Mysterious Things Found Burried

The Tomb of the Sunken Skulls

While excavating a dry lake bed in Motala, Sweden in 2009, archaeologists came across several skulls that had stakes driven directly through them. 

As if that weren’t bad enough one of the skulls even had pieces of the others skulls crammed up inside it. 

The collection of skulls dating back 8,000 years.

Archaeologists uncovered the skulls and skull fragments of up to 11 individuals, including men, women, children and even infants. 

The skulls, archaeologists also found bones from other parts of the body, numerous animal bones, and tools made of stone, antler and bone. 

The more noteworthy finds include a decorated pick ax made from antler, bone points studded with flint, and animal remains.

The artifacts were found to be laid out on a large stone packing, which is a type of mass grave encased in stone. 

This grave was built at the bottom of the shallow lake.    

Secret Bomb Shelters

The plan to get the Bay Area's only professional soccer team new digs hit a few snags thanks to secret underground bomb shelters buried on the stadium site.

In all crews unearthed 70 vaults, sub-vaults, and basements that had been used as bomb shelters. 

One was as large as an Olympic-sized swimming pool. 

Crews also found munitions, thankfully, they turned out not to be explosive. 

The Shell Grotto 

It's a subterranean passageway shell grotto in Margate, Kent. 

Almost all the surface area of the walls and roof is covered in mosaics created entirely of seashells, totaling 4.6 million shells. 

It was discovered in 1835, but its age and purpose remain unknown. 

The purpose of the structure is unknown and various hypotheses date its construction to any time in the past 3,000 years. 


The Mount Owen Moa

A team of archaeologists were carrying out an expedition inside a large cave system on Mount Owen in New Zealand when they stumbled across a frightening and unusual object.

 With little visibility in the dark cave, they wondered whether their eyes were deceiving them, as they could not believe what they saw.

It was an enormous, dinosaur-like claw still intact with flesh and scaly skin. 

The claw was so well-preserved that it appeared to have come from something that had only died very recently.

The archaeological team retrieved the claw and took it for analysis.

The mysterious claw was found to be the 3,300-year-old mummified remains of an upland Moa, a large prehistoric bird that had disappeared from existence centuries earlier.

The Moa has frequently been mentioned as a candidate for revival through cloning since numerous well-preserved remains exist from which DNA could be extracted. 

Trevor Mallard, a Member of Parliament in New Zealand, suggested that reviving the moa over the next 50 years was a viable idea.

The Underground Cinema 

Members of the force's sports squad, responsible, among other tasks, for policing the 170 miles of tunnels, caves, galleries and catacombs that underlie large parts of Paris, stumbled on the and underground theater while on a training exercise beneath the Palais de Chaillot, across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower.

A police spokeswoman said:
"There were two swastikas painted on the ceiling, but also celtic crosses and several stars of David, so we don't think it's extremists. Some sect or secret society, maybe. There are any number of possibilities."

One of the tunnels held a desk and a closed-circuit TV camera set to automatically record images of anyone passing. 

The mechanism also triggered a tape of dogs barking, "clearly designed to frighten people off," the spokesman said.

Further along, the tunnel opened into a vast 400 sq metre cave some 18m underground, "like an underground amphitheatre, with terraces cut into the rock and chairs".

There the police found a full-sized cinema screen, projection equipment, and tapes of a wide variety of films, including 1950s film noir classics and more recent thrillers.

 None of the films were banned or even offensive, the spokesman said.

A smaller cave next door had been turned into a restaurant and bar. 

"There were bottles of whisky and other spirits behind a bar, tables and chairs, a pressure-cooker for making couscous," the spokesman said.

"The whole thing ran off a professionally installed electricity system and there were at least three phone lines down there."

Three days later, when the police returned accompanied by experts from the French electricity board to see where the power was coming from, the phone and electricity lines had been cut and a note was lying in the middle of the floor: "Do not try to find us."

The Neanderthal Building

The structures were discovered 300 meters from the Bruniquel caves in 1990.

A group of Neanderthals broke of stalagmites used them to build strange circular structures 175,000 years.

The structures are proof that Neanderthals were pretty smart and organized, according to the study authors. 

The meaning of these constructions remains a mystery, but for at least one archaeologist they suggest that Neanderthals may have been religious.

Orvieto Pyramid

A team of U.S. and Italian archaeologists began excavations under a wine cellar in Orvieto, Italy.

 As they dug through mid-20th century and medieval walls and floors, they encountered tunnels and caves. 

These large chamber walls were carved to slope up in a pyramidal shape.

David B. George and colleagues have described the finds; “We know that the site was sealed toward the end of the 5th century BCE."

It appears to have been a single event. 

Of great significance is the number of Etruscan language inscriptions that we have recovered – over a hundred and fifty. 

We are also finding an interesting array of architectural/decorative terra cotta."

"Most likely, the answer waits at the bottom. The problem is we don't really know how much we have to dig to get down there.”

The Copper Scroll

It is one of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The scroll is on two rolls of copper.
 It was found by an archaeologist on March 14, 1952 at the back of Cave 3 at Qumran.
On it is a list of places where various items of gold and silver are buried or hidden.
It is thought that there is a second one out there, that is needed to find the location of the treasures.

Since 2013, the Copper Scroll has been on display at the newly opened Jordan Museum in Amman after being moved from its previous home, the Jordan Archaeological Museum on Amman's Citadel Hill.


Tecaxic Calixtlahuaca Head

It is a terracotta head, probably originally part of a larger figurine.

It was discovered in 1933 among pre-Columbian or just post-Columbian grave goods in the Tecaxic Calixtlahuaca zone in the Toluca Valley, northwest of Mexico City.

Some believe that it is evidence of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact between Rome and the Americas.

The burial was dated to between 1476 and 1510 AD.