10 Kinky Tendencies Of The Ancient Romans And Greeks

The ancient Romans and Greeks had a highly liberated attitude toward sex—one that is surprising, even by today’s standards. They had gods devoted to it, festivals to partake in it, and local economies that surrounded it. Sex was not something to be ashamed of or hidden from public view. Rather, it was something to rejoice in.

1#Phallic Bricks Of Pompeii

We all know the legend surrounding Pompeii. The original City of Sin’s people basked in a perpetual heat of promiscuity—promiscuity said to have inspired the gods’ rage with the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. Since excavation of its near-perfectly preserved remains began in the 18th century, archaeologists have discovered a great deal regarding Pompeii’s sexual identity.

Pompeii’s economy thrived on more than 40 brothels, the most famous of which was named “Lupanare Grande,” translated today as “pleasure house.” The rooms in these brothels were often cramped and dim, with a small straw mattress positioned beneath a piece of pornographic artwork hung on the wall. Despite their appearances, it would be misleading to classify these brothels as the seedy underbelly of Pompeii’s economy. Rather, they existed on a highly public and unashamed platform, alongside the forum and communal bath houses, both of which were important sites of a larger (public) sex system.

Visit the ruins of Pompeii today, and you will no doubt see the “phallic bricks” of Pompeii pointing the way to the nearest pleasure house with an erect phallus engraved into its stone. And if those weren’t clear enough markers, erect phalluses were often positioned above the doors of brothels and private residences as tidings of good luck.

2#Voyeurism

“You may look, but don’t touch,” was somewhat of a guiding theme across Ancient Roman and Greek artwork, as indicated by the many pieces of art uncovered today displaying such provocations. One could discover this for themselves at The Gabinetto Segreto in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples.

This “Secret Cabinet” houses a collection of erotic artwork from Ancient Rome. One such wall painting from, unsurprisingly, Pompeii, displays this voyeurism with a man and a woman having intercourse in front of their attendant, who is visible in the background.

In Ancient Greece, there exists a body of art dedicated to Maenads, the feverous female followers of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, ritual madness, religious euphoria, and theatre. Artwork surrounding these women were highly explicit, and the sexual acts represented by the artwork displayed the figures as objects to be observed. This idea of voyeurism in erotic art was twofold, where a voyeur existed within the artwork, as was the case in one hydria painting Sleeping Maenad and Satyrs, as well as external to the artwork, where the onlooker (or “innocent bystander”) also became a voyeur.

3#The Wife-Sharing Economy

The Etruscan civilization was assimilated into the Roman Republic during the fourth century BC. However, their customs remained largely intact.

The Etruscan women were known for their liberated attitude toward intercourse and nudity. They kept their bodies in fit condition and often walked around in the nude, enjoying the pleasure of all men who came by. “Marriage” was a loose construct. It was common for children to have no clue who their father was, and for women not to ask.

Frescoes painted on the Tombs of The Bulls, The Bigas, and The Floggings, in Tarquinia, display these kinds of erotic scenes.

4#Fruitful Contest Of The Sexes

Kenneth Reckford, an expert of the Classics, analyzed Aristophanes’s work in a series of essays entitled Aristophanes’s Old-and-New Comedy. One essay, “Aischrologia,” addresses the season ritual of Thesmophoria in Ancient Greece. Only married Athenian women participated in this ritual, which aimed to promote fertility. In preparation, women would abstain from intercourse and oftentimes bathe as an act of purification. During this three-day affair, women would perform various acts of “fertility magic.” In addition, they would share lewd jokes and tales of their indecencies, and play with toys replicating both the male and female genitals.

This ritual, coupled with the Eleusinian Haloa festival, gave women the opportunity to release pent-up sexual frustration through liberal use of sex symbols, pornographic sweets, raucous activities, and free-range slut-shaming—for lack of a better phrase. During Haloa, according to Reckford, Greek women could “say the most ugly and shameful things to one another,” shooting insults at each other regarding sexuality and vulgarity, while proclaiming their own indiscretions.

5#Fun At The Carnival

According to Mikhail Bakhtin, a scholar of literary theory and philosophy, the Carnival of ancient literature was a free-for-all, where people would throw class division, respect, and sensitivity out the window. There was no “saying no,” and certainly no saying “too much.” Carnival was pure id. Suspend reality and imagine a scene of extravagance, with banquets of food and wine, laughter, and sex. At Carnival, everyone was equal, and even degrading remarks inspired a regenerative energy—though, that may be in part due to the number of drugs and intoxicants they used to strip inhibitions.

Arthur Edward Waite in his book A New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry says, “The Festivals were orgies of wine and sex: there was every kind of drunkenness and every aberration of sex, the one leading up to the other. Over all reigned the Phallus.”

These Carnival rituals date back to as early as the fifth century BC and were held during the spring equinox. It should come as no surprise that these festivals, called The Dionysian Mysteries, were dedicated to Dionysus, the Greek god of all your earthly desires and the enabler of all your poor decision-making. This carnival inspired the Roman equivalent, Bacchanalia.

Most of the initiation process for men and women are known thanks to a collection of frescoes preserved in the Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii. And, in all fairness, it is a bit reminiscent of what one might expect in Greek life initiation today. The murals a declaration of initiation at the feet of the priestess followed by a descent into the underworld (katabasis), before returning anew. Aristophanes, in his play The Frogs, assumes the origin of this ritual with descent of Dionysis into Hades.

6#Before Viagra, There Was Priapus

The Greeks had a very firm relationship with the phallus—more an obsession, really. In particular was Priapus, the Greek god equivalent to Dionysus, known for his extremely long and permanently erect penis. If you think you recognize the term, it’s because Priapus inspired the medical term priapism.

And even if Priapus didn’t play too well with the other gods, he was revered on Earth. The Priapeia contains a collection of 95 poems dedicated to the sexually driven vulgarity of Priapus.

