When the past slips away, the only clues we have are the art and writing left behind. These ten unusual art discoveries pull back the veil on ancient lives, cultures, and ideas we never imagined. From eerie murals to hidden scripts, each find rewrites a piece of history.

10 Morbid Murals

In 2012, a team of Chinese archaeologists uncovered a peculiar burial chamber shaped like an octagon and capped with a pyramid‑style roof. The tomb, located near Yangquan, dates back roughly 700 years and boasts seven walls adorned with vivid frescoes.

One of the murals depicts the couple who owned the tomb, while two other scenes tell grim tales of impoverished families forced to contemplate lethal sacrifices to survive. Both narratives center on protecting an elder family member.

The first story shows parents burying their young son alive in order to rescue their grandmother; the act is rewarded when they stumble upon hidden treasure while digging, meaning no life is ultimately lost.

The second tableau portrays a grandfather spared from a cruel death because the household’s youngest son threatens to turn the tables on his own father once he ages. Though dark, these narratives underscore a cultural reverence for caring for the elderly in ancient China.

These macabre murals reveal that, even centuries ago, societies could embed profound moral lessons within striking visual storytelling.

9 New Nazca Lines

More than fifty fresh designs have recently emerged from Peru’s famed Nazca Desert, a landscape celebrated for massive geoglyphs that can only be fully appreciated from the sky. While the iconic figures are usually credited to the Nazca culture (AD 200‑700), these new outlines hint at earlier creators.

Researchers believe the newly spotted images were drawn either by the Paracas or Topara peoples, who inhabited the region between 500 BC and AD 200. Their technique involved scraping away the dark topsoil to expose lighter earth beneath, a method later refined by the Nazca.

The fresh geoglyphs feature a variety of subjects, but many portray warriors—a motif commonly associated with the Paracas, who favored human representations more than the later Nazca, who leaned toward animal silhouettes.

Since the first Nazca lines astonished the world decades ago, the discovery of these additional figures is a striking reminder that the desert’s artistic legacy spans multiple cultures and stretches over a millennium.

8 First Jesus In Trapesitsa

Trapesitsa Fortress, once the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire, yielded a surprising find in 2018: a modest 13th‑century church whose frescoes are the only ones in the complex to feature human figures, including a depiction of Jesus.

Most of the over‑twenty churches excavated at the site abstain from portraying divine or mortal beings, focusing instead on abstract or symbolic motifs. This particular chapel, however, dazzles with vivid paintings that include three haloed individuals, one unmistakably representing Christ.

Even more puzzling is the church’s placement—it is built against the interior wall of the fortress, a location that raises questions about why this humble parish, likely serving laborers rather than the elite, received such an elaborate iconographic treatment.

Its discovery reshapes our understanding of medieval Bulgarian art, showing that even in austere settings, artists could produce strikingly personal religious imagery.

7 The Retro Grave

In 2018, archaeologists opened a tomb in Cumae, the oldest known Greek settlement in the West. Though the burial chamber dates to roughly 2,200 years ago and had been ransacked by thieves, the intruders left behind a strikingly colorful fresco portraying a banquet scene, complete with a naked male servant.

Unlike other local tombs, which typically display monochrome murals in shades of white or red, this artwork bursts with a palette that had fallen out of fashion by the time it was painted, making it an outlier among its contemporaries.

The mystery deepens because the fresco’s style appears retro—its aesthetic had been passé for more than a century when the patrons commissioned it. Scholars speculate that the wealthy owners deliberately chose an antiquated look, perhaps to evoke nostalgia or to signal a connection to older traditions. The fresco has since been carefully dismantled and reassembled for preservation.

6 Roman Literacy Link

The Roman Empire never succeeded in subduing Scotland, largely because of the fierce Picts who repeatedly repelled Roman incursions.

While the Picts are celebrated for their elaborate body art and enigmatic symbols etched onto stone and bone, scholars long debated whether these markings represented a true written language and, if so, when it originated.

New excavations reveal that the Picts began developing a script roughly 1,700 years ago, likely spurred by exposure to Roman lettering during the empire’s northern campaigns. Interestingly, the Picts never adopted Latin itself, leaving their own symbols undeciphered to this day.

Parallel linguistic blooms occurred elsewhere in the wake of Roman contact: the Germanic runes, the Irish Ogham, and other scripts all crystallized around the same period, suggesting a broader ripple effect of Roman literacy across Europe.

5 Tattooed Woman’s Identity

In 2014, a tomb in Luxor yielded a mummified female torso whose most astonishing feature was a sprawling array of over thirty intricate tattoos covering her neck, shoulders, arms, and back.

The discovery sparked excitement because the tattoos challenged prevailing assumptions about women’s roles in ancient Egyptian religion; many believed that high‑ranking religious positions were reserved for men.

