New technologies and innovations linked to old ones are unlocking scientific mysteries in ways never thought possible. These revolutionary new techniques are allowing unprecedented insight into the natural world.

Whether they reveal an obscure and unseen galaxy billions of light-years away or a cryptic message from millennia ago, these pioneering methods are game changers in their fields.

10 Photographing Hidden Spaces With Wi-Fi

Researchers wanted to see the world “through Wi-Fi eyes,” so they placed a cross made of aluminum foil, a Wi-Fi emitter, and two receivers (one stationary, one mobile) in a closed room. They recorded the Wi-Fi waves as they reflected off the cross to encode its image in 3-D within a hologram.^[1]

This technique could eventually reveal the interiors of closed structures even if the receivers are placed outside, with lifesaving consequences for victims trapped under snow or in collapsed buildings. Alternatively, in 5–10 years, Wi-Fi surveillance may be used to organize and supervise factories full of robot workers.

9 Revealing Hidden Space Scenes 10 Million Times Faster With AI

Large enough objects like galaxy clusters can bend light around them, revealing and magnifying the objects behind them.

“Reading” a single lens can take months of work and many tedious comparisons between actual images and numerous computer simulations. But neural networks, or artificial brains based on biology, can decode these lenses 10 million times faster—in a few seconds instead of months.

Scientists fed the aforementioned AI half a million simulated images and tested it against Hubble images. The AI proved itself as accurate as traditional analysis but in a fraction of the time. This tech will open up the universe like never before, with an unprecedented amount of data set to flood in from the next generation of observatories and telescopes.^[2]

8 Peering Through Solid Objects With Neutron Beams

A brand-new imaging technique peers through solid objects by hitting them with a focused beam of neutrons.

Instead of a conventional lens, the new technology uses silicon wafers to split and redirect a neutron beam. The waves strike the object and ricochet into each other, producing an interference pattern.

Unlike other methods, this revolutionary type of neutron interferometry can zoom in and out to detect very small and very, very small objects alike, ranging from 1 nanometer to 10 micrometers. Neutron interferometry was previously a supplement to other imaging efforts, but this advance may turn it into a unique “main course” option.^[3]

7 Turning (Dead) Animals Transparent To Glimpse Hidden Biology

An imaging technique named uDISCO (ultimate 3-D imaging of solvent-cleared organs) turns dead animals transparent to unveil biology’s inner workings.

Scientists dunk the animal into a dehydrating solvent that removes water and fat, which shrinks the specimen up to 65 percent and effectively turns it into a translucent mummy.

It doesn’t damage fluorescent proteins engineered into the rodents’ bodies like previous techniques did, so scientists can observe these markers once the animal has been transpar-ified. They hope to use this to one day map the human brain, a feat that would take 1,000 years with conventional methods.^[4]

6 Mapping An Entire Country Using Lasers

The entirety of England is being mapped by aerial lasers, or LiDAR, a technique that has already scanned 75 percent of the country. From above, researchers pelt the landscape with a million light wave pulses per second, building a 3-D topographical map based on the waves’ return time.

It began as an effort to map changing coastlines. But as an added bonus, it has revealed four Roman roads that snake invisibly beneath the modern terrain.

As a double bonus, it could disrupt the £1 billion a year illegal dumping racket by quickly detecting changes in landscape and allowing the authorities to apprehend dumpers.^[5]

5 New X-Ray Methods Illuminating Invisible Art

Researchers can peer through layers of paint and reveal secrets beneath some of the world’s most famous masterpieces.

It started with Picasso’s 1902 oil painting La Misereuse accroupie, or The Crouching Beggar. Curious colors and textures peeking out from between cracks in the oil didn’t match the surface layers. So scientists shot different wavelengths of light at it because oil is transparent to some wavelengths. They confirmed a 1992 study that found another artist’s landscape beneath Picasso’s beggar.^[6]

X-ray analysis then revealed an entirely new feature, that the women’s hand (obscured by the robe) is clutching a piece of bread. More revelations will undoubtedly follow now that scientists can use this method in situ at museums and such.

4 Detecting CTE And Brain Damage In The Living

For the first time ever, researchers have confirmed the detection of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in a living patient.

The patient, along with 13 other ex-NFL athletes, underwent brain scans. They revealed a protein called tau which smothers damaged cells and migrates across the brain, killing neurons.

In 2015, one of the retired players in the study, identified as former Minnesota Vikings linebacker Fred McNeill, died. The autopsy confirmed that McNeill was suffering from CTE as well as ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease.^[7]

If validated, such technology would be good for more people than just ex-athletes. It would also benefit the military by detecting brain irregularities in soldiers exposed to the concussive forces of an explosion, for example.

3 Exposing Cancerous Cells With A Pen

One of the trickiest parts of treating cancer is making sure that every unwanted cell is removed during surgery. Now, a new pen-like device can scan potentially infected areas 150 times faster than current methods.

In proof-of-concept testing on 253 patients, the “MasSpec pen” detected cancerous tissues with 96 percent accuracy and it did so in only 10 seconds.

The pen releases a drop of water onto suspect tissues and then drives it into a mass spectrometer to detect the telltale waste products produced by cancerous cells, even specifying their subtype.

If approved for widespread use, the MasSpec Pen will offer faster, more precise, and safer surgery.^[8]

2 Peeking Inside Mummies With A Particle Accelerator

Researchers can now look inside mummies without damaging them, thanks to the Argonne National Laboratory’s Advanced Photon Source, a particle accelerator.

For the first time ever, scientists trained the high-energy X-rays on the Hibbard mummy, a five-year-old Egyptian girl, which dated to the end of the first century AD.^[9]

The Hibbard mummy was chosen because of its intact “mummy portrait,” a wooden face panel with a painting of the child’s likeness. Without disturbing the brittle material, researchers saw through its shroud and found unexplained objects therein, like wires in the girl’s teeth, a weird bowl-shaped object in her skull, and some kind of small stonelike item wrapped to the girl’s abdomen.