With this gift of dirty pictures
from the tract of Elephantis
Lalage asks if the horny
deity could help her do it
just like in the illustrations

The law which (as they say) Priapus coined
for boys appear immediately subjoined
“Come pluck my garden’s contents without blame
if in your garden I can do the same.”

7#They Threw Some Serious Shade

Hipponax of Ephesus was a highly controversial iambic poet, even for ancient Greece. Where he excelled were his insults, which were raunchy and lewd and often satirical of the high (dignified) language of his targets.

In fact, as the story goes, he was so skillful at insults, they drove one victim to suicide. Hipponax was apparently after the daughter of Bupalus, but Hipponax’s deformed looks ultimately led to his rejection. In jest, Bupalus made a statue of Hipponax so ugly that Hipponax retaliated with accusations of Bupalus having an incestuous relationship with his mother:

“Bupalus, the mother-f—r with Arete, fooling with these words the Erythraeans preparing to draw back his damnable foreskin”

Other notable shade interpreted in Hipponax’s work includes the dissection of Bupalus’s name, Bou-phallus, meaning quite literally “ox phallus,” and the ever-charming “interprandial pooper,” meaning a person who must get up during the middle of a meal to defecate.

8#Using Sex For World Peace

Aristophanes, considered one of the most famous comic playwrights of ancient Greece, was known for his poignant commentary of the social and political landscapes of Athens during the late fifth and early fourth centuries BC. In one such play, Lysistrata, Aristophanes parodies warfare with a battle of the sexes.

The women use the men’s desires against them, forcing abstinence to compel peace between the Athenians and the Spartans. Women thus use their sexuality to put things in perspective for men, and to ultimately remind them of the “transcendental significance” of sex. According to the women, the men had forgotten this amidst their stubbornness over more trivial matters, like war.

In the end, Peace appears to the men as a young, naked woman to remind the men of their sexual desires to “plow a few furrows” and “work a few loads of fertilizer in.” The men, in turn, realize the importance of sex to their society enough that they put war behind them.

9#“Ars Amatoria”

A short cry from Karma Sutra was the work of one Ancient Roman poet, Ovid (43 BC–AD 17). His work provided instruction for sexual proclivities, with titles including “Amores” (Love), “Medicamina Faciei” (Remedies for Love) “Remedia Amoris,” and most infamously, “Ars Amatoria” (the Art of Love). While his work may sound wholesome, Ars Amatoria became a guidebook for lovers and adulterers alike.

In many ways, he created The Game, which confuses both men and women to this day. He advises men to let their women miss them—but not too much, while advising women to make their men jealous at times, to ensure they do not grow lax nor lazy. In the bedroom, Ovid details what form women should take, to not only maximize pleasure for themselves, but also to make it most pleasurable to the man’s gaze. In one sense, he moved away from the notion of women as possession—as they were equal players in the game of love—while on the other hand, reinforcing manipulative tactics to keep one’s lover constantly on their toes.

Though his language never broke into vulgarity, it was quite explicit in its detail, and in a matter of poor timing, resulted in his exile by Augustus, who was still coping with the news of his daughter’s copulations.

10#Martial

As with other emotional impulses, shock lies in the space between expectations and reality. Marcus Valerius Martialis, or Martial, was a Roman poet from first century, who was made famous by his 12 books of epigrams. To this day, Martial’s epigrams are shocking due to their obscene, and oftentimes graphic, language. If nothing else, their vulgarity sheds light on the type of work published at the time.

Epigrams 79 and 80 of Book III convey vulgarity in a distinct structure. In these epigrams, insults are initially targeted at the subjects’ character and are then redirected by insulting subjects’ sexual “short-cummings.” In Epigram 79, Martial begins by declaring:

“Sertorius finishes nothing, and starts everything. When he fornicates, I don’t suppose he completes.”

Martial’s sharp words pivot this insult more pointedly at Sertorius’s sexual incapability. Likewise, Epigram 80 introduces its subject with a more general observation followed by a hyper-sexualized observation.

“You talk of nobody, Apicius, speak ill of nobody, yet rumor says you have an evil tongue.”

While the former could pose as a general remark to Apicius’s soft-spoken character, the latter angles the reader to the true central insult: Apicius’s skill at oral sex. Here, “evil” is more likely a term for “wild,” suggesting that Apicius’s tongue causes his sexual partner to lose control and that he is skillful at giving head. The explicit quality of this language indicates the level of tolerance Ancient society had at the time regarding sex.

10 Brutal Realities Of Life In The Horde Of Genghis Khan

Genghis Kahn and his Mongolian hordes swept through Asia, slaughtering and conquering a huge part of the world. No army could stand in their way. By the time their conquests had ended, they had wiped out a tenth of the world’s population.

It took an intense and brutal army to pull it off. Fighters in the Mongolian army did not have the option to be weak. Life, in a Mongolian horde, meant giving up even the most basic of comforts and doing some absolutely horrifying things.

1#Mongolians Never Cleaned Their Clothes

The Mongolians of Genghis Khan’s time believed that contaminating water would anger the dragons that controlled its cycle. They feared that, if they dirtied the water, the gods would send a storm to destroy their homes—and so they did not wash anything.

Bathing in running water or washing your clothes was prohibited. Most of the Mongolian fighters would not even change their clothes. At most, they would beat their coats to get the lice out and put them right back on. They would wear the same thing, day after day, until it literally rotted off and could not be worn anymore.

They did not wash the dishes in water, either. Instead, they would wash their plates in the left-over broth from the last meal. Then they would pour the used broth back into the pot and cook their next meal in it.

It was smelly—but they took pride in that. There was a power to their stench. It would be considered an honor if a great Khan gave someone his cloak, not just because he had his clothes, but because he could now carry the Khan’s stench.