The designs are rich in magical symbolism, featuring sacred eyes that seem to follow the viewer from any angle, as well as motifs associated with healing. These tattoos are now recognized as an early form of sacred Egyptian body art, suggesting that the female body itself could serve as a conduit for divine power during rituals.

After a four‑year deliberation, Egyptian authorities confirmed in 2018 that the woman was indeed a highly respected religious figure, underscoring the significance of her tattooed identity.

4 Speech Bubbles

In 2016, the Jordanian town of Beyt Ras revealed a Roman‑built tomb comprising two chambers that together cover about 52 square metres (560 ft²). The site is celebrated for its densely packed mural, which depicts roughly 260 figures engaged in the clearing of the ancient city of Capitolias, a task shared between humans and deities.

The most astonishing element is the inclusion of approximately 60 speech bubbles—reminiscent of modern comic‑book panels—floating above various characters. These bubbles convey dialogue such as a builder’s instructions, a farmer’s comments, and even a corpse’s lament, “Alas for me! I am dead!”

Adding to the intrigue, the bubbles are written in Aramaic but rendered with Greek letters, a rare linguistic combination for the period, further highlighting the mural’s eclectic nature.

This extraordinary blend of visual narrative and textual annotation offers a rare glimpse into how ancient artists might have combined storytelling techniques familiar to us today.

3 Pompeii’s Real Destruction Date

Modern advances in archaeological methodology have prompted fresh scrutiny of the long‑accepted timeline for Pompeii’s demise. For years, scholars believed that Mount Vesuvius erupted on August 24 AD 79, sealing the city’s fate.

However, a 2018 discovery of a house inscription turned that consensus on its head. A laborer had carved a date reading “the 16th day before the calends of November,” which translates to October 17.

Since no one could have been alive to inscribe such a message after the eruption, the find indicates that Pompeii—and its neighbor Herculaneum—survived at least a month longer than previously thought. The exact moment of destruction now remains uncertain.

2 The Painted Lararium

Among the most dazzling finds from Pompeii in 2018 was a richly decorated lararium—a household shrine that virtually every Roman home possessed. This particular shrine measures 4.9 m (16 ft) by 3.7 m (12 ft) and contains a miniature pool, a garden, an altar, and assorted offerings.

The frescoes burst with vivid colors and intricate detail, portraying Roman deities, combatant animals, and even serpents. A painted peacock appears to “browse” the real garden within the shrine, while a figure reminiscent of the Egyptian jackal‑headed god Anubis hints at the owners’ fascination with Egyptian motifs.

Fertility symbolism abounds: the altar is adorned with symbols of abundance, and residue analysis uncovered figs, nuts, and eggs—foods traditionally linked to fertility rituals—suggesting the shrine played a central role in the family’s devotional practices.

1 Lost Civilization

In Maharashtra, western India, five villages had long been aware of mysterious rock markings scattered across their hillsides. When archaeologists began systematic surveys, they uncovered thousands of prehistoric pictographs previously hidden beneath soil layers.

The repertoire includes birds, mammals, human figures, marine creatures, and complex geometric designs, offering a rare visual record of a culture that left no written documentation.

These carvings constitute the sole evidence of a lost civilization that thrived around 10,000 BC, a period inferred from the sheer volume of hill‑top art. The absence of agricultural scenes and the prominence of hunted fauna suggest a hunter‑gatherer lifestyle.

Curiously, some images depict hippos and rhinoceroses—species never known to have roamed western India. This puzzling detail hints at either a migratory origin for the artists or a dramatically different paleo‑environmental landscape in the distant past.

These ten unusual art discoveries illuminate the ingenuity, imagination, and sometimes the darkness of ancient peoples, reminding us that the past still has many secrets waiting to be uncovered.

Welcome to the 10 simple steps that will guide you toward earning a neat hundred dollars simply by penning captivating list articles for our platform. Whether you’re a veteran wordsmith or a fresh‑faced enthusiast, this roadmap walks you through every phase, from the first spark of an idea to celebrating your first payout.

10 Simple Steps Overview

10 Get An Idea

Easy, right? Well, not exactly. Honestly, this part is often the toughest hurdle in the entire writing journey. You might assume that with the constant stream of bizarre, jaw‑dropping happenings across the globe, snagging a simple, skinny idea for a top‑ten list would be a breeze—especially when a crisp $100 is on the line. But the reality is that pinpointing that perfect ticket to the front page isn’t a walk in the park.

Instead of forcing the brain to conjure an idea, let your everyday routine become the incubator. Keep browsing the same sites, devouring the same books, binge‑watching the same shows, but let a tiny mental hitchhiker linger in the corner of your mind, whispering, “Hey, that could become a killer list.” If you’re still stuck, broaden your horizons a bit. Got a taste for science? Dive into LiveScience, National Geographic, or Phys.org. Fascinated by unsolved murders? Check out The New Yorker, Harper’s, and NPR for deep‑dive coverage. Craving oddball history? Explore the DC poison squad or the Smithsonian’s quirky timeline of the Ouija board. The treasure trove of ideas is out there, just waiting for you to seize them. In fact, many of those links above haven’t yet been transformed into a list on our site.