1 Unrolling Ancient Scrolls With Novel X-Ray Tech

Pompeii wasn’t the only town buried by Vesuvius’s famous outburst: Little Herculaneum was also smothered by hot ash and lava.

As were its legendary scrolls of Herculaneum, part of the world’s oldest surviving classical library. Unfortunately, they were crisped by temperatures exceeding 260 degrees Celsius (500 °F). Recently, scientists were able to read the letters on one of these scrolls despite its 2,000-year interment and volcanic ash bath.

Scientists analyzed the distortion of X-rays as they passed through different materials. Like the letters on the scroll, which didn’t penetrate into the papyrus and remained in relief by an amazingly tiny tenth of a millimeter, just enough to allow detection.^[10]

Ivan writes cool things for the Internet. He’ll write cool things for you, too, if you contact him at [email protected] and pay him in food or money.

The writings of great men like Plato and Marcus Aurelius are studied today with the same fervor and admiration they enjoyed thousands of years ago. However, we often overlook the poor folk who lived ordinary lives and dealt with ordinary problems. Etchings from some of these men have survived thousands of years and give us extraordinary glimpses into everyday life in ancient empires.

10 An Egyptian Soldier Abroad Just Wanted To Go Home

In AD 214, an Egyptian man named Aurelius Polion left his home to fight in the Roman legion. He was stationed in Pannonia Inferior near modern Hungary, which was 1,600 kilometers (1,000 mi) from home. The boy was terrified—not of dying in battle but of being forgotten by his family.

“I sent six letters to you,” Polion wrote to his family, “but you never wrote to me.”

He believed that his family had forsaken him. Still, he wanted to be with them more than anything else—so much so that he would have abandoned his post if they had written him a single word.

“The moment you have me in mind,” he promised, “I shall come to you so that you may know that I am your brother.”

9 A Babylonian Trader Struggled With A Powerful Merchant

A Babylonian man named Nanni holds the unique honor of writing history’s first letter of complaint in 1750 BC. Ea-nasir, a copper merchant, had tricked Nanni into buying a low-quality product. When Nanni’s messenger complained, he was told, “If you do not want to take them, go away!” He wasn’t refunded a single coin.

Nanni was furious, but there wasn’t much he could do. According to other translated documents, Ea-nasir was powerful in the copper business and a trader probably couldn’t succeed without going through Ea-nasir.

Still, Nanni furiously chiseled these words into his tablet: “Take cognizance that from now on, I will not accept here any copper from you!” Reality must have sunk in, though, because he added a meek “that is not of fine quality.”

8 A Priest Helped A Starving Chinese Woman Get Back To Her Mother

In AD 313, a Chinese woman named Miwnay was stranded in a town called Dunhuang, living in abject poverty, and desperately trying to get home to her mother.

Miwnay may have lost her husband. In a letter to her mother, she wrote that her journey home was delayed by her husband’s relative, who disapproved of her trip. The other in-laws followed suit, and every person she came to closed their doors.

“I live wretchedly,” Miwnay wrote, “without clothing, without money.” She only got by through the charity of a priest, who promised to give her a camel and take care of her on the journey.

Miwnay sent a letter home promising to be back soon. However, the letter was confiscated by a Chinese garrison and locked in a tower for 1,500 years. Miwnay’s mother never saw the anguished words her daughter wrote.

7 A Sumerian Work Crew Was Paid In Beer

In 3000 BC, a group of Sumerian workers left their homes to work for a powerful man. This was at the dawn of civilization before the country used currency. Workers were paid in beer instead of coin.

As a receipt for their payment, a Sumerian bookkeeper tacked up a clay tablet that survives today. The tablet only says that the men were given beer for work—but it’s a fascinating look into what life was like before money.

Most men could provide shelter and food for their families by the toil of their hands, but they didn’t have the resources to make wine. So early men left their families to work for someone more powerful—and get drunk.

6 An Angry Roman Drew Jesus As A Crucified Donkey

In AD 200, a Roman named Alexamenos was a member of the Christian faith and his community didn’t care for it. One man, who must have hated Alexamenos, etched a crude drawing of a man worshiping a donkey-headed man on a cross. Scribbled underneath were the words: “Alexamenos worships his God.”

It was a hateful act, but it wasn’t unique. In the early days of Christianity, many Romans believed that Christians were cannibals. Even Marcus Aurelius’s tutor went on record saying that Christians held rituals “initiated by the slaughter and the blood of an infant.”

Jesus was often called the “Donkey Priest” as an insult. A few people even seem to have believed that Jesus literally had the head of a donkey. So when Alexamenos saw the crude drawing on the wall, the message was clear. He was not trusted—and he was not wanted.

5 An Egyptian Worker Refused to Take A Sick Day

In 1500 BC, Egyptian workers lived in a town called Deir el-Medina near the Valley of the Kings. These men would make the trek to the tombs of the pharaohs to work, leaving their families for a week at a time.

Papyrus scrolls show that the workers were given paid leave when sick and a physician would be dispatched to their homes to take care of them.

A reprimanding record tells us that one worker named Merysekhmet drudged through his work while ill, refusing to take time off. For two days, he worked despite the pain—until he couldn’t do it anymore.

Merysekhmet was forced to take a few days off to recover. But as soon as he was able, he headed back to work on a project that would outlive even the kings for whom he built it.

4 The People Of Pompeii Loved To Party

Before Pompeii was buried in a volcanic eruption, the city was a party town filled with obscene art and brothels—and graffiti.

Messages like “I screwed the barmaid” showed up on tavern walls. “Celadus the Thracian makes the girls moan!” was scribbled in a gladiator’s barracks. The most memorable of all was on the walls of a brothel. “Weep, you girls!” it said. “My penis has given you up! Now it penetrates men’s behinds.”

