5 Historical Wonders That Are Total Nightmare Fuel

And like a lot of other things in GOT, this has historical precedent! In 2018, archaeologists excavating a 2,400-year-old burial pit at Tlalpan in Mexico City found the remains of ten people locked together in a bizarre entanglement of flesh and bones that makes your mom's weekly key parties seem downright innocent by comparison.

National Institute of Anthropology and HistorySorry, we didn't mean to bring moms into it. This just has us on edge.

Upon closer inspection, archaeologists found that all of the grave's occupants were linking arms with their neighbors, while some were linked in ... cozier ways. "There was one individual over the other, for example," excavation director Jimena Rivera explained. "The head of the individual on the chest of the other, the hands of one individual under the other's back, the baby on the body of another."

The handsiness of the dead suggests that they were all related, but that's not (yet) been proven. We also don't know how these people died, or even why they were arranged like this, because this is the first time that archaeologists have found such a burial. Or at least, it's the first time they've been able to talk about it before a curse kicked in and everyone involved with the dig became part of a human centipede.

After the initial eruption, but before the ash, fire, and brimstone fell from the sky, a superheated cloud of gas overran Pompeii like a wave, flash-frying everything and everyone. The heat vaporized every drop of moisture in their flesh and soft organs, while their brains .... well, we're going to leave this to the scientists responsible for this nightmarish finding:

In the present work, careful inspection of the victims' skeletons revealed cracking and explosion of the skullcap. Such effects appear to be the combined result of direct exposure to heat and an increase in intracranial steam pressure induced by brain ebullition [literally boiling], with skull explosion as the possible outcome.

Oh, and we know what you're wondering. The red and black stuff on the skulls? That's blood and brain fluids. You're very welcome.

We're not joking when we say "monstrous." One brave scientist -- who presumably lost a bet -- measured the thing's head and found it to be almost 50% bigger than those of modern-day wolves. It's even possible that this specimen wasn't the full-sized model (it was only between two and four years old when it died). We are almost certainly overdue for a movie wherein Liam Neeson punches one of these things to death.

While excavating her pelvic region, archaeologists found an assemblage of small bones ... which turned out to be human. It seems that the woman had been pregnant when she died, meaning that when she was buried, her child was laid to rest with her. In a (thankfully) rare example of what archaeologists call a "coffin birth," the decomposition gases inside her body pushed the fetus out, like a champagne cork from the devil's own wine cellar.

A. Pasini et al./World NeurosurgerySorry for showing you this photo. If it's any consolation, we found the night terrors started to calm down after about three weeks.

This alone should put to rest the idea that archaeology is all fortune and glory. There are days when you might find historical treasures, sure, but they're outnumbered by the days when you have to explain to your horrified benefactors, "No, no, no. The baby wasn't born into a cold, dark, suffocating grave after its mother died from having her head drilled open. It was just stillborn!"

You can find more from Adam on Twitter! If you liked the cut of this article's jib, he also has a newsletter about depressing history facts!

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