9 Stick A Theme On It

We adore lists that orbit a tight, unmistakable theme. Typically, that theme becomes your list’s title—or at least the essence of it. It doesn’t need to be world‑shattering, but it should make the ground tremble because that’s the first thing readers encounter. Every entry should tie back to that central idea, which is why nailing the theme early on is crucial before you start hunting for entries.

Want to guarantee acceptance from both editors and readers? Twist your original concept. Instead of a bland “10 Unsolved Murders,” try “Robin Warder’s 10 Mysterious Disappearances With Bizarre Clues.” Swap a straight‑forward “Abraham Lincoln” list for “10 Reasons Lincoln Was Secretly a Terrible President.” Surprise us by presenting a familiar subject from an unexpected angle. No need to perfect the title right now—just cement the overarching theme, and research will flow more smoothly. The tighter your theme, the stronger the list.

8 Research The Dickens Out Of It

You’ve secured a powerful seed idea and a twisted theme that will make readers’ jaws drop. What’s next? The internet is a massive ocean of knowledge, eager to pull you into its depths forever, and hunting down those specific entries can feel like tossing a rock into the air and hoping it lands on the moon.

This is why the theme acts as your anchor when you’re scouring for entries. One strategy to streamline future lists is to build your own database of go‑to sites. I gravitate toward science‑centric resources, so I keep Wired, LiveScience, Phys.org, MNN, and NASA bookmarked for quick access. Need to write about “insect zombies”? Those sites will yield crazy examples without drowning you in endless Google results. If urban legends are your jam, bookmark sites that specialize in that niche. For politics, think CNN, BBC, The New York Times, and The Guardian. Google Books is a goldmine for historical lists. The internet is full of specialized corners—tap into them.

Remember, you must provide sources for every fact. We don’t accept Wikipedia or tabloid sites like The Daily Mail or The Metro as primary sources. If you start on Wikipedia (which is fine), you must locate the same information in a reputable source. Detailed source guidelines are in the author guide.

Research can make or break a list. It’s common to amass a mountain of potential entries only to realize the overall list won’t work. If that happens, keep your chin up—there’s still plenty to learn.

7 Get Your Outline Going

While researching, the simplest way to stay organized is to keep a Word document (or any note‑taking app) open, pasting quick entry titles alongside their source links. As you progress, a skeletal structure of your list will emerge on that page. My typical outline looks something like this—messy, incomplete, but it gives me a bare‑bones sense of each entry. If I end up with more than ten, I trim the list down to the strongest ten. Conversely, if entries start drifting toward a different focus, I can split them into two separate outlines and later choose the one that feels right.

How you set up your outline is entirely up to you, especially if you’re just dipping your toes into writing for us. It may require a bit more upfront effort, but that “white lady” won’t magically appear on its own—she needs a gentle nudge.

Also, whenever you stumble upon a potential entry, run a quick search on our platform to verify we haven’t already covered it. (The tiny magnifying glass in the top‑right corner is the search tool; you can also use Google’s site‑specific search.) We generally avoid duplicating topics unless you’re adding a substantial new angle. This quick check saves you from re‑writing an entry that’s already been published.

6 Write An Entry

Just one entry—don’t worry about the other nine for now. They’re off grabbing a snack; you’re left alone with a keyboard, roughly 150 words, and all the research you’ve gathered. Pick the entry that excites you most from your outline—perhaps the very first one that sparked the list—and flesh it out. Lead with the most compelling fact, the one that defines the entry.

Need an example? Suppose you’re crafting a list about “10 People Who Shouldn’t Be Alive,” and you come across a story of a woman who brewed a cup of tea after a .38‑caliber bullet pierced her skull. Your entry could open like this:

With her husband dead on the floor and blood streaming from two bullet holes in her head, Tammy Sexton needed something to take the edge off. So she brewed a hot cup of tea, then sat down to wait for the police.

This opening immediately hooks readers, and you can then expand on the details. Once you’ve nailed one entry, repeat the process—each iteration becomes easier as you get closer to completing the list. It’s easy to stare at a blank list and think, “I can’t write all that,” but breaking it into single entries tricks your brain into manageable chunks.

And hey, feel free to use the example above; it’s free for you to build a unique, intriguing list around it and submit it.

5 Some Basic Rules

Every day we receive around 100 submissions. While many are stellar, a few miss the mark. Here are the primary reasons a list might be rejected:

• English quality: The prose isn’t up to standard (or is downright absent). This is the top cause for rejections. We don’t expect a PhD in English, but we do expect you to write like a native speaker. Over 70 % of rejections stem from this.
• Duplicate content: The topic has already been covered by us or another site. Originality is key; we want fresh angles, not re‑hashed versions of existing lists.
• Off‑brand topics: Some submissions veer far from our niche—like “Why You Should Become a Vegan” (hint: you shouldn’t!), “How Yoga Improves Mental Health,” or “My Ten Favorite Shirts.” Those simply don’t align with our audience.