The people of Pompeii drank and enjoyed themselves, but they loved, too. One proud man wrote on the walls of a home: “If anyone does not believe in Venus, they should gaze at my girlfriend.” A woman wrote that she wouldn’t sell her husband “for all the gold in the world.”

But in a city frozen in time, it’s the simplest message that seems the most meaningful. “Gaius and Aulus,” it reads. “Friends forever.”

3 A Greek Tourist In Egypt Missed His Mother

Around 278 BC, tourists from Greece and Italy started flocking to the Valley of the Kings in Egypt to see the tombs. They also left graffiti that shows an incredible reverence for the site.

Some etched their names or their jobs on the sides of walls while others wrote of their amazement for the place where they stood. However, one unique piece of graffiti at the Colossi of Memnon stands out.

The Colossi had been damaged in earthquakes, and air seeping through the cracks tended to make a high whistling sound. When one Greek tourist heard the whistle, he believed that Memnon had cried out the name of his mother.

He wrote what he’d heard on the foot. Then he added a message to someone else. “I missed you, O my mother,” he wrote, “and I prayed that you might hear him, too.”

2 The Men Who Built The Pyramids Left Their Marks

Some young men in Egyptian villages had never seen more than a few hundred people in their whole lives—until someone came and ordered them to work on the “royal labor project” as a form of taxation.

They were sent on great journeys across the country, leaving their homes for the first time. Then they saw what they were going to build—the pyramids, a wonder of the world towering above the horizon.

It must have changed everything these men understood about what was possible in this world. While they worked, they lived in lean-tos, ate at a local bakery, and sometimes died on the pyramid walls and were buried nearby.

Even so, each crew left their tag on the walls they’d worked on, making sure that their part in building something that would be remembered for millennia would not be forgotten.

1 Sumerian Accountants And Slave Traders Just Wanted To Do Their Jobs

The oldest names written in history are the names of common people doing nothing more than working through the daily drudge of their jobs.

The first written name we have is an accountant from 3100 BC. The tablet reads, “29,086 measures of barley [over the course of] 37 months” and is signed “Kushim.” The first tablet with more than one name is an ad from a slave trader that reads, “Two slaves held by Gal-Sal: En-pap X and Sukkalgir.”

These writings were likely mundane moments in the lives of these men. They were repeating things they did every day at work. Kushim was counting barley, Gal-Sal was selling slaves, and En-pap X and Sukkalgir were dreading a new life of servitude.

+Further Reading

It is always surprising to see how much the ancient’s lives had in common with our own (minus free and easy debt of course). Here are some other lists of a similar nature from the archives:

10 Ways We’re All Picturing The Ancient World Incorrectly
Top 10 Ancient Jobs That Sucked Big Time
10 Surprising Facts About The Ancient World
10 Discoveries Of Ancient Cultures Nearly Lost To History

Throughout the majority of anthropological history, a council of gods and divine forces dictated the affairs of humankind. The following items capture life as it was when the world was mystical and magic still real.

10Scrolls For Tortured Souls

Surveyors in the Serbian city of Kostolac have discovered a forgotten burial ground that harkens the former glory of Viminacium, a Roman outpost from the fourth century BC that at its peak boasted 40,000 inhabitants.

The site belched up a few 2,000-year-old skeletons and also two mystifying leaden amulets. Inside the amulets, they found adorably tiny scrolls of gold and silver. Commonly referred to as “curse tablets,” such spells generally invoke otherworldly powers to affect or afflict the caster’s friends, family, or foes.

The mere presence of magical scrolls suggests the amulet bearers died grisly deaths. Such arcana are buried with the violently murdered, as it’s believed that tortured souls are most likely to encounter the demon middle-men that pass messages on to higher after-worldly offices.

Unfortunately, it’s unlikely these particular scrolls will be deciphered anytime soon. Thanks to an inconvenient confluence of culture, the alphabet is Greek but the language is Aramaic, offering a seemingly uncrackable linguistic nut.

9Galilean Tomb Magic

Tomb robbing has plagued humanity throughout its history of entombing. Hollywood-style booby traps are infeasible, so the denizens of Southern Galilee inscribed curses onto the surfaces at the Beit She’arim necropolis.

Dating to the early centuries AD, the catacombs bear markings in a variety of languages, including Greek, Hebrew, Palmyrene, and Aramaic, the universal lingo of the Near East. Roman and pagan influences are present as well, like the sarcophagi that populate a burial trove known as the Cave of Coffins, a practice borrowed from Romans.

The messages throughout wish the dead an agreeable resurrection, yet another tradition not inherent to Jewish beliefs. Magical spells in Greek adorn the walls and tombs, preferring protection and peace to the reposed and invoking poxes on any who disturb the sacred bones.

8The Catalhoyuk Statuette

Turkey’s most fruitful Neolithic excavation site is Catalhoyuk, the remains of a settlement established circa 7,500 BC and lasting nearly two millennia before its dissolution. It has relinquished a range of archaeological goodies, from the household to the mystical, including a recently discovered 7-inch, marble statuette of a woman.

The first thing you’ll notice is that the Neolithic woman boasts a more substantial figure compared to the female representations of other cultures and times. Similar figurines, though not as large, well-preserved, or delicately crafted, have been found throughout Europe and the Middle East.

Researchers previously ascribed them as fertility goddesses, but a new point of view argues a more terrestrial influence. Instead of goddesses of any kind, the sculptures may immortalize the community’s respected, elderly women.

The egalitarian community here respected its elders as well as the concept of corpulence, because obesity designated a more distinguished and sedentary clerical or bureaucratic career.

7Re-Used Roman Coffin

In spite of a belief in hexes and pervading fear of sacrilege, coffin recycling was apparently A-OK for Roman Britons, according to a grave site at Dorset Quarry in England. Here, archaeologists discovered an open-faced stone sarcophagus, presenting the skeleton of a man who died mysteriously sometime around 1,500–2,000 years ago.

