When I was a teen and the time came to decide what my career should be, I wanted to be an archaeologist for a while. If I had kept that dream, I could've become one of the 7,720 professional archaeologists in the U.S.
You might think that we already dug up the most significant historical artifacts that there are, but archaeology is a path that keeps on giving. For example, a national gas distributor in Lima, Peru claims that they have been responsible for around 2,200 discoveries in the past 20 years.
But this time, we would like to dedicate a post to the most disturbing and scary archaeological finds. Courtesy of the history and archaeology professionals who shared their knowledge in two Quora threads, Bored Panda brings you the times they dug up something that maybe would've been better off buried.
#1
© Photo: Rafi Barazi
#2
© Photo: Manmeet Raj
#3
The two most frightening things ever discovered by me, personally, while on a dig are:
1 The human remains on site may have died of cholera. That's one of those “OK, yeah, boss. Do you suppose that maybe you could have mentioned that before I started collecting? And maybe offered us face masks? Or at least told me to buy my own?”
2 The Forest Service put us up in barracks. Once we were all settled in, and started cooking, we found mouse and rat droppings under the kitchen sink. When we reported that to the GS-12, she said “Oh yeah, watch out for symptoms of hantavirus, it has been pretty prevelant around here lately, and there have also been a few cases of bubonic plague in the area.”
Nothing I have found from the past is as terrifying as what I have found in the present!
© Photo: Floyd A.
#4
© Photo: Colleen Anne Coyle
#5
© Photo: Hatice Aslan
#6
© Photo: Colleen Anne Coyle
#7
© Photo: Thomas Cayne
#8
© Photo: Emily Hayes
#9
© Photo: Rafi Barazi
#10
© Photo: Alisha Talks
#11
© Photo: Anish Singh
#12
© Photo: Rafi Barazi
#13
© Photo: Jenish Yadav
#14
© Photo: Alex Preston
#15
© Photo: Kaykay Wis
#16
The most frightening thing I have found was the most extreme case of coffin yawn I’d seen anywhere. Coffin yawn is pretty much what you imagine it to be. When a person dies their muscles eventually relax, and this means the jaw will loll open. It is for this reason that, historically, bodies were buried with a cloth binding the chin shut (as with Marley in A Christmas Carol ), or, in the modern day; the jaw wired shut.
© Photo: Michael Emra
#17
© Photo: Emily Hayes
#18
© Photo: Manmeet Ra
#19
© Photo: Dhyey Patel
#20
© Photo: Md Anowarul
#21
© Photo: Manmeet Raj
#22
© Photo: Manmeet Ra
#23
© Photo: Stephen Cady
#24
© Photo: Peter Spering
#25
© Photo: Md Anowarul
