7 Hilariously Embarrassing Archaeological Discoveries

Most of these doodles were found on the first and last pages of their books, which were then glued to the covers, meaning they were never meant to be seen. That, uh, certainly explains a lot.

The ones that were absolutely put there on purpose, though, are some of the most baffling. This illustration supposedly depicts the conception of Alexander The Great:

Although there are plenty of supernatural legends surrounding that humpfest, we're not aware of any that involved dragons, but we do thank the artist for that still-life improv comedy prompt.

In 2014, Dr. Andreas Vlachopoulos took his students on a field trip to the perilous Greek island of Astypalaia. We don't know what ancient wonders they hoped to find there, but what they found was dicks. Massive, rock-hard dicks.

The inscriptions are around 2,500 years old, making them some of the oldest known "erotic graffiti," which is a very air-quotes way of saying "ancient bathroom wall dongle-doodles." Amidst the ocean of flop goblins were the usual initials and "so-and-so was here," including two swords in battle, so to speak. The artist signed these inscriptions "Dion," meaning that was either their name or someone they really hated. Another inscription reads "Nikasitimos was here mounting Timiona." In lieu of pouring one out, high-five the ground for those dudes.

This wasn't an isolated case of dick vandalism. Elsewhere, in what was once the ancient Greek city of Aphrodisias (present day Turkey), researchers recently found a wall decorated with dongs, faces, and dongs going into faces.

Vlachopoulos insists that these types of relics provide valuable insight into the lives of the ancient Greeks. The messages not only confirm that man-on-man action was a pretty accepted mode of freak on-getting, but they also suggest that the common people were literate at a time and place when only the elite were thought to be. So next time you find yourself in a stall staring down a big ol' Sharpie snake, remember that future people will use it to prove that, despite all evidence to contrary, we knew how to read.

Sure, that doesn't look much like the contents of your roommate's closet, but scientists not only confirmed that the residue found inside those big vessels was opium and cannabis, but that both drugs were smoked at the same time. Yeah, the Scythians did not fuck around. Apparently, decorating everything like a death metal album cover is a pothead tradition as old as time. One of the bongs is carved with scenes of various mythological creatures ripping each other apart, including "a stag in a bleak landscape that [archaeologist] Belinski thinks represents the Scythian underworld." In other words, actual hell.

The other depicts "an old, bearded man slaying young warriors," a scene that one archaeologist believes may represent what is known as the "Bastard Wars" -- what happened when a bunch of Scythians returned from a 30-year war with Persia to find a whole lot of children with whom they couldn't remember impregnating anyone.

The best part? The whole reason Ea-nasir stiffed Nanni was because Nanni owed him money in the first place. Nanni openly admits this in his complaint but argues that "one (trifling) mina of silver" shouldn't stop him from getting the star treatment. And they say this generation is entitled.

Lamenting the lack of their opponent's ...

And good old genital threats.

Aside from being sick as hell, this also put Kennedy in the history books for being the first person on the record to insultingly compare a person to excrement. Dunbar hit him back good, though. DJ, spin that shit: "Gray-visaged gallows-bird, out of your wits gone wild / Loathsome and lousy, as wet as a cress / Since you with worship would so fain be styled / Hail, Monsignor! Your balls droop below your dress."

Of course, this being around the time we were still pretty sure women were just barely disguised demons, they weren't the only ones trafficking in misogynist humor. While Scotland was inventing the rap battle, France was inventing the dumb joke book.

Funny short stories called "fabliaux," which usually concerned sex or some other shameful bodily function, were circulated anonymously. One famous example, The Four Wishes Of St. Martin, tells of a man who cursed his wife to sprout tiny vaginas all over her body. (Fun fact: This after she wishes his body to be covered with dicks but before the couple accidentally wishes all their vaginas and dongs away, including their originals.) Yes, as a matter of fact, that is more or less the plot of an episode of South Park. The man then jokes, "Honey, don't worry, because now you will never walk down the street without being well known [recognized for what you are]." That's actually a play on the Old French words for "know" and "vagina" -- as if sexism wasn't bad enough, they had to go and throw in a pun.

Specifically, it was some weird-ass cheese made with the fat from inside a cow's stomach (try not to think too hard about the process that involved). The cheese was promptly scalded and then shamefully buried in a clay pit, which is what kept it so well-preserved. One archaeologist theorized that it was so hastily ditched because it stunk so bad, proving that people have been embarking on ill-advised cooking experiments with exotic foodstuffs for at least a few millennia.

The next time your roommate yells at you for drunkenly leaving leftover Kraft dinner on the stove and throwing away their ruined pot, just tell them it's a tradition that's very important to your people. This will require you to be Danish, so be sure to make up a relative named Hans first.

At some point, the little shit apparently knocked over the ink and splashed around it for a while. It then leaped square on top of the very important work its owner was doing, and said owner didn't know why they started lecturing an animal that can't understand them; it's just a thing cat owners have always done. Sure, they could have started over with a fresh sheet of paper, but accepting chaos is also a key part of cat ownership.

But the tradition of cats ruining things goes back even further and gets way sneakier. So sneaky that it wasn't noticed for 2,000 years, in fact, when a Roman roof tile was discovered to contain imprints from a cat's paw.

Apparently, Roman animals and people alike had little regard for the craft of carpentry, as "dog paw prints, people's boot prints, and even a piglet's trotter print have all been found on" such tiles, according to a local city councilperson. What they don't tell us is how a piglet got on top of a wet Roman rooftop, and we'll pay exactly the price of a movie ticket to the person who can explain it. (Hint, hint, George Miller.)

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You know all those facts you've learned about psychology from movies and that one guy at the party who says, "Actually ..." a lot? Please forget them. Chances are none of them are true. Take the Stanford Prison Experiment, the one famous psychology study people can name. It was complete bullshit. Funny story actually, it turns out that when you post flyers that say, "Hey, do you wanna be a prison guard for the weekend? Free food and nightsticks," you might not get the most stable group of young men. So join Jack O'Brien, Cracked staff members Dan O'Brien and Michael Swaim, and Psychology Professor Martie G. Haselton of UCLA as they debunk Rorschach tests, the Mozart effec,t and middle child syndrome, so soon you can be that person at the party who says, "Actually ..." Get your tickets here!

For more ways life has always been this way, check out 7 Memes That Went Viral Before The Internet Existed and 6 Modern-Day Tech Advances (That Your Grandparents Had).

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