Only 100 or so such burials have popped up across the former Roman Brittania, including 11 others at the quarry, suggesting the individual in question, who died aged 20–30 years old, likely achieved some form of high status to deserve such an unusually dignified send-off.

However, this belief is somewhat at odds with the burial itself. The coffin is too small for its 177-centimeter (5’10″) inhabitant, whose feet have been bent back to accommodate the one-size-too-small coffin. Researchers believe the sarcophagus reused like some grisly pass-me-down.

6Moche Ritual Cat Claws

Renowned temple builders and metalworkers, the agriculturally adept Moche populated northern Peru from AD 100–800. Recently, archaeologists discovered a stupefying pair of metal cat claws in a tomb at the former Moche capital.

The grave, at the Huaca de la Luna (Temple of the Moon) dig site in Trujillo, also surrendered a man’s body and assorted finery, including a mask, bronze earrings, copper scepter, and mixed ceramics. It’s doubtful that the claws served as weaponry and more likely that they carried mystical value, possibly advertising their owner’s nobility or societal influence.

Like their Pan-American neighbors, the Moche enjoyed their own brutal traditions. It’s believed that two warriors squared off in costumed ritual combat, with the winner receiving the costume and claws while the loser earned the privilege of being sacrificed.

5Shamanic Animal Bone Burial

A 12,000-year-old Natufian grave site in Galilee reveals a laborious, six-stage internment process fit for an evil witch.

Of the nearly 30 bodies found inside the burial cave near the Hilazon River, one presumably belonged to a female shaman. It was surrounded by an embarrassment of animal parts, including a bovine tailbone, an eagle wing, a pig leg, a leopard pelvis, 86 tortoise shells, deer bones, and a human foot to boot. The burial process began with oval grave and lined with plaster and stone slabs, upon which several different layers of animal parts and flint tools were layered, followed by the woman’s body, then a final garnish of more bones and a triangular stone slab to seal the grave.

The process is unexpectedly intricate for the period. Though maybe we should be less surprised, because these same Levant-dwelling Natufians were among history’s first civilizations to ditch the nomadic, hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

4The Vestal Virgin Hairdo

Even more so than today, hairstyles in ancient Rome expressed identity. Personal factors such as age, gender, and station in life dictated one’s hairdo, which doubled as a societal nametag to visually designate one’s role and rank.

Most styles are lost forever to history, but at least one has been revived courtesy of self-proclaimed hair-chaeologist Janet Stephens. Inspired by Roman busts in museums, Stephens spent seven years studying a style known as the seni crines, a Roman staple that consisted of six braids.

The seni crines was the notorious ‘do that adorned the crowns of Rome’s famed vestal virgins, the celibate devotees of the hearth goddess Vesta, and spiritual tenders of the eternal Roman flame.

3Medusa Good-Luck Charm

The image of Medusa, the serpent-haired Gorgon with a petrifying gaze, is synonymous with evildoing and general villainy. But it wasn’t always so, and some even regarded Medusa as a harbinger of good luck.

Like the inhabitants of Antiochia ad Cragum, a first-century Roman city in southern Turkey that hosted the spectrum of Roman conveniences, including an organized, colonnaded street grid, bathhouses, shops, and a rich artistic culture. Within the remnants of the ruined outpost, archaeologists discovered a marble Medusa head.

The decoration served as a Pagan apotropaic charm, intended to ward off evil and imbue the settlement with divine protectorship. Myriad similar sculptures adorned the city, though were destroyed by the Christians who smashed a majority of the Pagan iconography to bits.

2Monument To The River God

Ancient life was ruled by a compulsion to appease the gods, who communicated with the mortal world through various mediums. So when the river god Harpasos appeared to Flavius Ouliades in a dream almost 2,000 years ago, it was like a direct message from the heavens.

To commemorate the apparition Ouliades erected a marble shrine next to the AkCay River in southeastern Turkey, hoping to invoke Harpasos’s blessing for a fruitful harvest and flood-free season.

According to researchers, the scene depicted might portray a particular traditional myth: Hercules’s son, Bargasos, defeating a maleficent river monster in hopes of summoning the riparian deity. Alternatively, the image may pay tribute to divine hero Hercules himself, commemorating his slaying of the many-headed hydra.

1Egyptian Spells Of Manipulation

The ancient Egyptian arsenal of magic contained invocations for every terrestrial desire, especially in the arena of love. Spells ranged from the hopeful to the overtly evil, as in the case of two recently deciphered papyri from Oxyrhynchus.

Written in Greek some 1,800 years ago by an unknown mage, both spells promise varying levels of mind control. One spell claims to subjugate its male victim to the whims of the wielder, while the other spell is female-specific, capable of “burning a woman’s heart” until she falls in love with the caster.

The one-size-fits-all spells are open-ended, written to be wielded when and where the occasion strikes. The love-sick caster only needs to insert a name and Bam! Their beloved is now cursed with debilitating fits of passions.

The name of Babylon, today, is used as a synonym for evil and debauchery. Our view of the ancient empire is colored by biblical history, and it’s not exactly flattering. It calls Babylon the “mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations” and says that “happy is he who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rocks.”

In its time, though, Babylon was one of the world’s most powerful cities, a name uttered with awe. Much of the real Babylon has been lost to time, but archaeologists have found pieces. Through them, we glimpse into one of the world’s first great civilizations.

10A Babylonian Home

In 1899, archaeologists found the city of Babylon itself. Inside, they saw a hint of what life was like in an ordinary Babylonian home.

Babylon was made without stones. Every building and every wall was built out of clay bricks. Those bricks were glazed with color and pictures of gods, beasts, and men. The walls of the city were coated in lapis lazuli, a blue mineral worth its weight in gold.

A Babylonian home would be built out of clay bricks, as well. Most would be on dusty, unpaved roads, off the side of the main streets. Many would be a single room leading out into an open court, though some with a little more wealth would have extra rooms attached.

