We’ve looked at incredible archaeological finds many times on this channel.

In this video, we’re going to look at terrible archaeological finds instead.

That doesn’t mean the fines are worthless or deserve to be thrown away, though.

Instead we’re looking at discoveries that came with dark secrets.

It’s the same incredible trip around the ancient world we always offer you, but it comes with a dose of death and despair.

There’s no way to dress up this first fact, so we’re just gonna come out and say it.

In the remote Regency of Tana taraja in South sulawesi, Indonesia, the bodies of dead babies are buried in holes hollowed out in local trees.

The local villagers believe that the trees absorbed the bodies and Souls of the babies over the passing of many years, so they placed the bodies inside them, wrapped in cloth, then sealed them into the trunk.

The many holes in patchy repair jobs in the trunk of the Region’s trees stand as evidence of how often this process has been performed.

There are thought to be several dozen deceased babies interred within each tree.

The unusual practices reserved only for babies who pass away before teething.

As odd as it sounds, this isn’t the only unusual way of dealing with the remains of the Dead that happens in Tana taraja.

It’s Perfectly Normal for these people to dig up their ancestors, change their burial clothes and then take them out for a walk around the village.

So-called bog bodies occasionally turn up all over Europe.

The conditions inside peat bogs are perfectly geared towards preserving the human form, so they can help a body retain its hair and flesh for thousands of years after they’ve passed away.

The Holdremos Woman

One of the best preserved bog bodies ever found on the continent is that of , the Holdremos woman who’s named after the place.

She was discovered in Denmark in 1879..

Analysis of her remains indicates that she died around 2000 years ago.

She was around 40 at the time of her death- quite an advanced age for that point in history- and didn’t meet a natural end.

There are signs that she might have been a victim of human sacrifice, which would explain why she was cast into the bog wearing special robes and Jewelry.

The ancient Danes believed that peat bogs were portals to the underworld and to the gods, and that the gods were responsible for the provision of iron ore.

It made all the sense in the world to them to occasionally provide those Gods with the human sacrifice to keep them happy and keep the iron ore coming.

So there are probably other bodies like this elsewhere in Denmark waiting to be discovered.

Researchers from St John’s College in Cambridge, England, got the shock of their lives in April 2015 when they dug into the ground beneath their own college at Cambridge University, and came across the remains of more than one thousand people.

After performing tests and research, they now think that the people buried here had been treated in a hospital Cemetery for poor academics.

The burial started during the 13th century and ended during the 15th.

There are approximately 1300 skeletons at the site, just over 400 of which are complete.

While historians at the college have known there was a burial ground at the site since records were discovered in the 1950s, it had never before been found and nobody had any idea it was so big.

The idea that these are the remains of impoverished academics comes from the fact that almost none of the burials involved a coffin, and some of the people buried here appear to have been dumped in the ground without even a burial shroud to protect their remains.

Oddly, there’s no evidence of disease or serious illness in any of the skeletons, begging the question of why these people ended up in a hospital Cemetery.

This next artifact needs no introduction and you’ll recognize it immediately.

The Golden Death Mask

: it’s the golden death mask of Tutankhamun, the famous boy Pharaoh of ancient Egypt.

It’s one of the most famous archaeological artifacts in the world, but forget what you think you know about it, because we’re about to change your mind.

The iconic mask was first found a century ago when Howard Carter broke open the young Pharaoh’s tomb.

What’s new about the mask is a theory that says it may not have been made for Tutankhamun at all.

Instead, it might actually have been designed for his mother, Nefertiti.

The Theory comes from British egyptologist Nicholas Reeves, who studied the 3300 year old object and the era that it came from for much of his professional career.

He has substantial evidence to back up his claims.

He’s been able to demonstrate that an inscription on the mask which dedicates it to tootin common has been carved over the top of an older set of hieroglyphs, which translate as living manifestation of the sun.

God beloved of Akhenaten, beauty of beauties, disc of the Sun.

The gushing description has been found on many other artifacts associated with Nefertiti, but never before on anything belonging to Tutankhamun.

Sticking with the theme of Egypt, a discovery made in avarice in 2012 seems to confirm the existence of a practice that was previously thought to be a rumor or a myth.

Archaeologists Excavating an ancient Royal Palace came across 16 human hands divided between four pits, in front of what’s thought to be an ancient throne room.

There were no left hands found, only right hands.

They’re approximately 3 600 years old and date back to a period when the hexos people ruled over a portion of Egypt close to Tel eldaba.

King Kyan was the ruler of the palace and it’s almost certain that the hands were severed as a tribute to him.

Some historical records of the time indicate that the king would accept severed hands as a form of payment for gold reserves.

The hands probably didn’t belong to the people claiming the gold.

Instead, they were presented by soldiers who would have severed them from an enemy of the king.

They might have come from Egyptian people or from other enemies of the heightsos from the Levant.

Interestingly, there are no records of this practice in the original hexos homeland of Northern Canaan, so it’s possible that they picked the gruesome practice up from the Egyptians happened to the ancient ancient Simon.

Germany is one that’s puzzled experts for a very long time, based on archaeological evidence at the site.

It was once the perfect Stone Age settlement, with rudimentary Farm plots, identical houses and an idyllic setting devoid of predators or other dangers.

Nevertheless, the entire region was suddenly abandoned by the linear Pottery culture people who live there somewhere close to the year 4950 BCE.

To make things even stranger, the people who fled Left Behind broken pottery, massive piles of human bones and a butchered human bodies.

In the minds of many historians, there are only two possible explanations of what happened here.

One is mass ritual sacrifice, the other is mass cannibalism.

After a study was performed in 2009, the latter explanation became more likely.

Scientists discovered tool marks on the bones showing flesh had been scraped away, and deliberate breaks in larger bones that have been construed as an attempt to reach the bone marrow.

Gruesomely, even the skulls were broken in what might have been a means of extracting the brains.

What on Earth could have led an otherwise normal settlement down this path?