Incan Girl Who Had Been Frozen For 500 Years

Scientists say that her organs are intact and its as if she had died just a few weeks ago. From testing the samples of her hair they could determine the type of diet she was on before her death. This lead to the discovery that the Incan fattened their children before killing them. Months or even years before the sacrifice pilgrimage these children were given diets which were those of the elite, consisting of maize and animal proteins.

Well initially this might look to you like any normal girl being treated by a doctor,the girl in the photo is not any normal living girl but the mummy of a 15 year old child who has been dead for about 500 years. 

She was found in 1999 near Llullaillaco’s 6739 meter summit. An Argentine-Peruvian expedition found the perfectly preserved body and she was nicknamed “La doncella” which means “The maiden”. According to the Inca she was chosen to go and live with the gods. But in reality she was a sacrifice to the Inca Gods and had been brutally killed in the name of religion. 

Judging from the condition of the body, it is believed that she was drugged and left to die in the mountains. It would not have taken much time for her to die due to the high exposure. The Incan high priests took their victims to high mountaintops for sacrifice. As the journey was extremely long and arduous, especially so for the younger victims, coca leaves were fed to them to aid them in their breathing so as to allow them to reach the burial site alive. Upon reaching the burial site, the children were given an intoxicating drink to minimize pain, fear, and resistance, then killed them either by strangulation, a blow to their head or by leaving them to lose consciousness in the extreme cold and die of exposure. 

Many Inca children were offered as sacrifice during or after important events, such as the death of the Sapa Inca(who was the emperor) or during a famine. These sacrifices were known as capacocha

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The Oldest Living Things On Earth

Happy birthday if you’re 100 million years old today. Compared with the oldest living things on earth you’re still a youngster. Enjoy your youth!

1. Cyanobacteria – survived every major extinction – 2.8 billion years.
2. Nautilus – the only shelled cephalopod – 500+ million years.
3. Jellyfish – 505+ million years.
4. Sponge – 580 million years.
5. Horseshoe crab – 445 million years.
6. Coelacanth – this fish species have been around for 380 million years.
7. Gingko Biloba tree – the only living representative of the order Ginkgoales – 270 million years.
8. Horseshoe shrimp – unchanged for 200 million years.
9. Sturgeon – 200 million years old.
10. Martialis Heureka species of ant – 120 million years old.

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Unusual Mummified Animals (5 pics)

The ancient Egyptians mummified animals as well as humans.
Animals of all kinds were important to the Ancient Egyptians, and
featured in the daily secular and religious lives of farmers, craftsmen,
priests and rulers. Animals were reared mainly for food, whilst others
were kept as pets. The bodies of sacred animals and some pets were
often mummified and given elaborate burials.
A queen’s pet gazelle was readied for eternity with the same lavish care
as a member of the royal family. In fine, blue-trimmed bandages and a
custom-made wooden coffin, it accompanied its owner to the grave in
about 945 B.C. Egyptian Museum, Cairo

Lovingly preserved, a hunting dog whose bandages fell off long ago
likely belonged to a pharaoh. As a royal pet, it “would have been fed
nibbly bits and spoiled rotten,” says Salima Ikram. When it died, it was
interred in a specially prepared tomb in the Valley of the Kings.


A raptor with an appliquéd face holds only a few bones.

Votive mummies, each buried with a prayer, are infinitely varied but
not always what they seem. A cunning crocodile is a fake—it has
nothing inside.


Baboon harbors a secret that helps identify it as a pet: An x-ray
revealed missing canine teeth, probably removed to keep the creature
from nipping royal fingers.

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Mummified Remains of 2000 Year Old Egyptian Cat

The Mystery of a mummified Egyptian cat left languishing in a Roseland attic has been partly solved.

Robert Gray, from Portscatho, inherited the remarkable object from his father, renowned Egyptologist Peter Gray, who died in 1984. Mr Gray never knew what the arcane package might contain, as many mummified cats were sold by disreputable traders in the ancient world with nothing but rags inside. However, X-rays carried out at a Truro veterinary surgery have clearly shown the figure of a cat that has been preserved for more than 2,000 years.

Mr Gray said: "My father acquired the cat in the 1970s as a token of thanks from a museum.

"It's been in the loft in Portscatho, where my father had a house; it's been languishing there for 50 years."

Mr Gray said he had always been unsure whether the mummy bundle actually contained a cat: "You went to the mummifiers and said you wanted to send goodwill to the afterlife and some naughty mummifiers would take your money and stuff a bunch of rags inside."

Mr Gray met Jane Marley, from the Royal Cornwall Museum, to open the X-rays, taken at Clifton Villa Vets.

Mr Gray said: "History was made today. I felt quite emotional when I opened it up. It's something that has lived with me for most of my life and it's revealed itself today."

The X-ray showed the cat's neck was intact, he said, which suggested the cat was a prized pet rather than deliberately killed as a sacrifice to the gods.

Mrs Marley, curator of archaeology and world culture at the museum, said: "It was very exciting to see the X-ray. It's a lovely face and the wrapping is very good – it's been very well kept."

