National Geographic Tales of the Weird Read online

  “Two women in the last two weeks said they were contemplating killing their children and themselves so they wouldn’t have to suffer through the end of the world.”

  David Morrison

  senior scientist

  NASA Astrobiology Institute

  “So, is [the end of Bak’tun 13] a large period ending? Yes. Did the Maya like period endings? Yes,” Saturno said.

  “Would this have been a period ending they thought was wicked cool? You bet. The biggest period endings they experience are Bak’tun endings.”

  But “was it predicted to be the end of the world? No. That’s just us.”

  Instead, for the Maya, the end of the long count represents the end of an old cycle and the beginning of a new one, according to Emiliano Gallaga Murrieta, the Chiapas state division director of Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History.

  “It is like for the Chinese, this is the Year of the [Rabbit], and the next year is going to be the Year of the Dragon, and the next is going to be another animal in the calendar,” Murrieta said.

  Bak’tun the 13th

  Written references to the end of Bak’tun 13 are few. In fact, most Maya scholars cite only one: a stone tablet on Monument 6 at the Tortuguero archaeological site in Mexico’s Tabasco state.

  What exactly the tablet says, though, is a mystery, because the glyphs in question are partially damaged. Nevertheless, scholars have taken several stabs at translations, the most prominent in 1996 by Brown University’s Stephen Houston and the University of Texas at Austin’s David Stuart.

  Maya pyramid of Kukulcan, Chichén Itzá, Mexico (Photo Credit 1.3)

  Houston and Stuart’s initial interpretation indicated that a god will descend at the end of Bak’tun 13. What would happen next is uncertain, although the scholars suggested this might have been a prophecy of some sort.

  This 1996 analysis was picked up “on many New Age websites, associated forum discussions, and even a few book chapters” as evidence that the Maya calendar had predicted the end of the world, according to Stuart.

  Commemorating the Future

  Houston and Stuart, however, recently revisited the glyphs independently and concluded that the inscription may actually contain no prophetic statements about 2012 at all.

  TRUTH:

  THE MAYA LIVED IN THE JUNGLES OF THE AMERICAS FOR 3,000 YEARS.

  Rather, the mention of the end of Bak’tun 13 is likely a forward-looking statement that refers back to the main subject of the inscription, which is the dedication of Monument 6.

  In a blog post about his conclusions, Stuart makes an analogy to a scribe wanting to immortalize the New York Yankees’ 1950 sweep of the Philadelphia Phillies in that year’s World Series.

  If this writer were to use the Maya rhetorical device thought to be in Monument 6’s inscription, the text might read as follows:

  On October 7, 1950, the New York Yankees defeated the Philadelphia Phillies to win the World Series. It happened 29 years after the first Yankees victory in the World Series in 1921. And so 50 years before the year 2000 will occur, the Yankees won the World Series.

  Written this way, Stuart notes, the text mentions a future time of historical importance—the 50-year anniversary of the victory—but it does so in reference to the event at hand, i.e., the 1950 game.

  “This is precisely how many ancient Maya texts are structured, including Tortuguero’s Monument 6,” Stuart writes.

  “Our ancestors said that when the last days draw closer, many people will die and bad things will happen.”

  Mary Coba Cupul

  Maya descendant

  Pure Poetry?

  According to INAH’s Murrieta, this structure of Maya texts is what has confused modern minds, given our penchant for literal, straightforward reading. Even if the Monument 6 inscription refers to a god coming down at the end of Bak’tun 13, it isn’t a statement about the end of the world, he said.

  “They are writing in a more poetic sense, saying, Well, on the 21st of December 2012, the god is going to come down and start a new cycle and the old world is going to die and the new world is going to be reborn—just to make it more poetic.”

  Saturno, the Boston University archaeologist, agreed that the reference to a specific date is clear in Monument 6, but added that “there’s no text that follows and says, Herein will be the end of the world, and the world will end in fire … That’s not anywhere in the text.”