4 No Funny Business

You’ve got a witty side, we can see that. But remember, our platform craves facts, not jokes. There’s a fine line between originality and shoe‑horning a gag just for laughs. A sprinkle of humor can keep the prose from getting too dry, but the priority is clear, easy‑to‑understand information. Readers expect solid knowledge, and we work daily to deliver that.

If you absolutely must inject humor, do it by presenting the information itself in a light‑hearted way, not by tacking on extra punchlines. I’ve made my share of cringe‑worthy jokes, and trust me, what sounds hilarious in your head often makes you wince when it lands online. Look at our “condoms” list for an example of humor done right—subtle double entendres that earn a quiet chuckle. Ultimately, we want readers to remember the knowledge, not the jokes. A good rule of thumb: if you’re unsure about a joke, leave it out.

3 Proofread Everything

Your list doesn’t need to be flawless, and we don’t expect you to Vonnegut every paragraph. Very few lists are ready for publishing straight out of the acceptance gate. We have editors, and they’re pretty good, but a cleanly submitted list speeds up the process. A single read‑through after finishing can reveal typos, repeated words, or other small hiccups that a spell‑checker might miss.

If you catch most of the errors yourself, editors will have less to fix, and the whole workflow becomes smoother. Plus, wouldn’t you be proud to see your work polished and ready for the audience? Following these steps turns you into a bona‑fide professional writer. Head over to the submission page, fill in your PayPal or Bitcoin address, and you’ll see that hundred‑dollar check land in your account.

Take a deep breath… and keep writing forever, because that’s how you stay alive—as a writer, you dog, you.

2 Hit The Forum

You’ve done it. You’ve written, submitted, and published a list on the front page of our site. Your pocket’s burning with that hot Benjamin we Paypalled straight into your account, and the world feels like a shimmering oyster through which your newly awakened writerly eyes can see all the layers of possibility that make up reality. Sugar never tasted so good.

So, what’s next? If you’re eager, hop right back on that horse and write another list. There’s no cap on how many lists you can produce, nor on how much you can earn. If you felt that unmistakable tingle of exhilaration when your first list went live, you’re definitely in the right place. The tingle never dies.

After your first publication, you’ll receive an email granting you access to our exclusive forum. This is where writers and editors mingle, toss around ideas, and get to know each other. It’s a magical space, filled with helpful writers who understand the trials and pitfalls of list‑writing. No one will down‑talk you or call your ideas stupid; we’re all in the same boat, floating down the same river.

Even better, there’s a section we call “World of Ideas.” If an editor or writer spots a super‑cool tidbit but lacks time to develop it, they drop it there for anyone to claim. Think of it as an idea factory. You can also pitch ideas directly to Micah, our Head Honcho of Words, who offers personalized feedback and either a green light or constructive critique.

Stay connected via our Facebook page and Twitter account to see your list broadcast to 150,000 people—a sight as awe‑inspiring as a whale breaching an avalanche.

1 Forget All My Advice

In the end, you’re the writer. While we provide a handful of basic rules, we also crave your unique voice and angle. That’s what makes our platform so diverse: the many talented writers we collaborate with. Without fresh, creative ideas from creative people, we couldn’t publish new, interesting lists every day.

The process I’ve outlined is a solid launching pad, but now I want you to take those pieces, let them tumble around in your head, and then stack them into something new and beautiful. I’m just one little guy who writes here; use my method as a guide, but don’t treat it as canon. Every element I’ve mentioned can be tweaked to suit your style.

Can’t get into the habit of outlining? That’s fine—just focus on one entry at a time and let your list evolve organically. Write as you research each point if you prefer. The goal is to discover a workflow that works for you, and only you can figure out what that is.

For more tips from another seasoned author, check out Morris M.’s list on “10 Tips for Getting Paid to Write for Us.”

Mankind’s love of records has left a staggering trail of documents, and among them lie ten truly intriguing cases that showcase rare ancient art and writing. From eerie near‑death accounts to secret ninja oaths, these discoveries prove that history can be both hilarious and haunting.

10 Intriguing Cases: A Quick Overview

10 Death Case

In 1740, French physician Pierre‑Jean du Monchaux recorded a striking incident. An unconscious patient revived and described a radiant white light so intense that he swore he had stood in Heaven with only one shoe on his foot. Du Monchaux published the account in his treatise Anecdotes de Médecine.

The story might have remained hidden if not for the serendipitous discovery by another French doctor, Phillippe Charlier, who was rummaging through a second‑hand shop. He snapped up the volume for under a dollar.

Upon reading the passage, Charlier realized he was holding the world’s earliest documented near‑death experience. While many of his contemporaries blamed such visions on divine intervention, du Monchaux offered a physiological explanation—excess blood rushing to the brain.