Mr Gray's father also played a part in the story of the 2,500-year-old mummy of Iset Tayef Nakht, kept out of sight in storage at the Royal Cornwall Museum until Dr Gray inquired about it in the 1960s.

It is now the River Street museum's most popular exhibit.

The moment of revelation was filmed by the Cornwall Channel. The programmes are broadcast on Monday at 9pm on Sky channel 212 or Freesat 401. Via — Link

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The 10,000 Bedroom Nazi Hotel But Never Used

Stretching for over three miles along the white sandy beach on Germany's Baltic Sea island of Ruegen, lies the world’s biggest hotel with 10,000 bedrooms all facing the sea. But for 70 years since it was built, no holiday maker has ever stayed there. This is hotel Prora, a massive building complex built between 1936 and 1939 by the Nazis as part of their "Strength through Joy" ("Kraft durch Freude," KdF) programme. The aim was to provide leisure activities for German workers and spread Nazi propaganda. Locals call Prora the Colossus because of its monumental structure.

Prora lies on an extensive bay between the Sassnitz and Binz regions, known as the Prorer Wiek, on the narrow heath (the Prora) which separates the lagoon of the Großer Jasmunder Bodden from the Baltic Sea. The complex consist of eight identical buildings that extend over a length of 4.5 kilometres and are roughly 150 metres from the beach. A workforce of 9,000 took three years to build it, starting in 1936, and the Nazis had long-term plans for four identical resorts, all with cinema, festival halls, swimming pools and a jetty where Strength Through Joy cruise ships would dock.

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Hitler's plans for Prora were ambitious. He wanted a gigantic sea resort, the "most mighty and large one to ever have existed", holding 20,000 beds. All rooms were planned to overlook the sea, while corridors and sanitation are located on the land side. Each room of 5 by 2.5 metres was to have two beds, a wardrobe and a sink. There were communal toilets and showers and ballrooms on each floor. In the middle, a massive building was to be erected that could be converted into a military hospital in case of war.

War, indeed happened, before the building could be completed and Hitler’s priorities changed. He transferred the construction workers to build the V-Weapons plant at Peenemünde instead. During the Allied bombing campaign, many people from Hamburg took refuge in one of the housing blocks, and later refugees from the east of Germany were housed there. By the end of the war, these buildings housed female auxiliary personnel for the Luftwaffe. After the war, Prora was used as a military outpost for the East German army. After German reunification in 1990, part of it was used by the Military Technical School of the Bundeswehr and later to house asylum seekers from the Balkans.

Today, the whole place is still pretty much deserted except for a few blocks that has been repurposed for other uses. In 2011, one block was converted into a 400-bed youth hostel and the plan now is to turn Prora into a modern holiday resort with 300 beds that includes tennis courts and swimming pool and a small shopping center.

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2000 years old tree in South Africa known as Tree of life

2000 years old tree in South Africa known as Tree of life

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Amazing Graveyard of 900 Year Old Trees — Deadvlei

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Trees in a desert is an unusual enough sight but there is always the occasional oasis. Sometimes, though, the water dries up completely and given the right conditions, reminders of life can be left behing. It is estimated that these acacia trees have been dead for more than nine hundred years. Frozen in time, their twisted and contorted branches immovable even against the occasional breeze, Sleepy Hollow comes, as it were, to the desert. 

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It is little wonder that Deadvlei, a clay pan in the Namib-Naukfluft Park in Namibia attracts many photographers willing to risk the arduous journey in order to capture its intense beauty. At dawn, when the trees are silhouetted against the lemon and apricot colored sand dunes it is a perfect time for photographers to take advantage of what they call the Golden Hour. The often cloudless, dazzlingly blue sky just adds to the stunning dichotomy of color.

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Deadvlei derives its name from two languages. Self evidently, the first syllable works as an adjective and one that is instantly recognizable to any English speaker. The second, vlei, means lake or marsh in Afrikaans. The clay pan does give the impression of a lake – and that its trees are quite dead beyond argument. They last lived when William the Conqueror invaded England.

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The pan was formed when the nearby Tsauchab River flooded. This created pools and allowed the acacia and camel thorn trees to grow and flourish. Then, nine hundred years ago, the climate changed and the area was h it by drought. The sand dunes encroached on the pan, effectively cutting off the trees from the river.

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What happened next is something quite amazing. The trees did not, as you might expect, become petrified which is where the organic materials of a tree are slowly replaced by minerals. Rather, the sun scorched the trees, rendering them as black as charcoal. The dryness of the area was such that the wood could not decompose because it was so dry. The trees of Deadvlei are desiccated rather than petrified.

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Deadvlei is situated near the more famous salt pan of Sossusvlei, the name of which spookily translates in to the place of no return. It also happens to be surrounded by the biggest sand dunes in the world, the largest of which is known as Big Daddy.  These dunes have no doubt contributed to the conditions needed to preserve the trees in their dried out state, a scorched testament to their own destruction.

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Don’t be fooled, though, life always manages to find a way. Clinging to life in the pan are beetles, gerbils, ostriches, oryx, and a few other species. The plants and animals manage to cling on to their precarious existence thanks to a light morning mist which sweeps in each morning from the coast of the Atlantic ocean many miles away.

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