  Rather, Saturno said, the hype around 2012 stems from dissatisfied Westerners looking to the ancients for guidance, hoping that peoples such as the Maya knew something then that could help us through difficult times now.

  In any case, even if the ancient inscriptions explicitly predicted the end of the world, Saturno wouldn’t be worried, given the Maya track record with long-range prophecy.

  “They didn’t see [their] collapse coming. They didn’t see the Spanish conquest coming.”

  GONE TO THE DOGS

  Millions of Puppy Mummies

  As part of the first full excavation of Egypt’s ancient Dog Catacombs, scientists are examining 2,500-year-old animal remains—a small sample of the roughly eight million animal mummies in these tunnels.

  Snaking beneath the desert at the ancient royal burial ground of Saqqara, the Dog Catacombs were discovered more than a century ago. But only now is research shedding light on the massive number of mummies found in this complex of tunnels and chambers dedicated to Anubis, the jackal-headed god of the afterlife. Poorly mummified and piled high, the carcasses long ago deteriorated into indistinct heaps, experts say. The mummies were stacked between about the late sixth century B.C. and the late first century B.C.

  “It’s not easy to identify individual mummies in the galleries or in the photographs,” said Paul Nicholson of Cardiff University in the U.K. “We have piles of mummy remains just over a meter [three feet] high, on average, that just fill the side tunnels.

  “Although the mummies are not well preserved or well decorated, unlike some museum specimens, they can still give us a great deal of scientific information.”

  From Your Mouth to Dog God’s Ears

  Piled with decomposing animal mummies, the tunnels in the Dog Catacombs are evidence of ancient Egyptian pilgrims’ fierce desire to be heard by the canine-headed god Anubis. Today, “in some churches people light a candle, and their prayer is taken directly up to God in that smoke,” archaeologist Salima Ikram said.

  In much the same way, a mummified dog’s spirit would carry a person’s prayer to the afterlife, said Ikram, founder of the Animal Mummy Project at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. “And because it’s the same kind of species as the god, it would have special access to Anubis’s ear. So the person would have a sort of direct line to the god,” Ikram added.

  “There is also still debate about exactly what kind of canid Anubis was meant to represent … We hope to discover more information about the … animals in the catacombs to understand how the god was perceived.”

  Paul Nicholson

  director, Cardiff University’s Egypt Exploration Society Mission to the Dog Catacombs

  Bodies of Evidence

  Mummified dogs such as this aren’t the only animals filling the Dog Catacombs. “There are also some jackals, foxes, and ichneumon [Egyptian mongooses],” said Cardiff University’s Nicholson. “But the overwhelming majority of animals here are dogs, so we believe this place was intended just for the cult of Anubis.”

  Elsewhere in Saqqara’s so-called Sacred Animal Necropolis, there were many other cults—and many other mummified animals, including baboons, cows, bulls, and so on, said Nicholson, whose work was partly funded by the National Geographic Society’s Committee for Research and Exploration.

  All Shapes and Sizes

  The mazelike Dog Catacombs hold dogs of “all shapes and sizes, all ages, from fetal to mature,” the Egyptian Museum’s Ikram said. “Some are short-legged, more like dachshund types, while others are long-legged and more like gol
den retriever types. I think they [mummified] whatever was there at the time and whatever suited the pilgrim’s pocket.”

  Mummified dog remains from the Dog Catacombs (Photo Credit 1.4)

  Ancient puppy farms likely operated in the area to supply dogs in such numbers, and many of the animals were mummified as newborns, Cardiff’s Nicholson said. “Perhaps the priests of Anubis would have regularly taken a certain number of animals each week to mummify for pilgrims.”

  TRUTH:

  THE FIRST TOMBS WERE BUILT TO PROTECT THE DEAD FROM ROAMING DOGS AND JACKALS.