Modern science now agrees that a temporary loss of oxygen and blood flow to the brain can produce the luminous sensations described in the 1740 account.

9 The Mysterious Devourer

In 2017, archaeologists turned their shovels toward a modest shrine‑like building at Zincirli in Turkey, uncovering a stone pot that had once cradled cosmetics. The vessel had been repurposed to display a cryptic incantation.

The carving narrates the capture of a creature dubbed the “devourer,” which was said to unleash a searing “fire” upon its victims. The only remedy, according to the text, involved using the devourer’s own blood.

The inscription never clarifies the method of blood application nor the exact nature of the beast. Stylised illustrations hint at either a centipede or a scorpion, suggesting the “fire” may have been a painful sting.

The author, a magician named Rahim, etched the advice in Aramaic roughly 2,800 years ago, making it the oldest known Aramaic incantation. Archaeologists believe the text survived because the shrine was rebuilt long after Rahim’s lifetime, preserving the century‑old carving.

8 Dirty Bathroom Jokes

Floor mosaics in ancient bathrooms are a rarity, but a 2018 discovery in the Roman city of Antiochia ad Cragum, Turkey, turned heads for an unexpected reason. Instead of lofty mythic scenes, the tiny tiles displayed bawdy humor.

Roman patrons of the latrine, about 1,800 years ago, would have been treated to a cheeky rendition of the myths of Narcissus and Ganymede. Narcissus, traditionally enamoured with his own reflection, was shown with an exaggeratedly ugly nose, fixated not on his face but on his genitals.

Ganymede’s tableau was even more explicit: the youthful figure is depicted having his private parts cleaned by a heron, a bird commonly associated with Zeus. The heron holds a sponge typically reserved for scraping toilet bowls, underscoring the rib‑tickling nature of the scene.

The find stunned archaeologists, confirming that bathroom humour has been a human constant for millennia.

7 The Creswell Marks

The limestone gorge that straddles Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, known as Creswell Crags, is famed for its Ice Age art. Yet in 2019, a tour group uncovered something entirely different: the largest collection of apotropaic, or protective, markings ever found in Britain.

These carvings, unrelated to the prehistoric gallery, date from the medieval period through the 19th century. Historians identified a variety of symbols designed to ward off evil, including the “VV” sign invoking the Virgin Mary, as well as boxes, mazes, and diagonal stripes meant to repel disease‑bringing spirits and crop‑killing misfortune.

Such marks, often called witches’ marks, clustered densely on cave ceilings and walls, revealing the deep‑seated fear of unseen forces among local communities.

6 The Nag Hammadi Library

Roughly 1,400 years ago, a sealed jar was buried near the Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi, safeguarding thirteen codices. Rediscovered in 1945, the collection contains Gnostic writings about Jesus, traditionally penned in Coptic.

In 2017, a research team in Texas identified a remarkable anomaly: one codex was written in Greek rather than Coptic. This copy of the First Apocalypse of James, never before seen in Greek, records a dialogue between Jesus and his brother James, outlining post‑crucifixion instructions.

Even more intriguing, the manuscript employed tiny dots to separate syllables—a technique usually reserved for educational texts—suggesting the gospel may have been used as a Greek‑learning tool.

5 Unique Palimpsest

Writing materials were once so precious that scribes often scraped old texts clean to reuse the parchment—a practice known as creating a palimpsest. In 2018, Dr. Eleonore Cellard examined fragments bearing Quranic script and discovered faint, ghostly letters beneath the eighth‑century Arabic text.

The hidden script turned out to be passages from the Old Testament’s Book of Deuteronomy, written in Coptic. This makes the manuscript the first known instance where a Christian text was erased to make space for the Islamic holy book.

Because the parchment is fragile, carbon dating could not be applied, leaving scholars to rely on paleographic analysis. While the Arabic layer dates to the eighth century, the underlying Coptic material is believed to pre‑date the seventh century, underscoring the palimpsest’s unique value.

4 Earliest Record Of Algol

Algol, a triple‑star system discovered in 1669, appears to dim and brighten as its three suns orbit each other. A papyrus examined in 2015 suggests that ancient Egyptians recorded its behavior over 3,200 years ago.

Known as the Cairo Calendar, the document assigns auspicious and inauspicious days for rituals, forecasts, and divine activities. Researchers found that the calendar’s “positive” days align with Algol’s brightest phases, as well as with lunar cycles.

Furthermore, the appearances of the god Horus in the text match Algol’s 2,867‑day cycle, reinforcing the notion that Egyptian astronomers tracked the star’s variability without telescopic aid.

3 Unique Ninja Oath

For decades, scholars whispered about the possible existence of a written ninja oath. In 2018, a cache of documents donated by the Kizu family—descendants of an Iga‑region ninja clan—contained exactly that: a formal pledge.

The oath, penned by Inosuke Kizu, thanks his masters for imparting ninjutsu and solemnly vows never to disclose the secret techniques, even to immediate family.

