Skeletons (a highly symbolic diorama that reflects on death).

9Basilica Of Santa Croce In Gerusalemme
Rome, Italy

Also known as Heleniana or Sessoriana, The Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme (Holy Cross in Jerusalem) stands on what was part of a residential complex owned by Emperor Constantine in the third century. It was once part of the Sessorian Palace, owned by Constantine’s mother, Helena. It is said that the palace was built on soil Helena brought back from Jerusalem.

Constantine had the church’s basilica built to house a collection of relics brought back from the Holy Land by his mother, specifically relics relating to the True Cross itself. Highlights of this gruesome Christian artifact collection include three supposed pieces of the Cross—a nail, a segment of the elogium (or inscription; in this case the famous INRI “Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudeorum”) inscribed upon a board said to come from the Cross, and two thorns alleged to come from the Crown of Thorns. They are all currently housed in the Chapel of Relics, designed by Florestano di Fausto.

If you happen to be a woman, and wish to see these holy objects, you will have to be patient. Women are only allowed inside once a year.

8Capela Dos Ossos
Evora, Portugal

Next to the Church of St. Francis in the Portuguese town of Evora is a small chapel called Capela dos Ossos. Like several entries on our list, it’s decorated with bones. Uniquely, not only is the interior of the chapel entirely covered with skulls and bones, but if you enter this small building and look up, you will find the remains of two full corpses, a women and a young boy staring back down at you, hanging from chains. It is said that they were the victims of a curse, who took shelter in the chapel. A welcoming sign at the entrance reads, “Nos ossos que aqui estamos, pelos vossos esperamos” (“We bones that are here, for your bones we wait”).

This 16th-century chapel houses the remains of about 5,000 monks, mostly exhumed from nearby cemeteries that had become overcrowded. There are several reasons why churches of the period decorated their walls in such a grisly fashion. One was practical—cemeteries were commonly overcrowded, and there were so few places to store the dead. The second was religious and social. Bones could be put to good use as a warning to the living to prepare one’s soul for death.

7Church Of Santo Stefano Rotondo
Rome, Italy

On the outskirts of Rome, away from the main thoroughfare of tourists, sits a church called The Basilica di Santo Stefano Rotondo al Monte Celio (Basilica of St. Stephen in the Round on the Celian Hill), or simply, the Santo Stefano Rotondo. It was consecrated by Pope Simplicius between 468 and 483 and is dedicated to Saint Stephen. Built on top of an old Roman site of Mithras-worship (known as a mithraeum), it’s a simply constructed church compared to others on this list, really only notable for being the first Roman church to be built with a circular plan, but it houses a unique collection of paintings.

Circling the inner walls are 34 paintings, each describing the death of a Christian martyr. Every one of them is hellishly violent, depicting in near-pornographic detail the tortures inflicted upon the martyrs, all in a perfectly naturalistic and life-like style. The paintings were commissioned by Pope Gregory XIII at the end of the 16th century.

No less a writer than Charles Dickens had this to say about the gruesome collection:

” . . . Such a panorama of horror and butchery no man could imagine in his sleep, though he were to eat a whole pig raw, for supper. Grey-bearded men being boiled, fried, grilled, crimped, singed, eaten by wild beasts, worried by dogs, buried alive, torn asunder by horses, chopped up small with hatchets: women having their breasts torn with iron pinchers, their tongues cut out, their ears screwed off, their jaws broken, their bodies stretched upon the rack, or skinned upon the stake, or crackled up and melted in the fire: these are among the mildest subjects.”

6Aghia Moni Convent
Nafplio, Greece

The Monastery of Aghia Moni is a beautiful, if little-known, complex just outside of Areia near Nafplio in Greece. It currently serves as a Greek Orthodox women’s retreat under the auspices of the Bishopric of Argolis.

Aghia Moni is famous for the spring that is located on its grounds, one with seriously pagan connotations. Sources are cagey about it, but most will admit that the monastery was dedicated to Zoodochos Pigi (the spring or source of life). The spring itself is associated with Kanathos, a legendary spring from Greek mythology.

The Greek traveler Pausanias, in his “Description of Greece,” wrote that “In Nauplia [in Argolis] . . . is a spring called Kanathos. Here . . . Hera bathes every year and recovers her maidenhood. This is one of the sayings told as a holy secret at the Mysteries which they celebrate in honor of Hera.”

Hera was the Greek queen of the Olympian Gods, associated with the sky and heavens, women, and marriage. Pausanias is implying that the Hera cultists performed rituals (called “Mysteries”) at the spring that were associated with this legend, and it isn’t hard to guess the aim of these rituals. That isn’t really the kind of thing Christian Orthodoxy likes to promote, so the spring has fallen into relative obscurity.

5The Barberini Coats Of Arms, St. Peter’s Cathedral
Vatican City

At St. Peter’s Cathedral in Vatican City is the Baldachin Altar along with its sculpted bronze canopy known as the Baldachin, both of which were sculpted by Gianlorenzo Bernini between 1624 and 1633 under the direction of Pius VIII. One notable feature about the alter is four plinths (columns), decorated with the Barberini family’s coat of arms—three bees arranged in a triangle on a blue field resting on an sculptured shield, with a woman’s head above it.

A close look reveals that each coat-of-arms, arranged two-to-a-column to make up a series of eight, is slightly different from the one preceding it. Some people believe that the series represents childbirth (the position of the woman’s head and the overall shapes and elements certainly look suggestive). Furthermore, take a look at the woman’s expression throughout the series; she goes from happy to obviously distressed and back. Furthermore, the shield bulges throughout the series until near the end; the woman’s face is replaced with that of a cherub or angel. What is this doing in the middle of a church?