Inside, they kept decorative pots and lanterns, glazed with little dashes of color to bring it alive. The children would have small clay toys or toy terracotta ships to play with. The grown men would gamble, playing games with the ankle bones of animals.

9Babylonian Medicine

When Babylonians walked down to the marketplace, they would see more than just shopkeepers. Sick people would be sitting there, too, and they were everyone’s responsibility. No matter who you were, you were expected to take a minute to give them your best medical advice.

The elite didn’t have to do this. They could go to the temple. There, a sorcerer might sit down with them and explain what evil they’d committed to anger the gods and what charms they need to make penance. Or they might get a doctor, who would be trained to make plaster casts and to perform surgery.

The poor, though, were not so lucky. They would have to take care of their own, usually in their own home. That’s why they would go out to the marketplace, where people would pass by and, if they’d suffered the same symptoms, let him know how they treated it.

Babylonian medical tablets show they based all their medicine on what had worked in the past. They call medicines “tried and tested“ and pass them down. One, for example, outlines an illness a woman had 1,500 years ago and the way she treated it, passing a remedy that worked down through the centuries.

8Erotic Clay Plaques

Babylon was considered unusually sexually open, even by the standards of ancient kingdoms. According to the historian Jean Bottero, people would have sex out in the open—sometimes on the terrace of their homes and sometimes even on the streets.

We know for sure that they passed out around little terracotta plates that showed people in the act, like ancient issues of Playboy. There is a whole Kamasutra-like range of techniques displayed on these things. There was no taboo on them—they were everywhere. Archaeologists have found them in homes, in temples, and even buried with the dead in their graves.

It’s easy to imagine how uncomfortable the Israelites, who give us much of our understanding of Babylon today, must have been when they walked through Babylon. In ancient Israel, sexual art was few and far between. To them, Babylon’s sexuality made it a depraved place.

7The Temple Of Ishtar

One of the strangest Babylonian traditions, according to the Greek writer Herodotus, took place at the Temple of Ishtar. At least once in her life, a woman had to come there, and she wouldn’t be allowed to leave until she’d slept with somebody for money.

We’ve unearthed some of these temples. One was found at the top of the city, on an acropolis where the king kept his royal seat of power. Next to his royal seat is a temple to Ishtar, the goddess of love and war. It is upon a massive stone terrace with a ramp leading up to it and, in its prime, is believed to have been a gigantic ziggurat that towered into the sky.

“Here when a woman takes her seat she does not depart again to her house until one of the strangers has thrown a silver coin into her lap and has had commerce with her outside the temple,” Herodotus says. It was easier for some women than others. “Some of them remain even as much as three or four years.”

6Fortune-Telling

The Babylonians believed they could see the future in a sheep’s liver. When they needed to make an important decision, they would cut the liver of a sheep’s body to predict how it would go.

They’ve left behind clay models of livers, mapped with abnormalities that they believed indicated different fates. Some would be for specific purposes. One, for example, marked with the words “destruction of a small town,” was consulted whenever a Babylonian king was considering razing a village to the ground

Different cultures viewed this in different ways. The Greeks thought they were on to something and copied them. The Israelites, on the other hand, viewed it as a type of dark, foreign sorcery and as something to be feared.

5Astronomy

Babylonian astronomers would climb up to the top of their great ziggurats and watch the movements of the stars in the sky. The stars were a major part of their religion, and they made some incredible advances in astronomy centuries before anybody else.

The Babylonians, we’ve learned, discovered the Pythagorean theorem 1,000 years before Pythagoras was born. They spotted Venus, tracked Haley’s comet, and tracked Jupiter using mathematical techniques that European society didn’t develop until the 14th century.

Their astronomy was incredibly advanced—but that doesn’t mean they understood what space was. As accurately as they tracked the planets, they just used them for astrology. They believed that the constellations were placed there by the gods, and movements in the skies were a portent of things to come.

Oddly enough, in some ways, their astrology worked. They were able to track the changes in a season by where a constellation was in the sky—so, when they predicted a strong harvest, they were often right.

4The Ritual For Eclipses

Of all the cosmic warnings across the sky, an eclipse was the most terrifying. The Babylonians believed they brought on catastrophes, murders, and rebellions. We’ve found a tablet that tells us exactly what they did during an eclipse—and it was a pretty intense reaction.

First, they were to light an altar on fire. Then every Babylonian was to take off anything they might be wearing on their head and, instead, pull their clothes over their heads. With their tunics over their heads, they sang dirges, begging the gods to protect their fields and not to destroy them with floods.

At the end, they broke into tears and begged the gods to spare them. The crying was scheduled. Part of the ritual required the people to have an emotional breakdown.

3The Adoption Of An Abandoned Baby

A contract between a priestess and the state has been found, revealing the compassionate side of the Babylonians. A priestess, it states, had found a newborn baby abandoned at a well and snatched it “from the mouth of a dog.”

That part wasn’t too unusual. Abandoning babies to die was a fairly standard practice in most nations in those times. In Rome, parents were required by law to abandon babies that were deformed. In Babylon, though, it seems to have been handled differently.

The priestess adopted the baby as her son. The Babylonian state, the tablet reveals, took this type of gesture very seriously. Not only did they approve of the priestess’s actions, but they set up consequences to ensure that she cared for the child as her own.

“If Simat-Adad, the nugig, says to him, ‘You are not my son!,’ ” the tablet warns, “she shall forfeit house, field, orchard, female and male slaves, possessions and utensils, as much as there may be.”

2The Lives Of Conquered People

When a nation was defeated by Babylon, the people were relocated to new parts of their empire. It happened to the Israelites, which was a lot of the reason they hated Babylon so much.

We’ve found tablets that track the lives of Israelites in Babylon, revealing they had more freedom than expected. At the very least, they were not treated as slaves—they were allowed to live their lives. They signed contracts, traded commodities, paid taxes, and received loans.

That doesn’t mean the Babylonians were saints. They slaughtered the Israelites’ babies, destroyed their city, and tore them from their homes. There were plenty of good reasons to hate them.