The parchment, dating to roughly 300 years ago, also outlines a severe penalty: any betrayal would invoke divine wrath, causing the offender’s descendants to suffer torment at the hands of the gods for generations.

2 Ferdinand’s Code

King Ferdinand of Spain, seeking to shield military intelligence, devised an elaborate cipher. His encrypted letters to commander Gonzalo de Córdoba remained unread for half a millennium.

Ferdinand, famed for sponsoring Columbus and reconquering the Moors in 1492, used a complex alphabet featuring 88 symbols, 237 distinct letters, and six auxiliary characters—such as numbers and triangles—that added layers of meaning. The script ran continuously without spaces, demanding intricate decoding.

In 2018, Spain’s intelligence agency spent six months cracking portions of the code, finally revealing four letters that detailed troop deployments in Italy and the king’s sharp rebukes of the commander’s independent decisions.

1 Extinct Language Spoken Again

Cambridge scholar Dr Martin Worthington fell so in love with ancient Babylonian that he resolved to learn not just to read but to speak it fluently—a language that fell silent around the birth of Christ.

Undeterred by two millennia of silence, Worthington, already proficient in Sumerian, Assyrian, English, Italian, and French, spent over twenty years immersing himself in Babylonian texts, building a personal archive of correspondence, treaties, letters, and scientific treatises.

His intensive study enabled him to deliver a spoken Babylonian lecture, though he admits his fluency is imperfect. He now teaches the language to Assyriology students, bridging the gap between ancient scribes and modern learners.

Interestingly, because Babylonian shares roots with Hebrew and Arabic—languages that later dominated the Middle East—there is a chance that a revived Babylonian speaker could communicate with speakers of its linguistic descendants.

Literary critics have invented a host of phrases and concepts to separate artists from their art. By far the best known is “death of the author,” which comes from a 1967 essay by Roland Barthes. Essentially, the notion is to imagine that the author cannot be asked for their intent, or how their own life experiences shaped their writing, so the theorist’s interpretation is at least as valid as the author’s intention–provided said interpretation is reasonably derived from the text.  

While that’s a worthwhile literary exercise, there can be a problem that comes from many people knowing pieces of writing through cultural osmosis instead of actually reading the text. Indeed, sometimes there are aspects of the text that simply aren’t as haunting as the passages in stories that become touchstones. So interpretations of stories can be demonstrably incorrect. As is the case with…

10. The Hunchback of Notre Dame

When the 1995 Disney adaption of this movie came out, many critics and audience members were united in decrying the supposed borderline desecration of the original story. They pointed to the 1939 or 1920 versions of the story as proper adaptations, which properly portrayed the unsavory nature of Quasimodo, the tragic fate of the gypsy Esmeralda, clergyman Claude Frollo, and so on… and all in the shadow of one of the most celebrated buildings in French history.

It was a criticism completely undermined by how Victor Hugo wrote the original 1831 version of the story. As Lindsay Ellis explains in her highly recommended video essay, in the original novel, Quasimodo is a mere bit part and certainly not a sympathetic figure. There’s no tragic romance with the gypsy Esmeralda, who it turns out was actually a caucasian abandoned as a child. In brief, Hugo didn’t write his novel as a tragedy, so much as a tribute to the cathedral itself, which at the time of writing was less a French institution than a wreck that had been vandalized numerous times over the centuries and neglected.

That Hugo’s sympathies were with the building over the people who lived in and around it is much less surprising to anyone who knows that the original title was “Notre-Dame de Paris” and that he did not approve of the English title change. Perhaps that theme would resonate with misanthropic architecture students, but it certainly wouldn’t have been the crowd pleaser many subsequent adaptations have been  

9. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Washington Irving’s 1820 story, set in a Dutch community in 1790s New York (loosely based on real events), as we all know is about a schoolteacher named Ichabod Crane, who gets chased by a headless horseman across a bridge. When the horseman can’t catch him, he throws a pumpkin at Crane. Those who read an abridged version in class might remember that it was heavily implied that Brom Bones was pretending to be the Headless Hessian Horseman to scare off Crane so that he could marry Katrina Van Tassel without any competition from superstitious schoolteachers. Considering Ichabod disappears and Bones gets what he wants through pretty underhanded and aggressive means, it seems like this slice of Americana should be a pretty dark, spooky tale where the villain wins in the end, be he ghost or local tough guy in disguise.

Readers have that impression because many of them lost track of how odious a person Irving wrote Ichabod Crane to be. Like many schoolteachers of the time, Crane is described as having romantic interest purely for financial reasons (Irving explicitly describes him as looking at her father’s fortune with “green eyes”). He’s also explicitly a mooch and a glutton, only getting away with it because he knows a lot of local ghost lore. The story also ends with a postscript noting there was talk in Sleepy Hollow that Crane was seen again later, having moved to another community and becoming a judge. However, the locals rejected that because his supposed disappearance made for a better story. If anything, Irving went overboard in assuring audiences not to worry about ol’ Ichabod.  

