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The Lost Tomb of Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great conquered the known world, but died unexpectedly in Babylon in 323 BCE at 32 years old. His death left his empire in disarray, and his generals scrambled to save pieces of it even as Alexander’s funeral preparations drug on for two years. At one point, one of these generals, Ptolemy, took control of both Egypt and the great general’s body. According to Roman historian Curtius Rufus, “Alexander’s body was taken to Memphis by Ptolemy, into whose power Egypt had fallen, and transferred from there a few years later to Alexandria, where every mark of respect continues to be paid to his memory and his name. This was…
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Cemeteries
We previously looked at the earliest known death rituals of the first settled communities at the end of the last glacial period in areas such as the Levant, Catalhoyuk and so on. We are also fully aware of the astonishing impact of the Egyptian Pyramids and surrounding tombs. Britain’s earliest known cemeteries were arguably Bronze Age and Iron Age Barrows, stone built cairns, and cists, fragmentary burials in famous sites such as Stone Henge, and sacrificial “bog-bodies”. In the 18th Century, allegedly there was found the oldest British example of a dedicated cemetery in a narrow gorge in Somerset, locally known as Aveline’s Hole, where up to 100 neatly aligned…
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Yonaguni Monument- Japan’s Atlantis or Myth
Yonaguni Jima is an island that lies near the southern tip of Japan’s Ryukyu archipelago, about 75 miles off the eastern coast of Taiwan. It is a popular place to dive as it is home to a large population of hammerhead sharks during the winter. During a dive in 1987, Dive Tour operator Kihachiro Aratake found a series of strange rock formations on the seabed, which resembled man-made buildings. He reported his find, and a group of scientists directed by Masaaki Kimura of the University of the Ryukyus began surveying the area. What they found was a series of ten structures, which resemble a castle, temples and a huge stadium.…
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Skara Brae
A large storm battered the coast of Orkney Island off Scotland in the winter of 1850. This is not unusual as the winds there are so strong that trees cannot grow. What was different about this storm was that the high tides and winds stripped grass and sand from mound known as “Skerrabra” revealing the outline of a number of stone buildings. The outlines of the buildings fascinated one of the landowners, William Watt, and he hired Orcadian Antiquarian, George Petrie, to excavate. Petrie worked at the site and presented his progress at the April 1867 meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. This is the official story…
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Benjamin Franklin- Founding Father and Serial Killer?
Benjamin Franklin is a famous founding father, author and inventor. However, there is a strange tale that is unfolding from his time living in London. From 1757 to 1775, Benjamin Franklin lived in London as an ambassador for the American colonies. His residence was a beautiful Georgian style home at 36 Craven Street. In 1998, conservationists were restoring the residence at Craven Street to make it a museum. There they made a disturbing discovery. In a windowless room underneath the garden, human remains were found. Jim Field was working in the basement and found a small pit, where sticking out of the dirt floor was a human thigh bone. Naturally,…