2#They Learned to Ride Horses When They Were Three

As soon as a Mongolian could walk, they learned to ride. Every family had a horse, whether they were wealthy or poor, soldiers or farmers. Even shepherds would take care of their flocks on horseback. They had to get ready young—so they started when they were three years old.

The Mongolians had custom saddles made for children, designed with a few extra safety features to make sure they did not get hurt. They wanted their kids to start practicing as soon as possible. It made a huge difference. When Europeans saw them, they wrote back that the little girls in Mongolia were better horse riders than most European men.

The kids learned archery, too. As soon as they started riding, they were given tiny bows and taught to shoot. For a Mongolian in the time of the great Khans, riding a horse and shooting a bow were as essential as learning to walk.

3#They Drank Blood from a Vein Cut in Their Horses’ Necks

The Mongolian army covered incredible distances. In a single day, they could travel 80 miles (129 km), a distance that, in their time, was completely unheard of. It took intense and vicious riding to do it, and they did not have time to stop for food.

To make the journey possible, they would put raw meat on their horses’ backs. It is believed that this was to tenderize the meat, so they could eat it on the go, although that is debated. Some now believe that the meat was for the horse, meant to help heal their sores while they pushed through incredible treks.

Marco Polo claimed that these warriors would ride for ten days straight without stopping long enough to make a fire. When they got thirsty, they would pierce a hole in the necks of their horses and drink the blood that came squirting out.

The horses helped them get drunk, too. They would ride female horses whenever possible and would milk them when they stopped. Then they would take that milk with them, letting it ferment into liquor for the road.

4#They Cut Open Animals’ Chests to Butcher Them

Mongolians barely ate vegetables. From time to time, they would gather a few wild plants or eat some food that had been offered to them by a surrendering army, but they mostly relied on meat and dairy.

Their diet was, essentially, the exact opposite of veganism—and the way they prepared it was the exact opposite of kosher. When they wanted to butcher an animal, they would tie the animal down, jam a knife into its chest, and cut it open. Then they would reach in, grab its heart and squeeze to fill the carcass up with blood.

They would tear out all of its internal organs and cook them up. Every part of the animal’s body would be put to use, usually boiled in a pot of broth, but, on special occasions, cooked on a skewer. The blood would be drained out of the body and worked into sausages.

Usually, they ate mutton, but they would eat horses when they could. Horses were usually saved for special occasions, but they ate whatever horse meat they could. According to one missionary who went to Mongolia, they would even eat the afterbirth of mares.

5#A Mongolian Man Could have 30 Wives

The Mongolians were strict about extra-marital sex. If a man was caught with a married woman, he could have his lips cut off. If they were in bed together, he could be killed. And if he was caught with an unmarried virgin, both the man and the woman would be put to death.

As long as you married them, though, a man could have as many women as he wanted—or, more accurately, as many as he could afford. He would have to pay a dowry for each one, and he would be expected to provide her with her own tent to live in. Some Mongolian men had thirty wives, and the Khans had hundreds.

The women just accepted that this was how life was. It is claimed that, after some men spent the night with his wife, he would invite in all of this other wives to share a drink together.

6#The Youngest Son Inherited His Father’s Wives

When a Mongolian’s life came to an end, they made sure that his wives were taken care of. His land and his possession were divided up among his sons, with the best bounty going to the youngest. He would get his father’s home, his slaves, and also his wives.

The boy would not be expected to marry his own mother, but he would be expected to provide for all of his father’s other wives. And while there were no rules saying he had to, he was allowed to take them as his own. It was not uncommon for a young man who had lost his father to make his stepmothers his wives and bring them into his tent.

7#They Used Psychological Warfare

One of the main ways the Mongolians became such effective killers was by using psychology. They could not have conquered so many nations by fighting alone—they needed to get as many as possible to surrender without having to waste the life of their men.

No matter the circumstances, they would hide their numbers. If the opposing army was bigger than theirs, they would put dummies on spare horses or light extra campfires to seem more imposing. If their army was bigger, they would ride their horses in single-file, with branches tied to their tails to mask them in a cloud of dust.

They were experts at scaring people. They would travel with their yurts, tents that they could set up before a siege as portable homes. In at least one case, they used the colors of these tents to terrify the people within a city’s walls. First, they put up white tents, telling them that if they surrendered now they would be spared. If they did not surrender, they would put up red tents, telling them that only the men would be killed. If the people were still not ready to fight, they would put up black tents, telling them that everyone inside would die.

8#They Massacred Whole Cities

The key to their psychological terror was their reputation for brutality. They needed their enemies to believe that if they did not surrender, every person in the city would be horribly killed. They did not use any tricks to get that reputation—they really did it.

If a city did not surrender, the Mongolian horde would massacre every single person inside. They rounded up the women and children and slaughtered them all. Sometimes they even rounded up the cats and the dogs and killed them for good measure. Their heads would be removed and they would make a pyramid of their skulls to let anyone who passed by know what happened if you angered a Khan.

The most horrible thing was what they did to pregnant women. According to an Arabian writer, the Mongolians would not stop at killing them. They would rip open her stomach and kill the unborn baby inside of her.

9#They Had to Kill Nobles without Spilling Blood

The Mongolians believed that blood contained a person’s spiritual essence. They did not dare spill the blood of a nobleman, believing it would defile the ground on which it fell. So, when they killed royalty, they had to find other ways to do it.

Usually, noblemen would be suffocated or drowned. If a member of the Khan’s family betrayed him, he would usually be rolled up in a carpet and thrown in a body of water. Sometimes, though, they got creative. Guyuk Khan took care of one of his rivals by sewing every orifice on her body shut and pushing her into a river.

They had to get creative with enemy nobles, as well. In one case, they trapped Russian princes under a board and held a feast on top of them to suffocate them without spilling their blood. In another, Genghis Khan had a man killed by pouring molten silver into his eyes.

10#They Catapulted Diseased Bodies over City Walls

The Mongolian army might have been the first to use biological warfare. While they swept into Europe, they were hit by the Black Plague—and they decided to use it to their advantage.