8. Jabberwocky

Lewis Caroll’s titular monster, which was first introduced to readers in Alice Through the Looking Glass, has been portrayed as a serious beast in such adaptations as the 1985 movie. Even those who know better than to portray such serious versions of the monsters from the poem assume that “slivey toves” and “more raths” from the opening verse mean “unidentifiable beasts,” such as in the version done for The Muppet Show.

Jabberwocky’s origin was in 1855, in a magazine called Misch-Masch, which had a circulation of Lewis Carroll’s immediate family. It was not only meant as a parody of folk poems, but he actually handily explained what all the words meant, so those terms aren’t so much nonsense as coded. For example, “slivy toves” are actually cheese-eating badgers. “Mome Raths” are turtles. Bryllyg is said to be the early afternoon, as it refers to the time of broiling dinner. All things considered, the opening verse is much closer to a slightly offbeat version of Wind in the Willows than it is a surreal menagerie of cryptids.

7. Harrison Bergeron

In Kurt Vonnegut’s 1961 short story, equality is perverted so that every exceptional person is limited to be no better than the worst performing person, either by restraints that weigh them down or by zapping them if they think too much. This idea has been embraced by right wing publications like National Review. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia cited it in a ruling requiring tournament golfers to walk between shots.

What they don’t seem to notice is the portrayal of the eponymous character. As critics have more recently pointed out, Bergeron is a ridiculously overpowered human being who not only stands 7-feet tall at age 14, he is also literally capable of flying as he dances (once he removes his restraints that weigh hundreds of pounds). More revealingly, he proclaims himself “emperor,” which probably isn’t something Vonnegut would have a “heroic” character do.

He also makes this declaration and displays his powers on live television, which of course means that the Handicapper General Diana Moon Glampers would have no trouble hunting him down and shooting him, as she does seemingly effortlessly in the story. Clearly, Bergeron is a parody of the Howard Roark and John Gault-type supermen that are so perfect and so, so underappreciated in Ayn Rand’s novels. Considering Vonnegut’s left-wing views throughout his writing career, it’s objectivism that’s in his sights at least as much as socialism.

6. The Satanic Verses

When it was published in 1988, author Salman Rushdie struck free publicity gold when his book was interpreted as blasphemous and banned in India while the Ayatollah demanded his head. He surely didn’t celebrate this, as he had to go into hiding from very real threats. Several translators of the book were attacked—one fatally. Considering that the book is a formidable 600 pages long, it’s not so surprising that many people didn’t read the entire story and were content to go off a vague sense of what the novel was about, or a heavily abridged version.

The Satanic Verses tells the intertwined stories of two Southeast Asian Muslims, one born wealthy and the other poor. The pair both survive a plane crash, and the rich one becomes cursed (one way is he smells bad) while the other becomes angelic. Still, the rich one survives the novel while the other commits suicide while wanted for murder (he is unambiguously responsible for several deaths). The offending portions of the book are a secondary narrative of a few dozen pages about the rise of the prophet Mahound, written in an approximation of Koranic verse.

The “Satanic Verses” of the title are an allusion to a claim by the prophet that, for some contradictory statements he made, it must have been Satan pretending to be Allah. In a manner that paralleled a scene that offended many in The Last Temptation of Christ, Rushdie styled his parody of the prophet as a very elaborate dream sequence to give him plausible deniability that he was portraying an in-universe, fictional version. The version many Muslims were given, however, only showed the dream sequence without the larger context, and so inevitably it misled many on the intent of the book.     

5. Valley of the Dolls

These days, this 1966 novel is better known for selling forty million copies than it is for its contents. Its story of three women who try to enter show business but run into such pitfalls as creative compromise, sexual exploitation, and drug addiction (the “dolls” of the title are upper/downer pills) was so salacious for its time that it couldn’t help but become one of, literally, the bestselling books of all-time. No wonder it got a couple film adaptations: a much derided smash hit in 1968, and a TV movie in 1981.

An aspect of the literary juggernaut that, for decades, was held up as the impetus for its success was the titillation of guessing which characters were modeled on which specific real people. For example, was the character that had a pill addiction Judy Garland? Was the over-the-hill singer who stands in the protagonist’s way based on Ethel Merman? According to Jacqueline Susann, the answer to all these guesses was “no” and that all of the characters were invented to fit a theme instead of to reveal the truth behind a real entertainer’s persona. She eventually said of the misconception, “Let them think that, it sells more of my books.”  

4. Dracula

Bram Stoker’s 1897 classic isn’t just one of the two most influential horror novels of the 19th century (alongside Frankenstein). For many outside Central or Eastern Europe, it was the popularity of Dracula that led them to learn of 15th century Romanian ruler Vladislav III, better known as Vlad the Impaler. Deposed early in life, Vlad fought against both the Ottoman Empire and fellow Romanians and eventually died in battle, but not before leaving behind battlefields laden with impaled prisoners of war as an attempt to demoralize his enemies. Such a person seems tailor-made to inspire a monster in human shape.  