One popular story has it that the sculpture depicts a promise that Urban VIII made to his niece, Giulia Barberini, to build an altar in her honor if her labor was successful. Others contend that it symbolically depicts the earthly struggles of the church in the past until it was “delivered” by the pope, who took great pains to place symbols of his power and family throughout the Vatican.

4The Sheela-Na-Gig Of Kilpeck
Herefordshire, England

Kilpeck Church (The Church of St. Mary and St. David) is located in Herefordshire, England near the Welsh border. It’s a simple, Norman-style, two-cell church built atop an older structure with dozens of elaborate and often-grotesque carvings, many of which are heavily influenced by Celtic styles. It’s famous for its sexually charged corbel (a weight support for buildings that were commonly sculpted), known as the Sheela-na-gig.

Sheela-na-gigs have been found on structures all over England, Ireland, and France. They depict a squatting woman, possibly associated with “old women” or hags, displaying their grossly exaggerated genitalia for all to see. They are usually depicted in a grotesque or comical manner, and the one at Kilpeck could be said to display both. It’s a very old sculpture, dating to at least the 12th century, and possibly belonged to an earlier chapel that once stood on the site.

Popular theories have it that Sheela-na-gigs are a pagan remnant, perhaps associated with various goddess traditions, but when placed in proper context with other carvings found around them, the theory holds little water. They fit in nicely with other Christian motifs common to the region of the time and probably served as Romanesque-era warnings about the dangers of sexual sins. The earliest known figures date to the 11th or 12th century and are usually found on Roman churches. They probably had a Continental origin. Another theory holds that they were created as wards against evil, and there is some evidence for this belief. Corbels have been found above doors or gates out of immediate eyesight, where they could have stood guard as talismans.

As the symbolic significance of Sheela-na-gigs began to wane, they moved from churches to buildings such as castles and gateways. Toward the end of their use, they even showed up as carvings on flintlock pistols of the baroque era.

There are male variations of Sheela-na-gigs, some of which may have been present at Kilpeck Church. Several corbels have been removed there, supposedly by an unnamed Victorian lady who was offended by what they depicted. Whatever the case may be, corbels depicting the male member are relatively common, and they too serve as a warning about the insidious consequences of lust.

3Otranto Cathedral, Tree of Life Mosaic
Otranto, Italy

Consecrated in 1088, Italy’s Otranto Cathedral is on this list twice. The first reason is its floor, which is entirely covered by an amazing work of art called the Tree of Life Mosaic. It was commissioned in 1163 by archbishop Gionata d’Otranto and overseen by a monk named Pantaleone with labor provided by local and Norman craftsman and artisans from Tuscany. It was restored in 1993.

Every square foot of the church’s floor is covered by a mysterious mosaic that depicts a tree in a style similar to a genealogy illustration. Seen from above, the tree grows into every room of the cathedral, and the effect of the explosion of mythological and religious concepts all depicted together is mind-blowing.

What makes this mysterious work of art so intriguing is the variety of imagery and inscriptions that have no place in a Christian church. Images of the Greek goddesses Diana, Deucalion, and Pyrrha (the main figures in the Greek legend of a great flood) collide with images from Frazer’s Golden Bough, a depiction of King Arthur, and zodiac figures, to name only a few. All this is mixed alongside images of Adam and Eve, apocalyptic imagery and creatures, Cain and Abel, and other Christian concepts, but the whole thing is surprisingly free of any specific Christian symbolism. It even mixes in Islamic lore, such as bits of text in Arabic.

The Tree of Life Mosaic demonstrates that its creators were far more educated than the norm for cultures of its time. However they obtained their knowledge, the creators seem to have wanted to record all they knew of the world in one place.

2Otranto Cathedral, The Skull Cathedral
Otranto, Italy

The second reason that Otranto Cathedral makes the list is the skulls. Just off of the main altar is a chapel, and the walls therein house the remains of 800 Christian martyrs. Some of the remains were also moved to the Church of Santa Caterina in Formello at Naples. The walls are neatly lined with the skulls of these martyrs behind glass.

Turkish Sultan Mehmet II had already conquered Constantinople, and 27 years later, he began a plan to take Rome itself by establishing a beachhead on the Italian coast at the port town of Brindisi. Along the way, he changed his mind and decided to strike at Otranto instead . . . a decision that changed everything.

When the invasion hit and the siege began, 350 members of Otranto’s garrison fled, leaving only 50 soldiers to hold back the invaders. The remaining townspeople helped against the siege as best they could.

On August 14, 1480, after a two-week siege, the Ottomans broke through and began raping and pillaging and gathered the women and children to be sold into slavery. They then marched around 800 male inhabitants of the town to a place called the Hill of the Minerva (afterward called the Hill of the Martyrs) and gave them a choice: convert to Islam or be beheaded. The men chose death.

Antonio Primaldi (or Pezzulla) was chosen to be the spokesman for the town, and he was the first man to be beheaded. According to Saverio de Marco in his Compendiosa istoria degli ottocento martiri otrantini (The Brief History of the 800 Martyrs of Otranto), when the sword fell, his lifeless, headless body stood up and refused to be moved. An executioner was so awestruck, he converted to Christianity right on the spot and was immediately executed. Yet, despite this miracle the beheadings continued.

The sacrifice of the townspeople of Otranto gave Ferdinand I, king of Naples, the time he needed to eventually repel the Ottoman advance. If not for them, all of Italy and Rome itself could have fallen to Islam. This is why their skulls are displayed and memorialized today, and why, in May 2013, Antonio Primaldi was canonized by Pope Francis as a saint along with all the rest of the Otranto martyrs. The occasion was the largest canonization of saints of all time.