Their enemies had holed up inside of the city of Caffa, where the Mongolians had them surrounded. When the Black Plague started killing their people, though, they realized they could not stay forever. They wanted to make the biggest impact they could before they left—so they threw their dead over the city walls.

Any Mongolian who died of plague was put on a catapult and sent flying over the walls. On the other side, the people tried to get rid of these bodies by throwing them into the sea, but this just tainted their water supply. Soon, the plague had spread throughout the city.

A few people fled over the city walls and ran further west, but it was too late for them. They were already carrying the plague, and, as they ran out westward, they spread it through Europe.

10 Crazy Ways Kids Grew Up In The Inca Empire

The Inca Empire was prosperous from the mid-1430s to 1572 when Spain’s Francisco Pizarro conquered them. This civilization spread from most of Peru, Chile, Ecuador, and part of Southern Colombia. If you were lucky enough not to be part of the 25 percent of kids who died before age five, you would have had a tough upbringing. That doesn’t include all the strange and downright unsanitary things you’d have to endure.

1#The Ceremony That Killed Children

Photo credit: Live Science

Yes, Incas sacrificed their kids! This may be more of how a kid died instead of lived in the Inca Empire. It’s crazy to think about, but this ritual (called capacocha) was used for special events like a ruler’s death or victory in a battle. It was actually an honor for the chosen child’s family to have their kid sacrificed on the highest mountaintop in Peru. Incas would also sacrifice children to the gods to prevent droughts, widespread illness, etc.

Before the ceremony began, the chosen children were brought to the city’s capital, Cuzco. Tons of citizens gathered to feast there before taking the child up the mountain to sacrifice him or her. Although they didn’t discriminate based on gender, most of the children’s mummies found by archaeologists have been girls.

The kid was given alcohol and poison to drink. This caused the child to vomit and slowly die on the mountain—which could have taken weeks or months to travel to. The child was left to freeze to death if extreme dehydration didn’t take her first. Sometimes, a child was suffocated or died from a massive blow to the head.

2#The Incas Were Ageists

Photo credit: Claus Ableiter

The quipu (pictured above) was the Inca’s way of recording and keeping data. Although we still don’t know how to read a quipu, we do know that the Incas were kind of ageist. About twice a year, they took a census to record the number of people in the empire and to put each individual into one of 10 classes.

The Incas divided their citizens into groups based on age, with those 25–50 years old considered the most prosperous and important to the empire’s economy. The Incas counted them first and considered them higher in class. Next came those who were 60–70 years old, followed by 18- to 20-year-olds, then 10- to 17-year-olds, 5- to 9-year-olds, toddlers, and finally, babies.

This shows that young kids were not seen as beneficial to the Incas. It sounds terrible because the Incas did rely on sacrificing children. Their elders reportedly beat kids often until the children surpassed age nine—probably because kids really needed discipline in this empire.

3#Learning Advanced Skills As A Little Kid

Inca children, especially girls younger than nine, knew how to spin yarn made from llama and alpaca fur. Spanish drawings of the civilization show representations of Inca girls doing household chores at around five years old. They also knew how to brew beer.

Still, kids could not drink beer or eat certain foods like sugary, fatty types. They needed to be as healthy as possible for marriage. Teen boys were like shepherds to their llamas while the younger boys started learning how to trap birds and guinea pigs. Incas ate guinea pigs as a common dish.

Unsurprisingly, young girls were expected to be submissive and had to stay away from men until they were put in arranged marriages. They probably didn’t appear to be very feminine at first to the Spanish conquistadors because these girls had to keep their hair cut short and didn’t wear shoes. Their entire lives were spent in preparation for marriage and taking care of a family.

4#Sick Kids Had To Sit In Pee

Photo credit: filmmakeriq.com

If a child was very ill, the Incas believed that he could suck on the umbilical cord (that the parents had preserved) since the umbilical cord soaked up any evil from within the child. It’s unclear how they kept the umbilical cords. However, like the Egyptians, the Incas probably preserved body parts like this by keeping them cold in freezing mountain streams.

Getting a fever, like all kids do at one point or another, was a dreaded thing. At least, it probably would be for us now. This is because soaking in a huge tub filled entirely with the family’s urine supposedly healed kids who had a fever.

5#The Babies And Toddlers Were Treated More Like Things

Photo credit: elmundoverdetravel.com

A Spanish priest recorded how mothers took care of their babies. For fear of giving the babies too much attention or causing them to be constantly needy, the mothers would take the babies to a cold stream in the mountains and bathe them for days.

It wasn’t until the toddlers were two that they earned a name and official place in the family. This was probably because so many newborns and toddlers died in 15th-century Peru. The baby would continue to be taken to these “freezing baths” until they were about two years old. The mother would refrain from even hugging the baby in these early years of the baby’s life.

Of course, a mother would make a pouch sling that wrapped around her back. The baby would sit in the sling while the mother gathered herbs and did other outdoor chores. Once the baby turned two, he or she had a ceremony called rutuchicoy where family members and neighbors gathered to watch the child’s hair be cut for the first time.

6#Schooling Was Surprisingly Not Sexist (Sort Of)

Photo credit: filmmakeriq.com

Inca children between the ages of about eight or nine were taken from their homes to attend different schools. The girls and boys may have had different and separate learning to do, but they were fairly equal in their training.

Boys learned Quechua, the language spoken by the Incas. Meanwhile, the girls learned about brewing beer, Inca religion, cooking, and other special skills they would have to use every day.

Of course, only the prettiest girls were selected to go to these special houses for the aqllakuna, which is the word for these chosen women. The boys were also taught about their religion and history at these four-year schools in Cuzco.

It’s not uncommon for some cultures now to separate their females and males. The Incas seemed to be all about class status. Those pretty aqllakuna either became priestesses or wives to men in higher stations. The Sapa Inca, who was their leader, had hundreds of wives.

