For some time, people have debated whether or not human beings could spontaneously combust, or burst into flames, without an external heat source. However, over the past 300 years, there have been...
The Aokigahara forest is situated on the north-western side of Japan’s famous Mount Fuji. It was born 1,100 years ago, when Mount Fuji erupted, spewing out lava for miles which later transformed into...
By far, Loki’s most well-known children are the ones he had with the giantess Angurboda. These include the wolf Fenrir, the Midgard Serpent Jormugandr, and the goddess Hel. Legends say that the...
In 2014 a construction project required Swiss anthropologist Amelie Alterauge of the University of Bern Institute of Forensic Medicine to investigate a very unusual burial in a 400-year-old cemetery...
The most widely read work of Florentine politician and writer Dante Alighieri, the Divine Comedy dictates a tale of the three realms of the afterlife as believed by the Italians of the Middle Ages...
No two people deal with death in exactly the same way. Both on the individual and societal level we have to face the inevitable. These days many people turn to their religious, scientific, or...
The Column of Death is the name given to a pillar at the archaeological site of Mitla , in the southwestern Mexican state of Oaxaca . The column was named for a legendary ritual in which it appeared...
An examination of human remains found in a cave in the Spanish Pyrenees, that date to almost 7300 years ago has provided proof of the brutality of life in the Stone Age . It is believed that the...
An ancient Egyptian board game that was similar to Ludo or backgammon is offering new insights into ancient religious beliefs. It was not only a game, but it was seen as a way for the dead to...
Herculaneum, which was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius is one of the best-preserved of all Ancient Roman settlements. Recent advances in science now allow researchers to better understand...
A new study has revealed a fascinating insight into the pattern of violent deaths of Roman emperors. Researchers have been able to create a statistical model of the life expectancy of the rulers of...
A tower of silence (known also as a ‘dakhma’) is a type of structure used for funerary purposes by adherents of the Zoroastrian faith. This Zoroastrian practice for the disposal of the dead involves...
Researchers say that claims of the Justinianic plague as a “mass killer” are wrong. It certainly had some impact, but they assert that plague outbreak, which began in the 6th century, didn’t bring...
Chris Mackie / The Conversation The student of Greek mythology is often struck by the fact that some gods and goddesses have extensive roles in the mythical narratives, and others have very limited...
Three dead bodies have been retrieved from a collapsed ancient monastery wall in Upper Egypt . On Sunday night Egyptian Civil protection forces faced the terrible task of retrieving three bodies from...
One of the best-known Egyptologists believes that he has finally solved the mystery of the death of Tutankhamun. He claims that the young pharaoh died after his leg became infected after an accident...
His 5,300-year-old mummy contained traces of 75 plant species and reveal that Ötzi (Otzi) the Iceman climbed through the Schnalstal valley in Italy. The naturally mummified, 5,300-year-old corpse is...
A magnificent Roman necropolis has been unearthed at Narbonne, in Occitaine, southwestern France. Archaeologists from the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research ( INRAP ) have...
A 4000-year-old ancient Egyptian text illustrates the oldest map of the underworld in existence. In 2012 archaeologists opened a burial shaft in the Middle Egyptian necropolis of Dayr al-Barsha and...
It is no surprise that the medieval period was filled with all kinds of undesirable jobs. There were leech collectors, cesspool cleaners, serfs, and gong farmers, to name a few. But one vocation that...
In the world’s history of aristocracy, abuse of power was always a distinct possibility, and quite a few female landowners built up a macabre reputation based on torture, imprisonment, and abuse. In...
Immortality has been a dream of human beings since the dawn of time. Mankind´s fascination with cheating death is reflected in scientific records, mythology and folklore dating back at least to...
Death was always a source of mystery for people around the world. But what happens when we erase that invisible border and make the dead a thing to worship? Never too far from every major turn of...
A French sleuth may have solved the mystery of the death of France's famed King Louis IX, better known as Saint Louis. He was the last of the crusader kings and it was believed that he died of plague...