1Sedlec Ossuary
Kutna Hora, Czech Republic

Compared to the Sedlec Ossuary, other churches that house human remains are nothing more than a Disney park. The remains of no fewer than 40,000 skeletons are preserved here.

The Seclec Ossuary is a small chapel located in the suburbs of Kutna Hora, just outside Prague. In 1870, woodcarver Frantisek Rint was appointed to do something about all the bones interred there. The church and its cemetery had become overcrowded over the centuries, thanks both to the church’s good reputation (and the alleged presence of soil from Golgotha, marking it as a holy site) and plague. Rint’s approach resulted in one of the most unique churches in history.

Bones are everywhere within the church. One of the most impressive displays is the Coat of Arms of the Schwarzenberg family, and the famous chandelier of bones contains at least one of every human bone within it.

Interspaced within the vast display of skulls, ribcages, leg and arm bones, and every other kind of bone are intricate carvings of angels and cherubs. There are candleholders made of bones, and entire walls are lined in skulls. Rint even signed his name in a display of bones.

Words don’t really do it justice. This gallery of photos helps give a proper sense of the church.

Lance LeClaire is a freelance artist and writer. He writes on subjects ranging from science and skepticism, atheism, and religious history and issues, to unexplained mysteries and historical oddities. You can look him up on Facebook.

The idea of discovering a buried treasure is appealing to just about everyone. Who wouldn’t want to just dig down somewhere and find an ancient trove of gold and jewels? You’d be instantly rich.  For a very long time, this was how the world at large viewed the situation. If it’s buried underground no one really owns it, right? But that’s not really how things work. In many cases, these ancient relics that are being dug up belong to the government of the country from which they’ve been taken. The country of Egypt is perhaps most famous for suffering this fate as tomb raiders for decades now have pillaged the country of its ancient history. But they aren’t the only ones. There are many cases of ancient relics that have been purloined over the years.

10. Pompeii’s Curse

Not every ancient relic is stolen by an Indiana Jones-style archaeologist or roving gangs of miscreants. Just look at the Canadian woman identified only as Nicole. 15 years ago she visited Pompeii. At the site, famous for being destroyed by a nearby volcano in a way that nearly perfectly preserved the entire town, Nicole snatched a few mosaic tiles and pottery shards for her own personal collection. This was very much against the law, but she felt like she wanted some souvenirs from the ancient city.

Fast forward to the year 2020 and Nicole put the items in an envelope and mailed them back to the Italian government. The envelope had a Canadian stamp but no return address. There was also a note inside apologizing for being young and dumb. She also pointed out the relics which supposedly caused her 15 years of bad luck.

Nicole attributed her theft of the relics to a series of unfortunate events that plagued her and her family. From financial woes to being diagnosed with breast cancer not once but twice she felt that Pompeii had cursed her for taking the items.  All of this was detailed in the note that she included when she sent the package back to Italy. Ironically, this is not the first package the Italian government has received from someone who took items from Pompeii, nor is it the first time someone sent them back after claiming they felt they were cursed. This has apparently happened hundreds of times already and will likely continue.

9. The Rosetta Stone

The Rosetta Stone is so famous that there’s a piece of software named after it. Arguably one of the most famous exhibits in the British Museum, it was key in helping researchers learn how to read ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. Because the stone features the same decree written in three different styles of writing including hieroglyphs, ancient Greek, and demotic which was the native language of the Egyptian people, it serves as a blueprint for translating ancient languages.

The stone was discovered in 1799. Napoleon had been campaigning through Egypt at the time, the stone fell into British control after Napoleon’s defeat in 1801. Much of the ancient items the French had unearthed were taken by the British as part of the Treaty of Alexandria. By 1802 the stone was in England.

From here the story typically goes on to detail the historical significance of the stone and how it was translated, how it was used to understand ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, and how it essentially opened up Egyptology as a section of archaeology. What is most often overlooked is the fact that this was stolen from Egypt. It’s still in the British Museum and it still stands as one of the most important historical finds of all time.

Egypt has called on England to return the Rosetta Stone numerous times over the years however, it seems unlikely at this point that England will ever concede that it was stolen in the first place and give it back. But at least one archaeologist working in a museum in Egypt says that there is still an upside to an item of such historical significance being on display outside of Egypt. It’s good propaganda for Egypt and a good advertisement to get people who are interested in the subject to actually visit the country and see more of the history firsthand.

8. The Elgin Marbles

The British Museum in London houses many Greek sculptures better known as the Elgin Marbles.  These date back to the 5th century and many of them were removed from the Parthenon at Athens before being shipped to England sometime between 1799 and 1803. Thomas Bruce, the 7th Lord Elgin, was the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during that time and that is who was occupying Greece from 1458 until the 1820s.

Greece understandably considers these artworks to be stolen property. They actually have a space open for them in the Acropolis Museum in Athens where the rest of the collection is housed. The British Museum, on the other hand, feels that nothing was stolen and the artwork was legally obtained by Lord Elgin back in the day after he agreed with the leaders of the Ottoman Empire.

 Because each side believes they own the art, there doesn’t seem to be much headway in getting them situated.  Greece does seem to have the moral high ground here since it was not any kind of Greek official who would have permitted Lord Elgin to have the art in the first place, but the British Museum doesn’t see it that way. 

7. The Bust of Nefertiti

Nefertiti was an Egyptian queen and the Great Royal wife of the Pharaoh Akhenaten. She lived from 1370 to 1330 BC. The two of them oversaw a religious shift in the country that dropped for the pantheon of multiple gods and saw the people begin to worship one single God, Aten.  It was a period of great wealth and prosperity in Egypt and it’s also believed that Nefertiti herself ruled Egypt after her husband’s death.

