1Cleopatra's Tomb
The long-lost tomb of Mark Antony and Cleopatra from 30 B.C. has remained undiscovered to this day. But as of November 22, 2022, archaeologists have just found a 4,300-foot-long tunnel under an ancient temple in Egypt. They think this tunnel could lead to Cleopatra's long-lost tomb.
2. In 1983, a man in Perugia, Italy, was digging a plot in his backyard for a vegetable garden and accidentally ended up discovering an Etruscan tomb that’s been dated to be more than 2000 years old.
3. Trained sniffer dogs are helping archaeologists in Croatia discover 3,000-year-old Iron Age tombs. Experts have said that using dogs is a good way to identify archaeological sites, as it is less destructive than many traditional methods.
4. In 2007, construction workers in the Chinese city of Nanjing discovered multiple ancient tombs dating back at least 1800 years. The tombs might have been those of a wealthy family of the period, as the workmanship was of high quality. The tombs were then destroyed by excavation machines and bulldozers to build an Ikea over the site.
5. Slaves didn't build the pyramids of Egypt. They were laborers who were respected for their work and were bestowed with the honor of being buried in tombs near the sacred pyramids of their pharaohs.
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6Sword of Goujian
In 1965, an excavation team discovered the Sword of Goujian in a tomb in Hubei, China. It was encased in an airtight wooden box next to a skeleton. The sword is over 2500 years old, but it was in such perfect condition that tests affirmed the blade could easily cut a stack of 20 pieces of paper.
7. The tomb of China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, remains untouched and unexplored to this day. This is due to the fact that it is buried deep underground and may also be surrounded by a moat of poisonous mercury and still-functioning booby traps. Modern tests have found that the amount of mercury in the soil is more than 100 times what it should be.
8. The Mausoleum of Theodoric in Ravenna, Italy, was built in 520 A.D. with stones sourced from a quarry in Istria, approximately 400 km (249 miles) away by land. The mausoleum's roof consists of a single piece of Istrian carved stone 10 metres (33 feet) in diameter and weighing 230 tons.
9. "Exploding caskets" are a big problem in a lot of mausoleums. The process of a human body decaying builds up gases that can cause a literal explosion and knock down the marble front of a crypt.
10. Boatswain (1803–1808) was Lord Byron's beloved Newfoundland dog. When he contracted rabies, Byron personally nursed him despite the risk. After he died, Byron wrote the poem "Epitaph to a Dog" in his honor. His wish to be buried with Boatswain was denied, and the dog's tomb is larger than that of Byron's.
11William the Conqueror's Tomb
When William the Conqueror died, his funeral was delayed for several days. Then the stone sarcophagus made for him was found to be too short, so they tried to force his bloated corpse in, but his "swollen bowels burst, and an intolerable stench assailed the nostrils of the bystanders and the whole crowd."
12. Antoine-Augustin Parmentier was a French soldier who was taken as a POW and fed only potatoes during his captivity and survived. Feeling like he should have died, he made it his life’s mission to convince the world of the nutritional value of potatoes, and his tomb in France is to this day regularly decorated with potatoes as a tribute.
13. The only Egyptian pharaonic tomb to have been discovered completely intact is that of Psusennes I (1047–1001 BC). Psusennes I's outer and middle sarcophagi had been recycled from previous burials in the Valley of the Kings through the state-sanctioned tomb robbing that was a common practise in the Third Intermediate Period.
14. In 2007, while excavating for a new building in Central London, archaeologists discovered the unmarked, isolated remains of a teenage Roman girl. She was later reburied on the same spot with full Roman burial rites. A Latin inscription on her tomb remembers her as the "Unknown Roman Girl."
15. The oldest bottle of wine, known as Römerwein or the Speyer wine bottle, is at least 1650 years old. It dates back to the 4th century, sometime between 325 and 359 A.D. The 1.5-liter glass vessel was discovered during the excavation of a Roman nobleman’s tomb in modern-day Germany.
16Bone Soup in Tomb
In 2010, archaeologists in China found a surprising haul in one tomb. They uncovered a bronze cooking pot, and when they opened it, they found 2,400-year-old bone soup. Because of oxidation, the soup turned green, but it was still in liquid form, and the bones were still floating on top.
17. Constantine V of the Byzantine Empire (741–775) was so loved for his ability as a general that following the defeat of the Byzantine army by the Bulgarians at the battle of Pliska in 811, a group of soldiers broke into his tomb and begged his corpse to come back and lead them again.
18. The name of Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten, who ruled in the 14th century B.C.E., was completely erased from history because he set up a new state religion. His name wasn't found again until 1907, when researchers found his tomb.
19. When a Soviet anthropologist exhumed Timur's body, he found inside the casket an inscription saying, "Whoever opens my tomb shall unleash an invader more terrible than I." Two days later, the Nazis invaded the U.S.S.R. Timur was later reburied with full Islamic ritual in November 1942, just before the Soviet victory at the Battle of Stalingrad.
20. After opening the tomb of Casimir IV of Lithuania and Poland in 1973, four of the 12 people present died within a few days, and six more soon afterwards. During later examinations, a microbiologist found traces of fungi on the royal insignia taken from the tomb. He identified three species: Aspergillus flavus, Penicillium rubrum, and Penicillium rugulosum. These fungi are known to produce aflatoxins that can be deadly when in contact with the skin and inhaled into the lungs.
21Capuchin Crypt
The crypt of the Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini church, a.k.a. the Capuchin Crypt in Rome, is beautifully and intricately decorated with the skeletal remains of 4,000 humans. A placard addressed to those who enter the crypt reads, "What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be."
22. Under Paris, there are limestone mines that have become an ossuary and the final resting place for over six million people. During a cholera outbreak in the 1800s, over 170,000 people were hastily dumped in the catacombs and covered with quick lime to remove the flesh.
23. Catacomb saints are skeletons that were exhumed from Roman catacombs and decorated with gold and other jewels to serve as "replacement relics" for those destroyed during the Protestant Reformation. It is unlikely that any of those skeletons are the people they are said to be by tradition.
24. Holger the Dane is a fabled Frankish knight, and there is a statue of him in the catacombs of Kronborg in Denmark. He will, according to folklore, come to life if Denmark is ever threatened by a foreign invasion. He was first mentioned in the 12th century, and his statue was built in 1907.
25. Little Merrit was an 8-year-old boy who died in 1865 in upstate New York. A few days before he died, he told his dad he was afraid to be buried in a dark tomb. His parents honoured his wish and put a window in his tomb. Many years ago, vandals destroyed his tomb and broke the glass, and a local teen displayed the boy's skull in his bedroom. Eventually, he was discovered by the authorities, the skull was recovered, and it and the boy's bones were re-interred in the tomb.