Noble or not, boys had to go to school to become warriors or husbands and trappers. It was common for boys to know how to farm. It should be noted that only the richer families could send their kids to school.

7#Changing Clothes Was Important If You Were A Kid

Photo credit: kids.nationalgeographic.com

At about age 14, boys changed out of their rags (if they were poor) and wore loincloths to symbolize that they had become men. This is largely because children could marry by the time they were in their teens.

At this age, boys also started putting large plugs in their earlobes. As the years went on, they continued to slowly increase the size of the plug earrings so as to stretch out their ears.

As boys continued to grow into men, they carried around pouches that were like purses. There, they kept cocoa leaves to chew on. The leaves were also good luck charms that were held close to their persons.

This shows that the girls were not given as much in terms of accessories or clothing. Nowadays, women are the ones who wear earrings and carry purses. Of course, young women wore dresses longer than the men’s tunics.

Fun fact: The Sapa Inca only wore a new outfit once. Then it was burned. Some nobility (such as the wives and sons of the Sapa Inca) wore clothing more than once but still wore many outfits. The Incas were masters in textiles and clothing, so they had many tunics and dresses along with blankets.

8#Kids Wouldn’t Have Normal-Shaped Skulls

Photo credit: blog.viventura.com

From the time that Incas were babies, their parents would wrap their heads to deform them to look like cones. Since younglings have soft skulls, it is easy to transform them into any shape.

It’s believed that the Incas did this out of the belief that the higher the head, the higher the mind and the closer to their gods. In some cultures, this practice is still in use today. It was very common among the Maya and other ancient civilizations.

Archaeologists found holes in some of the Incas’ skulls due to head injuries. Carving out a hole helped with the swelling if the Incas fought each other too violently with clubs. Surprisingly, this was a common practice.

9#Kids Were Probably Introduced To Sex And Marriage Too Young

Photo credit: Thomas Quine

The discovery of pots and statues of people in sexual positions shows that the Incas were accepting of all sexual activity. It was a cultural understanding that the Incas would have sex before marriage with their prospective spouses. It was also expected that young Incas would have a few lovers before marriage. Homosexual sex was also depicted on pottery.

Although it may seem that the Incas were more progressive in the areas of marriage and sex than some of today’s cultures, chastity was still expected of those chosen women (aqllakuna) until they were married. Knowing that girls were married between the ages of 12 and 14, this means that most of them must have been sexually active before then.

In fact, the Incas separated genders into three groups without much evidence of discrimination. There were straight men, straight women, and a third gender group that included transgender and homosexual individuals. This group was called Tinkuy. So it was possible to be a young homosexual child without feeling the need to hide from society.

10#Marriage Was More Of A Business Trial

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Men married at a reasonable age (around 20–25 or in their late teens), but women were often married before ages 14–15. The marriage ceremony was more of a business agreement between the two families. There was a feast, though, and a bit of a celebration. It’s believed that this ceremony was fast and not necessarily happy.

Every year, the leader of each village in the empire would line up all the available boys and girls and pair them off in arranged marriages. If two men wanted to marry the same woman, the parents would have to present reasons to the leader why their son should win her hand. The leader made the final decision, though.

Men of a lower status could only marry one woman. Luckily, the spouses were given a trial period of a few years. If the girl was not happy, she could return home. If the husband wasn’t happy with his wife, he could send her back to her home. It was the custom for the girls to move in with the husband after the husband’s family built them a home.

10 Bizarre Archaeological Discoveries Scientists Can’t Explain

Without archaeological puzzles, researchers wouldn’t have much of a career. Luckily for archaeologists, known objects turn up where they shouldn’t while unknown objects sometimes surface as one-of-a-kind, enormous structures built with dedication but no clear purpose.

10 Incredible Discoveries That Changed Ancient Archaeology

There is nothing quite like finding the first bone or brick of ancient remains. While such discoveries can take mere moments, understanding the whole story behind ruins, lost kingdoms, and old familiars can take decades. Archaeological sites can grind to a standstill, only moving forward again with the “story” when the next find falls into place like a lost puzzle piece. These additional discoveries can change long-held beliefs, open new mysteries, and even change the entire purpose of an ancient site.

1#De Palomares Tomb

Miguel de Palomares was one of the first Catholic Priests to arrive in Mexico after the Spanish conquest in 1521. His grave was discovered by accident when, in 2016, workers dug a pit for a lamp post. When archaeologists widened the space, they discovered a large slab with the name de Palomares carved on it. The two-meter-long gravestone marks an unusual burial place for a Catholic priest—beneath the floor of an Aztec temple.

For a long time, scholars were aware that the Spaniards erected churches over native religious sites. The behavior was labeled as a dominant display of whose god was better, in effect, a symbolic replacement of the local deities by Christianity. Now, it would appear that the Spaniards were a little more practical-minded. The Aztec temples had solid foundations and sturdy walls, all ready to be used. To save time, de Palomares’s particular temple’s floor was simply whitewashed and otherwise left untouched when it was turned into Mexico City’s first cathedral in 1524.

2#Victorian Tastes

A slice of the Victorian palate was revealed during construction work in London. In 2010, a demolition team took apart an old nightclub to make way for the Crossrail station. The club hailed from the 1970s but had been built over an even older site. Crosse & Blackwell had a factory there from 1830 to 1921, and archaeologists got a peek at the products that appealed to the Victorians.

Beneath the former nightclub, they found over 13,000 jars. Pots of Mushroom Catsup, jam, marmalade, and Piccalilli made up the discarded stash of flavors. The cistern in which they were found powered the factory’s steam engines up until the 1870s when it became a dump during an overhaul of the warehouse. The massive haul is valuable due to its size, rarity, and ability to reveal the tastes of the time. After shutting down, the factory became a cinema in 1927 before opening as a nightclub in 1976.