The bust of Nefertiti was discovered in 1912 by German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt.  Unlike some ancient relics which were taken with misplaced authority, Borchardt knew he didn’t have the right to the bust but he stole it anyway, smuggling it out of the country in 1913.

The German government claims that the bust was not taken illegally and it was part of Borchardt’s share of what he found. Egypt has long disagreed and has wanted it back since the 1920s but has so far been unsuccessful. As recently as September of 2020 Egypt has tried to get Germany to return the bust. The country agreed to return several other artifacts, but not Nefertiti.

6. Great Zimbabwe Bird

Although geographically Zimbabwe has existed for a long time, by that name the country has only existed since 1980. Previously it was known as the country of Rhodesia, named for Cecil Rhodes who claimed the country under Imperial Rule and was responsible for colonialism in Zimbabwe.

When Zimbabwe was able to achieve independence once again the country made a special point of tracking down the Great Zimbabwe Birds. There were eight of these soapstone statues originally which come from the ruined city of Great Zimbabwe. Built by the ancestors of the Shona sometime in the 11th century, the massive city covered 1,800 acres.   Among the ruins were eight soapstone sculptures of birds. The birds themselves are about 16 inches in height and they were mounted on columns that were three feet tall.

The birds are only partially designed to look like birds. They feature some human attributes, one of them even has lips. They have human appendages and their exact purpose has never fully been determined. They may represent Kings of old or totemic animals. Regardless of their past meaning, they are unique to Zimbabwe. No one has ever found anything like them anywhere else. And for that reason, they were adopted as national symbols of Zimbabwe and are even featured on its flag. 

Unfortunately, only two of them remained in Zimbabwe. After Cecil Rhodes and others took over the country, many of the birds were displaced. Four of them ended up in South Africa and another was taken there by Cecil Rhodes himself to Cape Town. 

When Zimbabwe achieved independence,  South Africa returned the four birds that it had. In 2003, Germany returned a piece of one that they had. And as of 2020, there was only one bird at large. It was still housed in South Africa. The one from the private collection of Cecil Rhodes. After Rhodes’ death, he bequeathed his estates to the South African government. Today it’s a museum and it still houses the last bird. As to why the South African government has refused to return this final bird? No one knows.

5. Geronimo’s Skull

Geronimo was a famous Apache medicine man. He had a knack for military strategy and frequently led raids against Mexican and American forces in the late 1800s. After he was captured, Geronimo was held as a prisoner of war and he died in the year 1909 after more than 20 years in Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

Geronimo’s story should have ended there, but it did not. There’s long been a rumor that members of the Skull and Bones Society were stationed at Fort Sill. The Order of Skull and Bones is one of those secret societies that is associated with Yale University. According to the story, Skull and Bones members dug up Geronimo’s grave and stole his skull and some personal artifacts. They took these remains to New Haven, Connecticut and they were stored in the Skull and Bones Society Clubhouse in secret.

Members of the Skull and Bones Society take their secrecy pretty seriously. That said, a writer claims to have found a letter dating from 1918 that confirmed the theft of the bones and their being stashed somewhere inside the Skull and Bones Society tomb.

Descendants of Geronimo filed a lawsuit against the society as well as Yale University and members of the United States government including Barack Obama. They demanded the return of Geronimo’s remains as the man himself wanted to be buried on Apache lands in New Mexico.

 To this day there is probably far too much mystery around Geronimo’s remains to ever know for sure what happened to him. At least one native rights organization says that Geronimo’s remains have already returned to New Mexico. And of course, the Skull and Bones society would never admit that they had it even if they did. 

4. Priam’s Treasure

Few countries have suffered more from robbers and plunderers than Turkey. It’s been estimated that over 200,000 items have been stolen from dig sites in Turkey and made their way to various museums throughout Europe including prominent ones such as the Louvre in Paris as well as the Pergamon Museum in Berlin and the British Museum in London.

Because so many different cultures over the years had established civilizations in Turkey, you can find artifacts from the Assyrians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans, Hittites, Phrygians, and so on. This led to competing archaeologists from different countries essentially raiding the country to get as much as they could for their own museums.

Among the many relics that have gone missing over the years are the treasures of King Priam. This consisted of a large quantity of gold, copper, and other artifacts that were discovered by German archaeologists. Arguably the most famous piece is the gold diadems and assorted pieces known as the Jewels of Helen which consists of 8,750 gold rings, buttons, and other objects. The treasure was discovered in 1873 at the site of the ancient city of Troy. It was then smuggled into Berlin and now exists in Moscow’s Pushkin Museum where it has been on display since the Soviet troops stole it from the Germans in 1945.

Ironically, Germany has demanded the treasure back from Russia claiming they own it. But of course, Turkey is claiming the same thing since Germany stole it from them to begin with. The Russian government claims that is war reparations and that they earned it.

3. Sarah Baartman

Most of the ancient relics that have been stolen over the years have been just that, relics. But one of the saddest and most unusual cases of an ancient artifact being stolen relates to the tale of Sarah Baartman. 

Sarah Baartman was thought to have been born in South Africa back in 1789. She had been a servant in Cape Town when she signed a contract with an English ship surgeon named William Dunlop. Baartman was illiterate and likely had no idea what she was signing at the time. The contract stated that she would travel with them to England and take part in shows. Whether she realized it or not, she had just signed up to be part of a freak show.

Put on display as the Hottentot Venus,  Baartman had a condition known as steatopygia. The condition is characterized by a prominent buildup of fat in the buttocks. So, this woman was paraded around Europe as some kind of trophy that the colonists had brought back with them. It was a cruel mix of racism and exploitation and after she died, her skeleton, her brain, and even her sexual organs were on display in a Paris Museum. 