Because the Babylonians gave them rights, though, some didn’t hold the grudge forever. As time passed and the memory of the tragedy became fainter, some Israelites integrated into Babylonian society. In time, they would have become indistinguishable from their conquerors.

1The Graves Of Dead Babylonians

Along the city walls of Babylon are the graves of their dead. When a Babylonian reached the end of his days, his body was brought there, and he was buried under the earth. Their bodies were stretched out at full length and usually were buried unadorned, without any casket or tomb. Sometimes, though, they would be wrapped up in reed mats or walled in with bricks.

Some would be buried with the possessions they had in life. Graves would be filled with beads. According to Herodotus, some of their graves would even be filled to the brim would honey.

They would rarely be buried with their weapons. For their time, the Babylonians were a peaceful people—lovers and not fighters.

The eyes may be said to be the windows of the soul, but a look at our eyes also sheds some interesting light upon diverse facets of human biology. In this list, our discoveries take us through a surprising story about the history of the blue eye mutation, lesser-known facts about eye color and disease correlations, hidden blind spots, and why we can shed three different types of tears.

10Blue-Eyed People Have A Common Ancestor

Blue-eyed humans make up a significant percentage of the population in certain areas of Europe, Eurasia, and the lands inhabited by the diaspora of these populations. Despite a range in distribution, scientists have determined that blue-eyed individuals can be traced back to a single common ancestor who would have resided in the Baltic Sea region 6,000–10,000 years ago.

Prior to a peculiar genetic change, all humans had brown eyes. A team led by Hans Eiberg from the University of Copenhagen discovered that blue-eyed humans were created by a genetic mutation on the OCA2 gene, which specifically cuts down melanin production in the iris. If the genetic effects went all the way, we would be seeing albinos rather than light-eyed individuals.

Eiberg was the original identifier of OCA2 as the gene responsible for eye color, continuing research begun in 1996. The study compared people from across Eurasia and determined just how specific were the roots of the wide-ranging mutation.

9Men And Women Exhibit Differences In Visual Perception

Men and women appear to see differently, according to some rather interesting scientific investigations. According to research by Israel Abramov and his team from CUNY’s Brooklyn and Hunter Colleges, men are more sensitive to detail and motion, whereas women excel to a greater degree when it comes to picking up the nuances of color. The study included a comparison of male and female vision with a request to describe different colors as they were shown. Men were found to require a longer color wavelength and also exhibited reduced sensitivity to slight differences between shades.

However, male volunteers exceeded the capabilities of females when it came to rapidly moving images. Males could better identify rapidly shifting images composed of colored bars compared to the women, who experienced a greater challenge at this particular task. Abramov explained that these factors are linked to thalamic neurons within the primary visual cortex, which are influenced during development by the presence of androgens.

Research at the University of Bristol indicated another difference in male versus female visual activity patterns, this time in the area of how men and women use their eyes. Men tended to fix their gaze on an individual’s face or other point of focus, whereas women would tend to shift their gaze at different parts of an image when asked to look at still images.

8Eye Color, Facial Morphology And Trust

Eye color appears to be linked to morphology and human perceptions of trustworthiness, according to a recent study in Europe. In January 2013, Karel Kleisner and her colleagues from Charles University in the Czech Republic published research identifying some fascinating biological and sociological relationships. When facial structure and eye color were compared, it was found that brown-eyed men typically possessed broader chins, larger mouths and noses, and closer eyebrows with increased prominence. In contrast, blue-eyed men had “finer” features, with narrower, more downturned mouths, longer chins, smaller eyes, and widely spaced eyebrows. The faces of these men were generally more angular in appearance.

Interestingly, public perceptions of trustworthiness from all audience members tested showed that these blue-eyed men with correspondingly different faces were less likely to garner trust from subjects. However, the few men with blue eyes who had less typical, broad faces garnered more trust. Women’s facial structures and eye colors did not seem to affect observer perception of trustworthiness, suggesting that human females may be judged according to different factors than the ones to which males are subject.

7Eye Color And Macular Degeneration

Nature does not guarantee equality when it comes to disease and genetics. Certain afflictions are biologically biased tendencies that can relate to ethnicity and distinct physiological traits. Macular degeneration is one such condition. Coming in wet and dry forms, macular degeneration sees cone cells in the central part of the eye responsible for central vision suffer damage. This leads to a loss of visual capabilities in the middle of the visual fields, although peripheral sight is maintained. Studies and observation suggest that the color of the eye and related physiological considerations play a role in macular degeneration incidence.

Blue-eyed and green-eyed individuals, especially those of British, Scandinavian, or German descent, are more prone to developing this disease compared to darker individuals who may come from nationalities with a higher number of brown-eyed individuals.

According to optometrists, those with lighter eyes such as blue eyes or lighter irises have less melanin to shield the eye and are thus more prone to macular degeneration. Macular degeneration affects women to a significantly greater degree than men. With the lightest human eyes being found in the Caucasian race, it is no surprise that these people are the most likely to experience macular degeneration. A diet rich in antioxidants and nutrients to limit free radical damage, along with the use of sunglasses, is frequently recommended to potentially reduce macular degeneration incidence.

6Cataract Risk Trends And Eye Color

Although it is tempting to assume we are all the same, seemingly superficial traits can directly affect our health predispositions in sometimes counterintuitive ways. People with light eyes tend to have light skin that burns easily in sunlight, yet scientific findings published following research in Sydney, Australia, indicate an increased incidence of certain cataracts in individuals with dark eyes at a rate of 2.5-fold. It appears that those with dark eyes are simply significantly more vulnerable to this form of harmful change over time than light-eyed humans.

Robert Cumming, PhD, points out that a certain type of cataract was significantly more likely to develop in darker-eyed individuals than those with blue or hazel eyes. Sunlight was identified as a potential factor through speculation that dark eye colors absorb sunlight in the same way black surfaces do. While sunlight may be a factor, increased cataract risks were found even in those who were not spending an inordinate amount of time in the sun. This might suggest that internal factors are also at play.