3#The Sterling Stones

At the entrance to Police Scotland Central Division’s Randolphfield HQ, based in Sterling, stands a pair of standing stones. For a long time, these were admired as 3,000-year-old monuments with a mysterious connection to a nearby ancient graveyard. It turns out, the pair could be honoring a much more recent event. Radiocarbon testing placed the stone sentinels closer to 1314.

Something of note did occur in the area during that year. The English and Scottish clashed in the Battle of Bannockburn. On the first day, under the lead of Sir Thomas Randolph (also the Earl of Moray), the Scots cleverly managed to redirect the route of the larger English army. This protected Sterling Castle from an intended attack and also helped the Scottish side to defeat their enemy in a historic encounter the next day. Much like a commemoration plaque today, it is believed that the standing stones were placed on the battlefield to mark Randolph’s success when he managed to throw the English off course.

4#The Edo Map

In 2017, experts at the Matsue History Museum decided to re-examine one of its artifacts, “Edo Hajimezu”—an illustration of an ancient building in Tokyo. The 400-year-old map showed Edo Castle, a vast structure that belonged to the feudal family Tokugawa. Continual rebuilding obscured Edo Castle’s original design until researchers realized that the old map showed it all along.

Drawn shortly after the castle was completed, between 1607 and 1609, it was a testimony to a clan that took no chances with their own safety. The design was highly defensive, more fort than home-sweet-home. Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616), who built Edo, was at war with the Toyotomi family for the top dog position.

The map revealed a great deal about walls, mounds, and the castle’s interior. The most fascinating defense architecture could be seen to the south of the castle. The gates and walls were planned in such a way that the enemy would have been forced to zigzag instead of advancing in a straight line. Unfortunately, this innovative feature did not survive to modern times.

5#House Of Gates

It is hard to imagine that finding a gate at a place called the “House of Gates” would surprise anyone, but this one did. Beit She’arim (Hebrew for “House of Gates”) is a UNESCO world heritage site located in northern Israel. When excavations in 2016 turned up a mammoth gateway, the diggers were stunned. It included half of what appeared to have been a fortified wall with doors and a tower.

During the Roman and Byzantine eras, Beit She’arim was a hub of Jewish culture and law. However, the town remained small and thus far, assumed to have had no need for protective city walls. So convinced were the experts that they believed the word “gates” in its ancient name could not be literal. They even skewed it as Beit Sharay, which means “court.” Since the town was the headquarters of the Jewish judicial council, the theory fit snugly.

The discovery of the imposing limestone gates forced archaeologists to rethink the town’s name and purpose. Dating to Roman times, there is even the intriguing possibility that the gatehouse is the first ruins of an unknown Roman fortress at the site.

6#Kingdom Of Rheged

The Galloway Picts Project was started in 2012 to unravel the history behind rock carvings discovered in Trusty’s Hill Fort. When their meaning became clear, or rather what researchers believe they represent, it recovered a lost kingdom. Nobody was looking for Rheged when they first began studying the Pictish symbols on the bedrock. They were unique to the area, which made for a good archaeological riddle. Also, while its exact location was not known, the sixth-century kingdom was thought to be somewhere in Cumbria.

The inscriptions did not confirm that there was once a community of Picts in Galloway, but instead hinted heavily at a royal citadel from the Dark Ages (around A.D. 600). The excavations produced enough evidence to suggest that Trusty’s Hill was once at the center of Rheged. If so, the rediscovery of the kingdom is a fantastic find. Rheged was a prominent powerhouse among the northern kingdoms, and its influence was felt throughout Scotland’s literature and history.

7#Mayan Superhighways

Ancient highways exist in the jungles of northern Guatemala. Covering an area of over 150 miles, it first came to the public’s attention in 1967 when British explorer Ian Graham published a map of El Mirador that included the roads.

El Mirador was once the largest city-state with around a million citizens living inside its boundaries of 833 square miles. Due to being covered by thick rain forest, the causeways proved difficult to study. To bypass the secretive forest canopy, a laser project was started in 2006. After scanning the Mirador Basin from the air, remarkable 3D images showed massive superhighways and other structures that surprised even the research team.

Highly detailed pyramids, canals, terraces, and animal corrals were revealed. The most exciting discovery was the scope of the 17-road network. Snaking over the land, at some places as far as 25 miles, the causeways were up to 20 feet high and 130 feet wide. They were built at different times, between 600-400 B.C. and 300 B.C.-A.D. 100. The sophisticated road system united the large state by allowing the transport of supplies and people.

8#Ancient Construction Site

The archaeological site of Qantir-Piramesse once hosted Egypt’s capital, Pi-Ramesse, under the rule of Pharaoh Ramesses the Great. Established between 1300 B.C. and 1100 B.C., no substantial ruins remain of what was likely the biggest human settlement during the Bronze Age.

A German team used a novel way to find subterranean leftovers of the great city. For an incredible sixteen years (1996-2012), they magnetically mapped the area. Since ancient mud-brick buildings have a different magnetic “look” than normal earth, foundations and walls soon started to appear. They were enormous. Upon closer inspection, researchers felt they were looking at a construction site. The large-scale restoration project was perhaps set up around a palace and temple complex.

Not far away was a pit with mortar at the bottom. Touchingly, the footprints of a toddler were preserved in this layer. Something else was found in the pit, and it could change the face of Egyptian art. Fragments of plaster may sound mundane, but these appeared to belong to a decorative fresco, something almost unheard of during this particular era.

9#The Montezuma Attack

One of Arizona’s landmarks received a tragic overhaul of its past. The two buildings, carved from a limestone cliff almost 900 years ago, form a part of Montezuma Castle National Monument. For more than eight decades, the disappearance of the inhabitants was one of the Southwest’s greatest mysteries.