Although the British Empire had supposedly abolished the slave trade in the early 1800s, slavery itself was not something that had stopped. The people who employed Sarah Baartman were prosecuted for holding her against her will but they were not convicted. She had actually testified on their behalf. To this day no one knows for sure whether she was fully aware of her situation or not. Regardless, she died at the age of 26 from what was described as an inflammatory and eruptive disease. 

Fortunately, this story has a bit of a happier ending than some of the others. In 1994 Nelson Mandela requested the repatriation of Sarah Baartman’s remains. They were returned, along with a plaster cast that has been made of her body. In 2002 she was buried back home in South Africa.

2. The Mummy of Ramses I

Identifying ancient relics can be difficult sometimes. Especially in the case of ancient Egyptian mummies.  Identifying who is who is not always easy and occasionally leads to surprises. Such was the case when researchers in Niagara Falls discovered that they had the body of Ramses I. Not only that, he’d been sitting there since the 1860s until he was finally identified in 1999.

Ramses I was an Egyptian pharaoh and a fairly significant member of the royal line. A Canadian researcher just happened to notice that the mummy looked kind of familiar. The facial structure reminded her of some other royal mummies so they did some tests and, sure enough, he turned out to be the Pharaoh.

The Mummy had been purchased by the son of the museum’s founder when he had gone to Egypt in the early 1800s to pick up antiquities. No one involved had any idea who he was at first. Once the Canadians discovered that he was the Pharaoh, the process of having him repatriated began. Currently, the Pharaoh is back on display in the Luxor Museum in Egypt. 

1. Koh-i-Noor Diamond

One of the most famous diamonds in the world is set into the crown of Queen Elizabeth. The Koh-i-Noor diamond hails from India and became part of the British crown jewels in the mid-1880s. 

Before the 1700s, pretty much every diamond in the world came from India. Gemstones were abundant in India so much so that you could fish them out of river sand rather than go digging for them in mines. 

The first written record of the Koh-i-Noor diamond comes from 1628. Mughal ruler Shah Jahan made himself a jewel-encrusted throne inspired by King Solomon’s from the Bible. After 7 years of construction and four times as much money as was put into the Taj Mahal, there were two giant gems set into it. The Timur Ruby and the Koh-i-Noor diamond. The diamond was the crown of the throne in the head of a giant gemstone peacock.

In 1739, Nader Shah invaded Delhi and stole the Peacock Throne along with so much treasure it took 700 elephants, 4,000  camels, and 12,000 horses to take it all the way.  For the next 70 years, the diamond made its home in Afghanistan where it changed hands frequently thanks to various battles. By 1813 it was back in India again in the hands of Ranjit Singh, a Sikh ruler.

After Singh’s death, control of the diamond passed through several hands until it ended up in the control of Duleep Singh. British colonists had already taken a firm hold in India and had set their sights on the diamond years earlier. In Duleep, they saw a chance to get what they coveted so dearly and forced him to sign the diamond over along with all claims to sovereignty in an amendment to the Treaty of Lahore. How’d they do that? Duleep Singh was only 10 years old.

The diamond was sent to England and became the property of the Queen, after which it was added to the crown jewels. Locals were unimpressed because it looked like a glass bauble. So Prince Albert had it recut to look more brilliant, reducing it in size by half in the process.

For all the marvels of the modern world, there’s something to be said for things that were created in the distant past that still astound us to this date. With the technology we have today we often smugly think of ourselves as far more advanced than our ancestors. But then we come across something truly astounding from the ancient world and all you can do is be in awe of how such a thing came to pass. And truly, some of these relics from ancient history are far more fascinating than you might believe. 

10. The Antikythera Mechanism

Computers didn’t become ubiquitous in our world until sometime in the 1990s. Home computers began showing up in the late 1970s but they were still very rare and very basic. For military and government use, computers went as far back as the 1940s. And then there was the Antikythera Mechanism, a bronze artifact some 2,000 years old located off of a Greek island that appears to be a very simple kind of computer.

Constructed from brass gears and dials held in a clock-like case, the people who discovered it at first had no idea what it might be. The clockwork technology used in it would not be seen again until sometime around the 16th century. After extensive study, a Princeton science historian determined that the device was used to predict the positions of the planets and stars depending on the month. So essentially a complex map of the sky. If you input the date, the device will show you where the sun, the moon, and the planets were in the sky. Basically, a rudimentary computer that helps you calculate Celestial positions quickly and efficiently.

Once the date was input into the device, the precisely manufactured mathematical gears would be able to calculate the angle of the sun crossing the sky and use gear ratios to map everything else.  This included positions of the known planets, phases of the Moon, the full lunar calendar, a forecasting tool for eclipses, and constellations, and even a countdown for regular sporting events.

9. Baghdad Battery

Discovered in Khujut Rabu, outside of Baghdad, the artifact that came to be known as the Baghdad Battery features a stopper made of asphalt, an iron rod through the center of it with a copper cylinder around it. If you were to fill the jar with vinegar it would start producing a 1.1 volt charge. Hence the name Baghdad Battery. And in a very rudimentary way, this is a version of what we still use today as batteries. But the fact that it was made two thousand years ago is what is so significant about it.

There were no instructions located anywhere near the battery when it was discovered and no written references to it anywhere else. There has been some speculation over the years as to the nature of the battery and while it’s not generally believed it was meant to actually power electrical devices, it could have been used for a rudimentary kind of electroplating. Beyond that, it’s possible it could have been part of some kind of religious ceremony as putting your hands on it probably would have created a tingly feeling. 

