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These bizarre finds caused a stir
The Roman city of Pompeii was buried under a layer of ash and pumice during a volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
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Recently, archaeologists found an ancient fast food shop in Pompeii. Anyone who thinks this is bizarre has not yet seen these finds.
Rooster on a stick or goat meat to go? There were also fast food restaurants in ancient times. Archaeologists found proof of this in the Italian city of Pompeii in December 2020. The researchers dug out a brightly painted counter and clay pots with leftover food. The find gives the scientists information about the eating habits of the inhabitants at the time of the volcanic eruption, which wiped out the city in 79 AD. The ancient fast food shop isn't the only bizarre excavation that has caused a stir in recent years. These finds made the headlines.
A mysterious skeleton in the desert
In 2003, a man discovered a strange skeleton in the Chilean Atacama Desert. The enigmatic mummy, found in the ghost town of La Noria, is only 15 centimeters tall, has an elongated skull and very large eye sockets. The mummified skeleton is more reminiscent of an alien from a Hollywood flick than a human. Baptized under the name "Ata", scientists investigated the mysterious find.
The result: It is the remains of a girl, as the US researchers reported in 2018 in the journal "Genome Research". A large number of genetic mutations are the cause of the skull and bone malformations, for example "Ata" has only ten ribs instead of twelve. The mummy is not old: according to the researchers, the girl was stillborn in the 1970s or died shortly after birth.
The "stone age dildo" from Sweden
Swedish researchers discovered an object of a special kind in 2010 in the Göta Canal near the city of Motala. During excavations, the archaeologists came across a piece that has the shape of a phallus. The object, which some media then referred to as a "Stone Age dildo", is made of deer antlers and about twelve centimeters long. The researchers dated the time of origin between 5650-5340 BC. According to the scientists, this is most likely a tool and not a Stone Age sex toy.
100 coffins in Egypt
In 2020, researchers unearthed a particularly large treasure in Egypt. 20 kilometers south of Cairo, in the necropolis of Sakkara, they came across over 100 coffins and around 40 statues. The well-preserved sarcophagi belonged to high-ranking officials who lived there in the late period – 700 to 300 BC – and the Ptolemaic period – 323 to 30 BC. Just a few weeks earlier, the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities reported 59 coffins that were also buried in Saqqara and were finally discovered 2,500 years later.
The excavations in Egypt are far from over. The scientists suspect other graves of animals and people underground. The new find will be housed in the Great Egyptian Museum, which is still under construction. The opening of the museum next to the Giza pyramid is planned for 2021.