Signs that the dwellings suffered a serious fire was filed away as a “decommissioning ritual” done after the evacuation. However, Hopi traditions tell of their ancestors, the Sinagua, being attacked on site—and the story includes the use of arson as a weapon. The Tonto Apache have a similar tale but of their ancestors trying to flush the Sinagua out with fire. Modern investigations provided the archaeological evidence to these tales.

The period between 1375-1395 is significant. Pottery was produced and the blaze happened, indicating that people lived there until the last moments. Four bodies found together in the 1930s were thought to predate the flames, but another look revealed their gruesome end. Three had fractured skulls. All had cut and burn marks sustained shortly before death. A brutal attack explains the sudden departure, but archaeologists still do not know what sparked the assault.

10#Sahara Castles

The Garamantes was an enigmatic African people. In 2011, an expedition to Libya to find out more about the mysterious Garamantes was cut short by civil war. Another attempt, using satellite photography, gave researchers a good view of over 100 fortified settlements belonging to the lost civilization.

Walled towns and villages stood abandoned in the Sahara 620 miles south of Tripoli. Dating A.D. 1-500, the mud-brick structures were masterfully constructed, and there are still walls standing up to 13 feet (4 meters) high. All earlier understanding of the culture came from the Garamantes’ capital, Jarma, about 125 miles to the northwest.

Jarma revealed a powerful African kingdom with a writing system, metallurgy, trading, and textiles. The Sahara fortresses added another remarkable achievement. In the super-dry environment, they created oases where crops flourished. They did this with a complex subterranean canal system that brought groundwater to the surface. Why the fortresses were abandoned is unknown. Most likely, disappearing water sources and trade routes collapsing with the fall of the Roman Empire contributed.

10 Disturbing Facts About The Armenian Genocide

2015 marked the hundredth year since the Armenian Genocide began, where it is approximated that 1.5 million of the two million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire lost their lives. The Ottoman Empire’s meticulous cover-up of events, as well as the overwhelming scale of their systematic barbarism, means that the real number will never be known and greatly fluctuates from source to source. Such is the nature of genocide, that the perpetrators wish to eradicate any record of the victimized. From the sources that have survived, we have compiled the following ten disturbing facts about the Armenian Genocide.

10#The Three Pashas Led the Ottoman Empire into War and Enacted the Genocide

The Three Pashas is the collective name given to Talât Pasha, Grand Vizier (the equivalent of Prime Minister); Enver Pasha, Minister of War; and Djemal Pasha, Minister of the Navy; during World War I.

Talât Pasha’s hatred towards Armenians was longstanding. In his memoirs, Danish philologist Johannes Østrup contends that Talât shared his intent for the complete annihilation of Armenians with him as early as 1910. He quotes Talât as saying, “If I ever come to power in this country, I will use all my might to exterminate the Armenians.”


His wish for power came true in 1913, by way of a coup. The following year, the Ottoman Empire entered World War I, and then a year later began the systematic murder of Armenians.

Following the Empire’s defeat in the war, all three fled the country. The new government vilified them as the reason for the Empire’s debilitating participation in the war, and they sporadically acknowledged the Three Pashas for their overwhelming crimes against humanity.

When referring to the massacres that took place under the Three Pashas’ rule, Abdülmecid II, the last Caliph of Islam from the Ottoman Dynasty, is quoted as saying, “They are the greatest stain that has ever disgraced our nation and race.”

9#One of Hitler’s Early Co-Conspirators Was a Witness to the Armenian Genocide

Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter was the German vice-consul in Erzerum at the time of the Armenian genocide. He condemned the Ottoman Empire’s practices in his writings as a policy of annihilation.

Upon his return to Germany, however, he became deeply involved with the Nazi movement, developing a close relationship with Hitler. He was shot and instantly killed during the failed 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, marching with his arm linked to Hitler’s. Hitler would go on to dedicate the first part of Mein Kampf to Scheubner-Richter. While records of their conversations are scarce, it is a likely leap that Hitler was well-versed on Scheubner-Richter’s writings and experiences.

On August 22, 1939, Hitler gave a speech at his Obersalzberg home. It was a week before the German invasion of Poland, and he expressed to his Wehrmacht commanders his wish for the total annihilation of the Poles. Louis P. Lochner, who had sources within the Nazi government, claimed he had been given an original transcript of the speech, which he then published in his 1942 book, What About Germany? It quotes Hitler as saying, “I have put my Death’s Head formations in place with the command relentlessly and without compassion to send into death many women and children of Polish origin and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space we need. Who after all is today speaking about the destruction of the Armenians?”

Although it is a matter of content how much of a direct influence the Armenian genocide was on the Holocaust—the similarities are clear, as well as Hitler’s knowledge of the atrocities.

8#Able Men Were Put to Death and the Remaining Armenians Were Marched into the Desert

The genocide’s starting date is often cited as April 24, 1915, when up to 270 Armenian community leaders were forcefully removed from Constantinople and moved to Ankara. Predating this, the Ottomans had moved all Armenian people in the army to unarmed labor battalions, to make their eventual extermination easier to enforce.

Once all able-bodied Armenian men of the Ottoman Empire were slain, women, children, the infirm, and the elderly were marched into the desert under the guise of resettlement. In total, up to 1.5 million Armenians died in the genocide. At the start of World War I, two million Armenians were living within the Ottoman Empire, meaning three out of four were killed.

Many Armenians died from starvation and dehydration. Females of all ages were habitually raped and left for dead. Mass shootings, drowning, burning, and poisoning were also common. People who managed to cling to life for the entirety of the death march were then placed in concentration camps, where they were massacred.

7#ISIS Is Blamed for Destroying the Armenian Genocide Memorial Church in Deir ez-Zor

Construction of the Armenian Genocide Memorial Church reached completion in November 1990, and it was consecrated on May 4, 1991. The church was an important pilgrimage site for many Armenians. The greatest massing of people happening every year on the 24th of April, to mark the commencement date of the Armenian Genocide in 1915. Thousands would visit to pay their respects.