8. Nan Madol

There have been a lot of remarkable ancient cities built in our past but Nan Madol located in Micronesia is unique in the world. It is the only ancient city ever discovered that was built upon a coral reef. No one lives in the ancient city today and the locals believe it is a place where spirits roam. The people who used to live there and ruled for over a thousand years were known as the Saudeleur. What they built was something of an engineering marvel.

Nan Madol covers over 200 acres. 92 artificial islands were built between the 13th and 17th centuries. Black lava rock was taken from the far side of the island and used to build up the city. Some segments were as much as 20 feet long and were stacked like logs to build outer walls. How the massive stones were transported is still a mystery although some people have ventured to guess that perhaps it was magic. Given that some of the cornerstones in one building weigh about 50 tons, it’s not too hard to see why some of the locals may have made that guess.

The path to where the rocks were taken from is through some thick jungle. The population of the island was probably about 30,000 people, which makes the undertaking a significant one. Factor in that it’s estimated 750,000 metric tons of rock were used to build the city and it becomes all the more impressive. Just to drive home how hard this must have been, the locals did not have metal. Which means they had no pulleys and no levers with which to move any of these rocks.

7. The Gabon Reactor

One of the most fascinating discoveries in history is one that few people have ever actually heard of before. Located in Gabon, part of western Africa, where are the remains of a natural nuclear reactor. Which is to say nature itself formed the conditions to allow nuclear fission to take place in a way that is almost identical to how it takes place in a man-made nuclear reactor. And it happened about two billion years ago, long before any life existed that could ever have dreamed of creating such a thing.

The Gabon reactor was able to produce about 100 kilowatts of power. Nowhere near what actual, constructed nuclear reactors can make but still pretty impressive for something that just happened by coincidence in the wild.

So how does nature form its own nuclear reactor? The area is where uranium is naturally found and mined to be used in man-made reactors. The conditions were ideal where the uranium was occurring for fission to take place and it continued operating for upwards of 1 million years. The waste produced by it was even safely contained below ground for the past 2 billion years. 

These days uranium-235 is the most stable, fissionable source of nuclear power and it represents a very small proportion of all the uranium in the world. However, two billion years ago it was in much higher concentrations which is what allowed this reaction to occur naturally. All it really needed was to be arranged in the correct geometry. Along with some kind of moderator to slow the neutrons down, which is typically water and what probably was happening in these natural reactors, as well as some kind of element to absorb neutrons,a fission reaction could easily occur.

6. Costa Rican Spheres

Many people in the modern world are perplexed by ancient relics because none of them have instruction books so it’s hard to figure out what some people are doing. Few relics meet this description better than the giant stone spheres that you can find scattered about Costa Rica.

The massive carved rocks, the biggest of which weighs 16 tons and is 8 feet in diameter, were mostly unknown until fruit companies began clearing space to grow bananas. 300 of the balls have been discovered and no one really knows what the purpose of them is.

The spheres date back to around 600 AD to 1000 AD before the Spanish came to the area. The purpose of them will likely be forever lost to history and the best researchers have been able to come up with is debunking claims people have made about what they’re for since no one really knows.

5. Scythian Bongs

In the 9th Century BC until around the 4th Century AD if you were to travel through the central Eurasian steppes you might find populations of the Scythian people. These nomadic tribes roamed that area and were known as impressive warriors, some of the first to practice mounted warfare. And they also apparently enjoyed a good buzz.

Archaeologists uncovered some 2,400-year-old solid gold bongs that had been used by the  Scythian people at a site in Russia. The bong still contains traces of both cannabis and opium. This fits with historical accounts of Scythian warriors who were known to both smoke and create a tea out of herbs that were said to somewhat alter their state of mind.

4. The Terracotta Army

The tale of the Terracotta Army is fairly well-known. Crafted for the first emperor of China over 2000 years ago, the 7,000 soldiers complete with horses and chariots represent one of the most remarkable fines in archaeological history. But what’s a little less well-known about the Terracotta Army is the fascinating amount of detail that went into creating them.

If you’ve only heard of the army in passing or seeing a couple of pictures you may not have noticed some of the more interesting details. For instance, the 7000 soldiers are all unique soldiers. Some archaeologists believe that each one was carved to represent an actual soldier in the emperor’s army. They aren’t identical as you might assume at first glance. They have different hairstyles, different clothing, and adornments on their uniforms. Most significant of all when you take a close enough look you’ll see that they even have different ears. Some craftsmen went out of their way to ensure that even the finest details were present to help differentiate each of these statues from others.

3. Dino Mummy

Finding the fossilized remains of dinosaurs isn’t anything exceptionally unique these days.  However, the remains of a nodosaurus that were discovered in Millennium Mine in Alberta back in 2011 stand out as something unique in the world. Unlike typical remains which are usually Stone like bones embedded in actual rock, this nodosaurus had been remarkably well-preserved. Essentially mummified, the skin of the animal was still intact.

The nodosaurus, a kind of ankylosaur, was 18 feet long and 3,000 pounds.  Researchers believe it likely died near the water before it floated out to sea and then sank into the mud at the bottom where it was preserved.The result was not just the skeleton like we’re used to but preserved armored plates and scales. The full body of the creature after it was uncovered makes it look like a sleeping monster rather than a long-dead fossil.

Not only does this give paleontologists a better understanding of the dinosaur’s armor, but some of the remains even included color pigmentation which can help reconstruct what these animals actually looked like. Up until this point anytime you’ve seen a re-creation of a dinosaur, the coloration has just been based on speculation. 

2. The Lloyds Bank Coprolite

Although you probably shouldn’t Google this, you can take it for granted that there have been very few turds of historical significance. Which is to say when people defecate it rarely becomes newsworthy it’s certainly not a matter of historical record. A notable exception to this is the Lloyds Bank coprolite. 