5Tears Are Very Diverse

Even the apparently simple things in nature are not as straightforward as they might seem. For example, consider human tears. Tears serve a range of purposes and form distinct types to meet different needs. Tears originate in the lacrimal glands, formed with an outer layer of oil to prevent evaporation, with a middle aqueous layer carrying nutrients and salt to the cornea. The innermost mucous layer brings essential moisture to the eyes. Tears are produced for different reasons, according to the directions our brain provides.

Basal tears have nothing to do with emotion; they coat your eyes each second with moisture. Other tears are formed in response to physical pain or as soon as the presence of foreign objects is detected. Such tears have a chemical makeup suited to providing healing effects. Finally, we have the most familiar form of tears, the emotional tears, which are a response to sadness, stress, or even extreme emotions of a positive nature such as joy. Emotional tears contain hormones that may help rid the body of chemical effects from emotions as they build up.

4Brown-Eyed People May Have Faster Reaction Times

Human reaction times and certain task performance patterns vary in studies sorting participants by dark and light eye colors. While one might ask whether the differences are directly linked to eye color, or whether a separate factor linked with eye color is at work, a scientific study involving 44 male and 82 females of Caucasian descent showed clear relationships. When tested, individuals with dark eyes exhibited statistically significant reductions in reaction times to simple stimulus trials. Complex reaction time tests indicated similar trends, even though the findings were not statistically significant.

According to the research, darker iris colors seem to indicate reductions in reaction times with tasks involving speed of response without accuracy. Blue-eyed individuals may experience great success in tasks requiring longer-term thinking, such as game strategy. Commentary by Barry Wasserman, MD, notes that while differences are slight, there may be multiple correlations that directly involve eye color as well as interrelated traits. Melanin levels in the brain could relate to melanin levels in the eyes, influencing diverse responses. Light sensitivity may also be a factor in human reactions.

3The Cornea Is Bloodless But Sensitive

Standing out as an oddball among other parts of the human body, the cornea is completely without blood vessels. Instead, the cornea receives nutrients from the tear ducts at the front and the aqueous humor from the rear. The cornea is extremely sensitive, with massive concentrations of nerve cells and an ability to protect the eye and refract light for proper vision. A perfectly clear and functional cornea is thus essential for good vision, and the need for clarity lies behind the otherwise odd lack of blood vessels, unparalleled elsewhere in the human body.

Despite the lack of blood vessels, the cornea is highly innervated. Any type of injury may not only cause long-term damage—it will be extremely painful. Damage to the surface of the cornea is not the only cause for concern. Inside the cornea, the endothelium regulates fluid flow in and out of the stoma of the eye. If the endothelial cells are lost or damaged, fluid buildup may lead to serious damage in what is known as corneal edema.

2Cataracts Reflect Aging, Not Disease

Cataracts are feared for their ability to impair vision and appear with less notice than we might expect. And rightly so are they feared, for cataracts are the leading cause of blindness worldwide. However, cataracts are not so much a disease as an aging process.

The lens of the eye is mostly protein and water, allowing for clear and vision-enabling processing of light waves. As human beings get on in years, proteins clump together, clouding and eventually leading to significant impairments of normal vision.

Increased susceptibility to glare as well as reduced vision may indicate cataract formation, which is interestingly capable of occurring in younger people even though aging is a central predisposing factor. Scientific investigation and healthy living inquiry points to nutrition as an important factor for consideration. A 10-year study looked at female health professionals and found that higher vitamin E levels in the diet, together with carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin, significantly reduced cataract occurrence risks.

1Optic Nerve Attachments Create Blind Spots

We may think we have perfect vision, but every human has a blind spot in each eye where the optic nerve attaches. Known more technically as Cranial Nerve II, the extension of the ganglions from the retina acts in a manner more similar to brain tissue than eye tissue. While each optic nerve enables sight and communication between the eye and brain, its necessary attachment zone creates a full blind spot in each eye, near the center. It is simply not possible for rods and cones to be present where the optic nerve head is located.

To compensate, the blind spot in one eye will correspond to a section of the opposite eye’s retina that is seeing correctly. Therefore, we experience uninterrupted vision. The existence of these blind spots and our compensation for their effects show how subjective our perception of reality can be as our brains fool us for our own good.

Christopher Stephens is a researcher and writer based in British Columbia, Canada. He completed his M.Sc. In Environment and Management and enjoys writing about health, science, and environmental studies. An experienced naturalist, he leads world-class birdwatching tours for Pacific Rainforest Adventure Tours in B.C.

Several TV shows like to bring in off-screen characters that are occasionally heard or partially seen and mentioned frequently. Despite the audience never being introduced to certain characters, they still manage to add a lot of humour to these shows and often impact storylines and on-screen characters. Here are 10 of the most noteworthy characters we never get to see.

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10 Mrs Wolowitz – The Big Bang Theory

Frequently heard but never seen, Mrs Wolowitz had an overbearing presence despite having no screen time on The Big Bang Theory. Her involvement in the show wasn’t just limited to her overbearing relationship with Howard, but also her significant relationships with Bernadette, Raj and Stuart.

After Carol Ann Susi- the voice behind Mrs Wolowitz- lost her battle with cancer, the show had her character also pass away. In ‘The Leftover Thermalization’ we see all of the main characters share their stories about Mrs Wolowitz. Despite having zero screen time, it just shows how much of an impact she had on the entire group.

9 Father Bigley – Father Ted

The first of many offscreen characters connected to a stream of bizarre anecdotes and backstories. The audience only learn about Father Bigley second-hand from other characters. He’s described as having ‘puffy fish lips bigger than the rest of his face’ and was once mistaken as dead when in actuality he just looked dead.