Deir ez-Zor, Syria, is significant because it was the final destination point for the Armenians who marched through the desert. The exact location of the church was once the site of a concentration camp, killing center, and burial place for the Armenians who managed to survive the death march.

The church was blown up on September 21, 2014, as Armenia was celebrating the 23rd anniversary of its independence, and mere months before the 100th anniversary of the genocide. ISIS have been labeled as the likely culprits.

6#The Greek and Assyrian Genocides Happened at the Same Time

The Armenians suffered the most deaths during the Ottoman Empire’s attempts to eradicate Christian minorities, in and around the period of World War I, and thus, the Armenian Genocide is often the focus point of discussion. However, running concurrently with this was the genocide of both the Assyrians and the Greeks.

The Assyrian death count has been estimated to be around 300,000, with the killings largely happening around the Empire’s border with Persia. In the town of Midyat, where 25,000 Assyrians lost their lives, there was a small uprising, which was ultimately squashed by the Empire. For revolutionary acts such as this one, the Ottoman Empire’s murder of Assyrians has been classified by some Turkish historians as a response to rebellion, which can be classified as a massacre but not genocide.

The Greek death count has been estimated to be around 750,000. In 1923, a population exchange happened between Turkey and Greece, effectively ending the bloodshed, where two million people were forcibly removed from their homes. Approximately 1.2 million Christian Greeks were relocated from Trabzon, the Pontic Alps, the Caucasus, Asia Minor, and Eastern Thrace. In return, around 400,000 Muslims were kicked out of Greece and welcomed into Turkey.

5#The Armenian Revolutionary Federation Took Retaliatory Action

Known as Operation Nemesis, between 1920 and 1922, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation assassinated seven prominent Ottoman and Azerbaijani officials responsible for the genocide. Djemal Pasha and Talât Pasha—two-thirds of the group known as the Three Pashas, were killed by the ARF.

Both had fled the invading allies at the end of World War I and were largely blamed as the reason for the Ottoman Empire’s entry into the war. They had been sentenced, in their absence, to death through their home country’s legal system. Their state executions would never happen.

The Armenian Revolutionary Federation tracked down Djemal Pasha in Tiflis, Soviet Georgia, and shot him dead, along with two aides. Talât Pasha was shot dead by Soghomon Tehlirian in Berlin on March 15, 1921. The ARF had told Tehlirian not to flee, in order to increase the visibility of the Armenian people’s suffering with the ensuing trial. It was a successful tactic—the trial attracting much international press coverage.

Tehlirian was acquitted of murder. His defense successfully argued that although he had killed Talât Pasha, the ordeal of the Armenian Genocide had affected his mental state. Tehlirian stated to the judge, “I do not consider myself guilty because my conscience is clear . . . I have killed a man but I am not a murderer.”

4#The Three Pashas Used World War I as a Smokescreen for Genocide

It was key to the Three Pashas that acts of genocide should be carried out hurriedly while the fog of war was still in play. By doing so, foreign hands would be tied up with other pressing issues and would have no time to sort out any humanitarian crises.

They were even known to brag of their actions. Talât Pasha is quoted as saying to a German embassy representative, who brought up the genocide, “Turkey is taking advantage of the war in order to thoroughly liquidate its internal foes, i.e. the indigenous Christians, without being thereby disturbed by foreign intervention.”

Although the majority of atrocities took place during the war years, an official end-date is a matter of semantic contention, with some arguing it to be as late as 1923—five years after the Three Pashas fled the country following their defeat in World War I.

3#Turkey Has Streets and Public Buildings Named after the Perpetrators of the Genocide

The denial of the genocide has been so successful that many Ottoman politicians who helped with the liquidation process are remembered favorably in parts of Turkey. The Three Pashas themselves lend their names to boulevards, avenues, highways, and municipal districts. They also have schools named after them.


In 2003, Cemal Azmi, also known as the “Butcher of Trabzon” had a school named after him, too. It is documented that he was particularly cruel to children, who he would drown by the thousands. A method often employed was to send boats out into the Black Sea and capsize them.

Young girls regularly met a worse fate. During the Trabzon trials in 1919, an eyewitness stated that Azmi would have orgies with Armenian girls in a hospital that he transformed into his own personal “pleasure dome”, after which the girls would all be killed.

Azmi is one of the seven notable leaders assassinated by the ARF as part of Operation Nemesis.

2#Armenians Have Not Received Reparations

The Ottomans seized the money and possessions of the Armenians. However, to this day, nothing that belonged to an Armenian before the genocide has been returned to its rightful owner. The widespread destruction and emotional duress have never been compensated for in any form, either.

Much of the argument against reparations stems from the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, meaning the offending power no longer exists to be held accountable. In its place is Turkey, and those who favor Armenian reparations believe that Turkey is thus responsible for repaying the debts incurred by the Ottoman Empire. After all, all land and property that the Ottomans stole is now Turkish land and property.

There is a precedent in place with Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, who have received, on occasion, forms of compensation for the genocide they suffered. Thus, another, often argued, potential reason for Turkey’s denial of the Armenian genocide emerges—if there was no genocide, then survivors do not have to be legally treated in the same way as survivors of other genocides.

1#Turkey Still Deny That a Genocide Ever Happened

Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, has always denied that what began in 1915 was a systematic genocide of Armenians. Azerbaijan is the only other country whose government actively deny it was genocide. Many countries refuse to make a conclusive statement one way or the other.

Turkish governments have been accused of actively attempting to suppress usage of the term “genocide,” advising prominent politicians, journalists, and scholars, from around the globe, to adopt a policy of reduction or silence.

This denial of the term “genocide” becomes painfully ironic when considering that the word was first used by Raphael Lemkin in his 1943 book, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, to give a name to these specific atrocities and those of the Nazis. He defined genocide as, “A coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.” So, with this in mind, these atrocities are pretty much the textbook definition of genocide.