Dating back to the 9th century, the Lloyds Bank coprolite is a fossilized sample of Viking feces. Measuring eight by two inches, it was found beneath the site where Lloyds Bank was building a new location back in 1972. The find was significant because of both the size and the fact that fossilized human waste is actually pretty rare to discover.

 The makeup of the fossil shows that the Viking who left it there had a diet that was rich in meat, cereal grains, and some pollen. Also a massive amount of intestinal parasites. Grossness aside, this is an unprecedented window into the life of a Viking at that time. Not only diet but the general discomfort that this man must have been in with all the parasites that were riddling his guts.

Amazingly enough, the coprolite has been valued at around $39,000.

1. The Djoser Pyramid

The Great Pyramid at Giza gets all the attention from people with an interest in ancient Egypt but there is another pyramid worth investigating and that’s the Pyramid of Djoser. Dating back to the year 2630 BCE, the Pyramid of Djoser is actually the oldest in all of Egypt. It’s widely believed that this pyramid was the first and most successful pyramid which in turn led to a proliferation of other pyramids. None of them would have existed if the Djoser Pyramid hadn’t been a success.

Given that the engineering feat of building the pyramids for people at that time still fascinates us today, it’s significant that this was the first attempt that was clearly a success. The architect responsible for building the pyramid was a man known as Imhotep, a name you probably recognize from pop culture. That was the mummy in The Mummy movies. He also ended up becoming the Egyptian god of wisdom and medicine. They didn’t just share the same name, this man was deified after he died and became a part of their Pantheon.

The Djoser Pyramid is much smaller than the Great Pyramid at Giza, but it did start a trend and holds a significant place in history as a result.

For all the marvels of the modern world there’s something to be said for things that were created in the distant past that still astound us to this date. With the technology we have today we often smugly think of ourselves as far more advanced than our ancestors. But then we come across something truly astounding from the ancient world and all you can do is be in awe of how such a thing came to pass. And truly, some of these relics from ancient history are far more fascinating then you might believe. 

10. The Antikythera Mechanism

Computers didn’t become ubiquitous in our world until sometime in the 1990s. Home computers began showing up in the late 1970s but they were still very rare and very basic. For military and government use, computers went as far back as the 1940s. And then there was the Antikythera Mechanism, a bronze artifact some 2,000 years old located off of a Greek island that appears to be a very simple kind of computer.

Constructed from brass gears and dials held in a clock-like case, the people who discovered it at first had no idea what it might be. The clockwork technology used in it would not be seen again until sometime around the 16th century. After extensive study, a Princeton science historian determined that the device was used to predict the positions of the planets and stars depending on the month. So essentially a complex map of the sky. If you input the date, the device will show you where the sun, the moon, and the planets were in the sky. Basically, a rudimentary computer that helps you calculate celestial positions in a quick and efficient way.

Once the date was input in the device, the precisely manufactured mathematical gears would be able to calculate the angle of the sun crossing the sky and use gear ratios to map everything else. This included positions of the known planets, phases of the Moon, the full lunar calendar, a forecasting tool for eclipses, constellations, and even a countdown for regular sporting events.

9. Baghdad Battery

Discovered in Khujut Rabu, outside of Baghdad, the artifact that came to be known as the Baghdad Battery features a stopper made of asphalt, an iron rod through the centre of it with a copper cylinder around it. If you were to fill the jar with vinegar it would start producing a 1.1 volt charge. Hence the name Baghdad Battery. And in a very rudimentary way, this is a version of what we still use today as batteries. But the fact that it was made two thousand years ago is what is so significant about it.

There were no instructions located anywhere near the battery when it was discovered and no written references to it anywhere else. There has been some speculation over the years as to the nature of the battery and while it’s not generally believed it was meant to actually power electrical devices, it could have been used for a rudimentary kind of electroplating. Beyond that, it’s possible it could have been part of some kind of religious ceremony as putting your hands on it probably would have created a tingly feeling. 

8. Nan Madol

There have been a lot of remarkable ancient cities built in our past but Nan Madol located in Micronesia is unique in the world. It is the only ancient city ever discovered that was built upon a coral reef. No one lives in the ancient city today and the locals believe it is a place where spirits roam. The people who used to live there and ruled for over a thousand years were known as the Saudeleur. What they built was something of an engineering marvel.

Nan Madol covers over 200 acres. There are 92 artificial islands that were built between the 13th and 17th centuries. Black lava rock was taken from the far side of the island and used to build up the city. Some segments were as much as 20 feet long and were stacked like logs to build outer walls. How the massive stones were transported is still a mystery although some people have ventured to guess that perhaps it was magic. Given that some of the cornerstones in one building weigh about 50 tons, it’s not too hard to see why some of the locals may have made that guess.

The path to where the rocks were taken from is through some thick jungle. The population of the island was probably about 30,000 people, which makes the undertaking a significant one. Factor in that it’s estimated 750,000 metric tons of rock were used to build the city and it becomes all the more impressive. Just to drive home how hard this must have been, the locals did not have metal. Which means they had no pulleys and no levers with which to move any of these rocks.

7. The Gabon Reactor

One of the most fascinating discoveries in history is one that few people have ever actually heard of before. Located in Gabon, part of western Africa, where are the remains of a natural nuclear reactor. Which is to say nature itself formed the conditions to allow nuclear fission to take place in a way that is almost identical to how it takes place in a man-made nuclear reactor. And it happened about two billion years ago, long before any life existed that could ever have dreamed of creating such a thing.

The Gabon reactor was able to produce about 100 kilowatts of power. Nowhere near what actual, constructed nuclear reactors can make but still pretty impressive for something that just happened by coincidence in the wild.