  There are mummified dogs that occupy special niches in the catacombs—places likely commensurate with an honored role in real life. A number of older, male dogs that might have lived in the nearby Temple of Anubis were mummified with far more care than the rest, Ikram speculated. “We think that these might have been the actual sacred dogs that were the manifestation of Anubis on Earth,” she added.

  (Photo Credit 1.5)

  With the permission of Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities and in association with the Egypt Exploration Society archaeologists continue to sift sands at the Dog Catacomb. Nicholson said, “For the first time at this site, we’re looking at a really large sample of the dog mummies and trying to learn how old they are, what gender they are, whether we can say anything about their species or how they met their deaths.”

  Holy Animals

  Dogs, foxes, and jackals were sacrificed as offerings to the god Anubis, but they weren’t the only ones. There were a number of animals that were the focus of worship for particular gods in ancient Egyptian society. Major changes that happened between 3000 and 2000 B.C. elevated these animals to sacred status. Here were some of the most popular gods and their corresponding animal cults:

  • Apis—Bull

  • Bastet—Cat

  • Hathor—Cow

  • Horus—Hawk or falcon

  • Khnum—Ram

  • Sobek—Crocodile

  • Thoth—Baboon or ibis

  Other Animal Occupants

  Strangely, a small number of cat mummies have also been found in the Dog Catacombs. Perhaps, Ikram speculated, the felines had taken up residence in the Temple of Anubis and become sacred by association. Or maybe they were fakes. “There may have been some time when they didn’t have enough dogs and decided to just wrap up a cat and make it look like a dog,” she said. “It might have been a charlatan moment.”

  Among other remaining mysteries are oddly avian mummies. “They are wrapped up as falcons,” Ikram said, “but until we’re able to have them x-rayed, we won’t know exactly what they are.”

  HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN

  Lifelike Chinese “Wet Mummy”

  Construction on a new highway yielded a remarkable find: a 600-year-old Chinese mummy with her eyebrows, hair, and skin still intact. Her identity remains a mystery.

  Ice Mummy

  In 1991, climbers discovered a frozen body on a glacier near the Austrian-Italian border. At first, forensic experts didn’t realize how old the body was. Using radiocarbon dating, it was later determined that this “iceman” died at some point between 3350 and 3300 B.C., which makes him the oldest well-preserved mummy in the world.

  A fortunate series of events probably led to the remarkable preservation of a 600-year-old Chinese woman whose tomb had been discovered accidentally by road builders near the city of Taizhou, China. “Wet mummies survive so well because of the anaerobic conditions of their burials,” said archaeologist Victor Mair. That is, water unusually void of oxygen inhibits bacteria that would normally break down a body.

  Unlike ancient Egyptian mummies, the corpse—likely from the Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644)—was probably preserved only accidentally, said Mair, of the University of Pennsylvania. “I don’t know of any evidence that Chinese ever intentionally mummified their deceased,” he said. “Whoever happened to encounter the right environment might become a preserved corpse.”

  Who Are You?

  When staff members from China’s Taizhou Museum carefully removed the woman’s mummy—one of three found during a road expansion—from her wooden coffin, they used the items found with her to tell the story of her life. Adorning her chest was a so-called exorcism coin. “My guess would be that the coin was placed on the body as a kind of charm against malevolent influences,” said Timothy Brook, a historian at the University of British Columbia’s Institute of Asian Research.

  (Photo Credit 1.6)

  Her fully dressed, 5-foot-long (1.5-meter-long) body was buried with luxury items, including a jade ring, a silver hairpin, and more than 20 pieces of Ming-dynasty clothing. Jade was associated with longevity in ancient China. But in this case, the jade ring was “probably a sign of her wealth instead of a sign of any concern about the afterlife,” Brook said.

  The lack of identifying insignia such as a phoenix or dragon, though, suggests the wet mummy wasn’t royal, said Brook. “Her headgear is sort of ordinary,” Brook observed. “There’s nothing that sets her apart from anyone else … She was probably just a well-off person.”

