ritual

13 October, 2020 - 21:59 Elizabeth Moore

Experts Still Stumped By Child Buried With A Bird In Its Mouth

Between the 18th and 19th century in Poland, a child was given an unusual burial within the Tunel Wielki Cave. A ritualistic burial like this surely would have been a spectacle, however, all...

23 September, 2020 - 14:14 Ed Whelan

Ancient Egyptians Went Wild for Bird Mummy Offerings

Researchers studying the mummies of birds from Ancient Egypt, used at the time as votive offerings to the gods, have made an important discovery. French experts, from the CNRS, the Université Claude...

Bronze Age death rituals sometimes included curated remains, such as this skeleton that was buried with skulls and long bones of three people who had died much earlier. Source: Tees Archaeology / Antiquity Publications Ltd

1 September, 2020 - 00:05 Alicia McDermott

Bronze Age Death Rituals Included Curating Remains Of Predecessors

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...

One of the ancient Egyptian animal mummies (Andrea Izzotti /Adobe Stock) scanned in the study was a cat. (Nature)

21 August, 2020 - 01:54 Ed Whelan

Scans Reveal Cruelty Behind Ancient Egyptian Animal Mummies

Ancient Egypt is famous for its mummies of pharaohs, however, the ancient Egyptians mummified animals as well as people. New non-invasive technology has been used to digitally unwrap three animal...

4 August, 2020 - 14:52 Kerry Sullivan

Grauballe Man: Ritual Sacrifice or a 2,300-Year-Old Murder Mystery?

Of the many ancient remains found preserved in bogs and marshes, perhaps the most interesting is the Grauballe man. Discovered in a peat bog in Jutland, Denmark in 1952, experts believe that the man...

The figurine and foil from the Inca treasure chest. Source: Teddy Senguin, Université libre de Bruxelles / Antiquity Publications Ltd

3 August, 2020 - 23:59 ashley cowie

Stone ‘Treasure Chest’ With Inca Offerings Discovered In Lake Titicaca

Underwater archaeologists in Peru have discovered an ancient stone box containing treasures pertaining to an “alternative” sacrificial ritual, they reveal in a study published in Antiquity. The Inca...

2 July, 2020 - 20:51 MartiniF

The Honorable Death: Samurai and Seppuku in Feudal Japan

While martial suicide is a practice found in a lot of cultures, the act of seppuku , or ritual self-disembowelment, is peculiar to Japan. The earliest known acts of seppuku were the deaths of samurai...

Pipe residues reveal Native American smoking habits from centuries ago. Source: DedMityay /Adobe Stock

27 June, 2020 - 23:01 Ed Whelan

Ancient Pipes Reveal What Natives Americans Were Smoking

American researchers have used ground-breaking technologies to make discoveries about Native American smoking habits . They have, for the first time, found traces of a non-tobacco plant in a pipe...

Images from inside Grotte de Cussac in Dordogne, France, showing the cave art and the ancient human remains found within the cave, and of the research team at work.

17 June, 2020 - 23:01 ashley cowie

Grotte de Cussac And The Mystery Of The Cave Bear Nest Burials

A remarkable cave in France is revealing secrets about early human ritual practices and burial traditions. Grotte de Cussac cave is located in Dordogne, in southwest France, set between the Loire...

Researchers say priests included cannabis in their religious ceremonies in Judah 2,700 years ago. Source: Public Domain

30 May, 2020 - 04:05 ashley cowie

Ancient Judahites Performed Cannabis Ceremonies on the “High-Way” to Yahweh

According to a new paper published in the journal Tel Aviv , ancient esoteric worshippers at a Judahite temple at the fortress mound in Tel Arad in Israel “likely smoked cannabis during cultic...

6000 tombs from a timespan of 2000 years provide archaeologists with special insight into ancient Chinese burial customs. Source: 51grb

15 May, 2020 - 23:00 Ed Whelan

Ancient Chinese Burial Customs Exposed at Cliff of Tombs

In China, archaeologists have found thousands of burials on a cliff. The burial ground was in use for over 2000 years. Many important historical artifacts have been uncovered in the tombs. These...

The skull of a man, 25-40 years, with his face cut off with a sharp weapon. The head was found in a well outside a pit house from the 9th century in Aarhus, Denmark. Source: Rogvi N. Johansen/Moesgaard Museum

5 May, 2020 - 01:57 ashley cowie

De-faced Skulls and Babies Were Buried in Viking Homes

A new Viking research paper determines parts of dead Norse folk, especially children, were kept beneath homes after the deceased had been buried. So often sensationalized, glamorized and mystified,...

Left: Upper part of the body of grave 43 during excavation. The girl had an artificially deformed skull, was place in a grave with a side niche and richly equipped with a necklace, earrings, a comb and glass beads. The girl belonged to a group of people with a non-local origin and similar dietary habits, which appeared to have arrived at the site about 10 years after its establishment. (Wosinsky Mór Museum) Right: Artificially deformed skull of an adult woman. Permanent binding during childhood caus

30 April, 2020 - 22:53 ashley cowie

Cemetery of Deformed Skulls Reveals Chaos After the Fall of Rome

Researchers studying deformed skulls from an ancient cemetery in Hungary tell of a multicultural transition between locals and migrant Romans. Established around 430 AD and abandoned about 470 AD,...

Representation of the monkey geoglyph, Nazca lines, Peru.

22 April, 2020 - 20:43 Caleb Strom

The Perplexing Nazca Lines: Sacred Roads, Spirit Animals, or Water Sources?

The Nazca civilization thrived from 200 BC to about 600 AD in the arid plains of southern Peru. They practiced extensive irrigation at their main population centers and built two major urban...

Human sacrifice remains found in South Moravia, Czech Republic. Source: Archaia Brno

21 April, 2020 - 07:32 ashley cowie

Suspected Human Sacrifices Unearthed Beneath Medieval Castle

Three skeletons believed to have been murdered as part of human sacrifice rites have been discovered within the foundations of a 1,000-year-old castle in South Moravia. Břeclav is a town in the South...

John Martin’s “Seventh Plague of Egypt” (1823), in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Ascension Number 60.1157. Source: Public Domain

12 April, 2020 - 02:00 Jonathon Perrin

Passover Magic II: Parallels of Egyptian Curses and The Exodus

READ PART I HERE While a crocodile showdown conjured up in Pharaoh’s court sounds incredible enough, it was only the magical warm-up for a series of 10 curses to befall the Egyptian slavers. As far...