So how does nature form its own nuclear reactor? The area is where uranium is naturally found and mined to be used in man-made reactors. The conditions were ideal where the uranium was occurring for fission to take place and it continued operating for upwards of one million years. The waste produced by it was even safely contained below-ground for the past two billion years. 

These days uranium-235 is the most stable, fissionable source of nuclear power and it represents a very small proportion of all the uranium in the world. However, two billion years ago it was in much higher concentrations which is what allowed this reaction to occur naturally. All it really needed was to be arranged in the correct geometry. Along with some kind of moderator to slow the neutrons down, which is typically water and what probably was happening in these natural reactors, as well as some kind of element to absorb neutrons, a fission reaction could easily occur.

6. Costa Rican Spheres

Many people in the modern world are perplexed by ancient relics because none of them have instruction books so it’s hard to figure out what some people are doing. Few relics meet this description better than the giant stone spheres that you can find scattered about Costa Rica.

The massive carved rocks, the biggest of which weighs 16 tons and is eight feet in diameter, were mostly unknown until fruit companies began clearing space to grow bananas. 300 of the balls have been discovered and no one really knows what the purpose of them is.

The spheres date back to around 600 AD to 1000 AD, before the Spanish came to the area. The purpose of them will likely be forever lost to history and the best researchers have been able to come up with is debunking claims people have made about what they’re for since no one really knows.

5. Scythian Bongs

In the 9th century BC until around the 4th century AD, if you were to travel through the central Eurasian steppes you might find populations of the Scythian people. These nomadic tribes roamed that area and were known as impressive warriors, some of the first to practice mounted warfare. And they also apparently enjoyed a good buzz.

Archaeologists uncovered some 2,400 year old solid gold bongs that had been used by the  Scythian people at a site in Russia. The bong still contains traces of both cannabis and opium. This fits with historical accounts of Scythian warriors who were known to both smoke and create a tea out of herbs that were said to somewhat alter their state of mind.

4. The Terracotta Army

The tale of the Terracotta Army is fairly well-known. Crafted for the first emperor of China over 2,000 years ago, the 7,000 soldiers complete with horses and chariots represent one of the most remarkable fines in archaeological history. But what’s a little less well-known about the Terracotta Army is the fascinating amount of detail that went into creating them.

If you’ve only heard of the army in passing or seeing a couple of pictures you may not have noticed some of the more interesting details. For instance, the 7,000 soldiers are all unique. Some archaeologists believe that each one was carved to represent an actual soldier in the emperor’s army. They aren’t identical as you might assume at first glance. They have different hairstyles, different clothing and adornments on their uniforms. Most significant of all when you take a close enough look you’ll see that they even have different ears. Some craftsmen went out of their way to ensure that even the finest details were present to help differentiate each of these statues from others.

3. Dino Mummy

Finding the fossilized remains of dinosaurs isn’t anything exceptionally unique these days.  However, the remains of a nodosaurus that were discovered in Millennium Mine in Alberta back in 2011 stand out as something unique in the world. Unlike typical remains which are usually Stone like bones embedded in actual rock, this nodosaurus had been remarkably well-preserved. Essentially mummified, the skin of the animal was still intact.

The nodosaurus, a kind of ankylosaur, was 18 feet long and 3,000 pounds.  Researchers believe it likely died near the water before it floated out to sea and then sank into the mud at the bottom where it was preserved.The result was not just the skeleton like we’re used to but preserved armored plates and scales. The full body of the creature after it was uncovered makes it look like a sleeping monster rather than a long-dead fossil.

Not only does this give paleontologists a better understanding of the dinosaur’s armour, some of the remains even included colour pigmentation which can help reconstruct what these animals actually looked like. Up until this point is anytime you’ve seen a re-creation of a dinosaur, the coloration has just been based on speculation. 

2. The Lloyds Bank Coprolite

Although you probably shouldn’t Google this, you can take it for granted that there have been very few turds of historical significance. Which is to say when people defecate it rarely becomes newsworthy it’s certainly not a matter of historical record. A notable exception to this is the Lloyds Bank coprolite. 

Dating back to the 9th century, the Lloyds Bank coprolite is a fossilized sample of Viking feces. Measuring eight by two inches, it was found beneath the site where Lloyds Bank was building a new location back in 1972. The find was significant because of both the size and the fact that fossilized human waste is actually pretty rare to discover.

The makeup of the fossil shows that the Viking who left it there had a diet that was rich in meat, cereal grains, and some pollen. Also a massive amount of intestinal parasites. Grossness aside, this is an unprecedented window into the life of a Viking at that time. Not only diet but the general discomfort that this man must have been in with all the parasites that were riddling his guts.

Amazingly enough, the coprolite has been valued at around $39,000.

1. The Djoser Pyramid

The great pyramid at Giza gets all the attention from people with an interest in ancient Egypt but there is another pyramid worth investigating and that’s the Pyramid of Djoser. Dating back to the year 2630 BCE, the Pyramid of Djoser is actually the oldest pyramid in all of Egypt. It’s widely believed that this pyramid was the first and most successful pyramid which in turn led to a proliferation of other pyramids. None of them would have existed if the Djoser Pyramid hadn’t been a success.

Given that the engineering feat of building the pyramids for people at that time still fascinates us today, it’s significant that this was the first attempt that was clearly a success. The architect responsible for building the pyramid was a man known as Imhotep, a name you probably recognize from pop culture. That was the mummy in the Mummy movies. He also ended up becoming the Egyptian god of wisdom and medicine. They didn’t just share the same name, this man was deified after he died and became a part of their Pantheon.

The Djoser pyramid is much smaller than the great pyramid at Giza, but it did start a trend and holds a significant place in history as a result.