  Still unknown is whether the woman was buried with any written documents or inscribed pottery—a common practice in Ming-dynasty China. “If you were a person of any importance, you had someone write a [remembrance] or a brief biography,” Brook said, “and that biography would often be posted at the burial site and a copy buried with you as well, to identify who you are” in the afterlife.

  Good Hair Day

  When museum staff removed the female mummy’s cap, her head appeared to be dyed a bright shade of purple. Neither Brook nor the University of Pennsylvania’s Mair know exactly why her head is that color, though Mair speculates it may have to do with natural minerals in the water.

  The mummy’s hair was still held in place by a bright silver hairpin—a fairly standard example of the type worn by Ming-dynasty women, Brook said. The woman’s exact age at death is unknown, but her unlined face suggests she was fairly young. “She’s certainly an adult,” Brook said. “She’s not an old woman.”

  TRUTH:

  THE WORD “MUMMY” DERIVES FROM THE PERSIAN AND ARABIC WORDS “MUM” AND “MUMYA,” WHICH ARE USED TO DESCRIBE WAX OR BITUMEN.

  A Positive Judgment

  In ancient China, it was believed that the newly dead would appear before supernatural judges. Brook explained that “If you were found to be morally worthy you would be sent off for reincarnation—as a deity if you were fantastic, as a human being if you were good, as an animal if you were less good, and as a bug or a worm if you’d been really bad.”

  During the Ming dynasty, preservation after death was thought to “reflect your purity” in life, Brook explained. Had this woman’s family known her body would be preserved for more than 600 years, they would have been extremely proud, he added.

  MOVING DAY FOR ROYAL BLING

  Celtic Princess Tomb

  Yields Gold, Amber Riches

  An 80-ton treasure trove of a tomb has a new home near Stuttgart, where it was moved after being completely lifted out of the ground and hauled away.

  Discovered in December 2010 beside the River Danube in Heuneburg, a Celtic princess’s tomb—all 80 tons of it—was lifted whole by heavy cranes and transported to a tented laboratory outside of Stuttgart, Germany, where archaeologists with the Stuttgart Regional Council are now analyzing the contents, many of which are in amazing condition.

  The excavation of the ancient Celtic burial chamber, August 2010 (Photo Credit 1.7)

  Fit for an Iron Age princess, this exquisitely patterned, solid gold broach (seen in a March 2011 photograph) was among the treasures found alongside the Celtic noblewoman. (Photo Credit 1.8)

  Perfect for a Princess

  The well-preserved, large wooden burial chamber contains the 2,600-year-old skeleton of an ancient Celtic noblewoman. Aged between 30 and 40 when she died, the highborn lady was buried with a cache of ornate treasures, such as gold necklaces set with pearls, and she was found wearing crafte
d amber around her waist. The lavish grave confirms Heuneburg as one of the earliest centers of Celtic art and culture, according to excavation leaders.

  “Normally these graves are robbed over the centuries, so it’s amazing to have one in such good condition,” said project co-leader Nicole Ebinger-Rist, an archaeologist with Stuttgart Regional Council. Treasures inside the tomb include engraved copper-alloy plates and gold-encrusted animal teeth, which the Celts used for adorning their horses, she added.

  TRUTH:

  A GOLD NUGGET FOUND IN CALIFORNIA WEIGHED 160 POUNDS—ABOUT AS MUCH AS 12 BOWLING BALLS.

  Mother-Daughter Relationship?

  The woman’s tomb was found not far from the similarly aged grave of a girl, previously unearthed in 2005, whose body was adorned almost identically, Ebinger-Rist said.

  “What’s amazing is that the jewelry from the girl—two brooches and two earrings—have exactly the same type of ornamentation,” she said. “These must be two related people.” The study team hopes DNA analysis will reveal whether the pair belonged to the same family—or were even mother and daughter.

  “We found fabulous leather belts in some of the high-status women’s graves with thousands of tiny bronze staples attached to the leather that would have taken hours to make … I call them the Iron-Age Harley-Davidson biker chicks.”