We only ever get small snippets about Father Bigley, never enough to form a fully rounded character. We hear a variety of bizarre, out-of-nowhere stories, including that he ‘befriended a priest who was sending arms to Iraq’, ‘he gave mass at OJ Simpson’s wedding’ and he ultimately ‘ended up in a home because he was going around starting fires.’

8 Scranton Strangler – The Office

The Scranton Strangler was a recurring figure throughout seasons 6-9 on The Office. The unidentified serial killer is referenced repeatedly at Dundler Mifflin, with Toby even being a juror at the trial of George Howard Scrub who was convicted of the crimes.

Despite the conviction, Toby claims he has doubts about whether Scrub was the right man, and many fans have come up with their own theories about who the Strangler really is. Mose and Creed are both popular suspects amongst fans, with references within the show that they have both killed before. The most popular theory is that Toby himself is the real Scranton Strangler, with even The Office’s official YouTube channel publishing a video titled ‘Making a Strangler’ dedicated to the theory.

7 Bob Sacamano – Seinfeld

Bob Sacamano is built entirely on the accounts from Cosmo Kramer. Another wacky character, we’re given snippets intermittently throughout the series about who he is. Unlike Father Bigley, Bob Sacamano has more of an impact on the lives of other characters, including giving Kramer (and consequently George) defective condoms, leaving George worried that he’s gotten a woman pregnant.

On top of that, we hear all sorts of stories about Bob from Kramer. According to Kramer, he was ‘once in a mental institution […] electroshock had no effect on him because his synapses were so large.’ He also ‘once contracted rabies’, ‘made a fortune from the toy paddles with the ball and rubber band’ and had a hernia operation and ‘due to malpractice, [he] now sits in a chair by a window repeating “my name is Bob.”’

6 Ms Sara Bellum – The Powerpuff Girls

It’s a common trope in cartoons to not show the adults’ faces, including Mammy Two Shoes from Tom & Jerry and The Proud Family’s Wizard Kelly. Ms Sara Bellum from The Powerpuff Girls is instantly recognisable regardless of her face never being visible. Her big hair, red outfit and curvy figure meant that we didn’t need to see her face to know exactly who Ms Bellum was. Although described by other characters as being very pretty, her main quality is her intelligence and described by the mayor himself as the ‘brains behind the man.’

In the 10th anniversary episode, ‘The Powerpuff Girls Rule!!!’ Ms Bellum’s face is finally revealed, kind of. For a brief moment, when her face is shown, her hair is covering one eye and the other is closed never revealing her eye colour or full face. The majority of her face is never seen, revealing very little and still leaving her full appearance a mystery.

5 Vera Peterson – Cheers

Vera Peterson is frequently on the receiving end of husband Norm’s phone while at the bar. Usually either making jokes about her, or avoiding her completely, pretty much everything we know about Vera is from Norm himself.

Who can forget the famous ‘Thanksgiving Orphans’ episode where we nearly saw Vera’s face, only for it to get covered in chocolate crème pie. Fun fact: Vera is voiced by Bernadette Birkett, the real-life wife of George Wendt who plays Norm!

4 Ugly Naked Guy – Friends

There’s very little that we really know about Ugly Naked Guy, but he’s a recurring topic of conversation amongst the 6 friends until he moves out from across the street in season 5. Instead of seeing the view from Monica and Rachel’s apartment, the audience only sees th1e group spying on Ugly Naked Guy and their reactions (often one of shock). On two occasion we see glimpses of the nudist; once when the gang are poking him from across the street to make sure he’s alive (‘The One With The Giant Poking Device’) and once when he answers the door to Ross (‘The One Where Everyone Finds Out’).

We don’t learn much about the identity of Ugly Naked Guy, probably because the main gang know next to nothing about him. We do know that sometime after 1993 he began to gain weight, as in ‘The One With The Flashback’ Phoebe states that ‘Cute Naked Guy’s really starting to put one weight.’ The most we learn about Ugly Naked Guy is his variety of hobbies and activities, including playing the cello, getting gravity boots, buying a ThighMaster, owning a cat and his Thanksgiving date that concluded in ‘Ugly Naked Dancing.’

3 Stan Walker – Will & Grace

Unlike other unseen characters on this list, we get a much more developed picture of Stan Walker thanks to wife Karen. His silhouette is seen once and on another occasion his arms are seen trying to touch Karen with Will in the room (‘New Will City’). He’s often described as being massively overweight and is said to wear a toupee that he never washes.

Stan is involved in several strange and elaborate storylines, most significantly being arrested for tax evasion, his divorce from Karen, his “death” and funeral, and finally the discovery that he was actually alive and had faked his death to protect himself from the mob. Pretty detailed for a man we never see!

2 Charles “Charlie” Townsend – Charlie’s Angels

For every other character on this list, although the audience don’t get to see them, the other characters of the show either do interact with them or have done so in the past. In Charlie’s Angels no one, including the Angels themselves, get to know the real face of Charlie.

No one knows much about Charlie and even though they interact with him all the time, even the Angels only know him by his voice. The ultimate mysterious figure, due to having so many enemies Charlie doesn’t let anyone other than Bosley know his face. Within the show, the Angels only hear his voice through a speaker box when receiving cases. As an audience, we see the back of his head, the occasional body part, but never his face.

1 Maris – Frasier

Maris Crane is possibly the most established, off-screen character we never meet. We get vivid descriptions of Niles’ first wife from all of the Crane family. She is significantly underweight- with Roz originally mistaking her for a hat rack- and a number of obscure medical problems, including being unable to produce saliva and a slight webbing of her hands.

Maris is disliked by both Frasier and Martin, even Lilith has a distaste for her. She has a big impact on Niles’ storyline, particularly when they get divorced. Despite being physically weak, her actions are often malicious and selfish, escalating from her affair whilst still with Niles to shockingly being jailed on suspicion of murder of a man she’s romantically involved with. Maris’ surprisingly wild plotlines ends with her escaping to her family’s private island that she cannot be extradited from.

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