Which completely misunderstands Stoker’s real writing process. It’s not so much that he didn’t carefully study Vlad Tepisch’s life for inspiration for his iconic character, as there’s no evidence that he even knew the bygone monarch had existed. In 1890 (the year he began working on it) he noted that he read a book on Westphalia and came across the word Dracula, but he misinterpreted it as being the local word for “evil.” While Vlad is from approximately the same area of Europe as Dracula, Vlad was certainly not much associated with Transylvania, which would have been a key connection to invoking the memory of the historical figure. In short, Stoker seemed to have more lucked into the historical echoes than anything else.  

3. The Great Gatsby

Nearly 80 years after its initial disappointing release in 1925, F. Scott’s Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age triumph sells roughly 500,000 copies a year. It’s resonated with readers enough to make its way to the silver screen in 1926, 1949, 1976, and 2013. Each release was greeted with a critical thrashing and to very mixed results at the box office.  

But that’s not to say readers, who generally regard themselves as more astute than movie fans, don’t mistake Fitzgerald’s intention with Gatsby. As explained by Sarah Churchwell in The Guardian, most people misinterpret Gatsby as being a suave charmer. There are a few telling descriptions that undermine this: His pink suits (tacky even in the Roaring ’20s) and his bewilderment in the face of the high society that narrator Nick Carraway takes for granted. That’s why he overcompensates for his parties, doing such things as hire entire orchestras. Gatsby is a dreamer, pining for the fantasy version from his youth of his neighbor Daisy Buchanan, not a man with his feet on the ground in the present. Not that this dissonance is anything new: Fitzgerald wrote back in the day that, “Of all the reviews, even the most enthusiastic, not one has the slightest idea what the book was about.”

2. Don Quixote

It’s been just over 400 years since Miguel de Cervantes’s masterpiece was first published in English. Since then, the image of a nobleman putting a washing basin on his head, taking a nag for a noble steed and his trusty assistant Sancho Panza on a number of delusional, pointless quests in an attempt to restore chivalry to the land has only become more poignant. Don Quixote is both absurd and loveable, and many readers have mixed feelings about the ending where he regains his sanity enough to dictate in his will that his niece be disinherited if she marries a man who reads books of chivalry.  

As recounted in the New York Times, the title character actually comes across as much less sympathetic when you really look at the text. While Quixote means well, Cervantes does not skimp on the details of the pain he causes. Not just to his assistant Sancho Panza (who gets beat up because Quixote doesn’t pay a hotel bill), but even mules that can’t drink from their water trough because Quixote insists the water is holy. It’s an aspect of the story that is understandably omitted from adaptations such as Man of La Mancha, which contributed to those interpretations being dismissed as “kitsch.”

1. Slaughterhouse Five

Well, when an author writes as many famous satirical, morally complex, and whimsical stories as Kurt Vonnegut did, it’s not surprising that he’d have multiple works end up on lists like this. So it is with his 1969 anti-war classic (that he self-deprecatingly called his “famous Dresden novel”) about a WWII veteran named Billy Pilgrim, whose subjective experience of his life jumps back and forward through time. Within the intro of the book, Vonnegut quotes an associate who asked authors writing anti-war books why they didn’t instead write an “anti-glacier book.” Meaning, of course, that the human tendency towards war is as implacable as glaciers.

A similar sentiment is expressed by the alien race called the Tralfamadorians, who consider their own atrocities and eventual destruction of the universe as utterly inevitable, because they can see the entirety of all the time they live, all at once. Hence many have viewed it as a pro-fatalism book as they wonder whether the events of the book are real or not.

The text makes explicit that the aliens don’t exist. Within the book, the aliens Billy Pilgrim meets, and the environment they place him in (specifically a zoo), are described as something he read in a novel by hack sci-fi author Kilgore Trout. Further, Pilgrim does not express anything to anyone else about the aliens until after a plane crash that leaves him unconscious (i.e., likely with brain damage and trauma). As Michael Carson of Wrath-BearingTree.com points out, when Pilgrim first discusses the lessons he supposedly learned about the inevitability of war and the atrocities that come from it, it’s with a war hawk named Rumfoord, who Vonnegut mocks. Pilgrim merely echoes Rumfoord and then says he learned all of what Rumfoord told him on Tralfamadore.

On the other hand, Vonnegut also makes it explicit that the Tralfamadorians believe they will eventually destroy the universe. Vonnegut’s message isn’t that war and atrocities are inevitable, but that to follow this fatalist philosophy (that could come from absurd aliens that are the result of head trauma) makes its adherents into puppets, and leads to disaster for everyone.     

Adam & Dustin Koski also wrote the occult horror novel Not Meant to Know. Feel free to read and misinterpret it.