theoddmentemporium:

Some day I will go to Aarhus
To see his peat-brown head,
The mild pods of his eye-lids,
His pointed skin cap.

In the flat country near by
Where they dug him out,
His last gruel of winter seeds
Caked in his stomach,

Naked except for
The cap, noose and girdle,
I will stand a long time. - From ‘The Tollund Man’ by Seamus Heaney. 

Bog Bodies

Image One: Hanged with a leather cord and cast into a Danish bog 2,300 years ago, Tollund Man was probably a sacrifice. Like other bodies found preserved in Europe’s peat bogs, he poses haunting questions. How was he chosen? Who closed his eyes after death? And what god demanded his life?

Image Two: Oldcroghan Man was found without a head or legs at the foot of a hill that has marked a border in Ireland since ancient times. Today two townlands come together at that spot, west of Dublin. Two thousand years ago it served as the boundary of two kingdoms—the territories of Tuath Cruachain and Tuagh na Cille. Eamonn Kelly, keeper of Irish antiquities at the National Museum of Ireland, believes Oldcroghan Man was sacrificed to a fertility goddess at the inauguration of a new king, then dismembered and sown in pieces along the kingdom’s border to bring protection and prosperity. 

Image Three: Some 1,600 years after his death, “Red Franz” still has much of his hair and beard, though the bog waters have dyed it red. From deformities in his bones, it appears that he spent much of his life on horseback. Recent studies of his body, found a century ago in Germany, have determined that he survived an arrow wound and a broken shoulder and was killed when someone slit his throat.

Image Four: Mutilated by the iron rods of workers dredging peat from a Dutch bog, Yde Girl’s body offers clues to her death. The band of fabric around the 16-year-old’s throat suggests she was strangled. She may have been chosen for sacrifice because of a deformity revealed by a CT scan: a curvature in her spine.

dropthe-bass:

edwardspoonhands:

Honestly, Tvyek is pretty miraculous. It’s permeable to water vapor but not to water, it’s nearly impossible to tear, but can be easily cut. It’s cheap and made entirely without binding chemicals. In addition to being used for wristbands, it’s used to wrap construction sites to keep out water during construction, for tear-resistant envelopes at Fed-Ex, coveralls for mechanics, and my wallet, actually.

Fun tip, though it looks like paper, Tyvek is plastic, and cannot be recycled with paper.

(Source: sweetsthehuman, via king-arthurs-emu)

theoddmentemporium:

Lina Medina: Youngest Mother in History

Lina Medina is the youngest confirmed mother in medical history, giving birth at the age of five years, seven months and 17 days. From a remote village in Peru, in 1939 Medina was brought to a hospital by her parents due to increasing abdominal size. She was originally thought to have had a tumor, but her doctors determined she was in her seventh month of pregnancy.

A month and a half after the original diagnosis Medina gave birth to a boy by a caesarean section necessitated by her small pelvis. Her case was reported in detail by Dr. Edmundo Escomel, including the additional details that her [first menstrual cycle] had occurred at eight months of age; that she had prominent breast development by the age of four; and that by age five her figure displayed pelvic widening and advanced bone maturation. When doctors performed the caesarean to deliver her baby, they found she already had fully mature sexual organs from precocious puberty.

Medina’s son weighed 2.7 kg (6.0 lb; 0.43 st) at birth and was named Gerardo. He was raised believing that Medina was his sister, but found out at the age of 10 that she was his mother. He grew up healthy but died in 1979 at the age of 40 of a bone marrow disease. Medina has never revealed the father of the child nor the circumstances of her impregnation. Although Lina’s father was arrested on suspicion of child sexual abuse, he was later released due to lack of evidence. Suspects were her father, her 9-year-old mental defective brother, a drunk villager, or one of her relatives during one of frequent festivities celebrated by Andean Indians which often ended up in orgies in which rape was not uncommon. 

[Image sources: 1 : 3]

Red Worm Lizard (Amphisbaenia alba)

Amphisbaena alba is widespread in South America and has been described as common in parts of its wide range. It can be found in a wide variety of habitats including Rainforests, savannah, and altered and disturbed habitats. This subterranean animal is carnivorous, feeding on a variety of invertebrates and small vertebrates.

(read more: IUCN)          (photo: Diogo B. Provete)

(Source: rhamphotheca, via thewaywardfox)

aleclikeswhales:

theoddmentemporium:

An anti-masturbation device. The rare 19th century item is made of copper and was designed to be worn by boys so they could not commit the ‘sin’. Attached to a belt it would have encased the genitalia. The bizarre antique dates back to around 1880 and was used in Catholic France.

Ummmmmmm ….

notactuallythor:

Sword, mid-1st century B.C.; Late Iron Age

This sword offers eloquent testimony to the value that Celts placed on war and weaponry. Celtic artists often ingeniously integrated animal and human forms in the decoration of precious objects; here a warrior serves as the dramatic hilt for a double-edged sword. With its carefully defined features and finely drawn curls, the figure’s head contrasts with the abstract form of the limbs and body. The arms and legs are V-shaped, terminating in round knobs, while the body is made up of three turned ring moldings. The scabbard, now amalgamated to the iron blade, still displays much of its original ornamentation in the form of three small hemispheres on the front upper end, a molding element at the tip, and an elaborate loop at the back for attaching the scabbard to a belt. Swords with an anthropoid hilt are characteristic of Celtic Europe in the first century B.C., with some fifty surviving from this period. Their inclusion in richly outfitted graves suggests that they were the valued property of aristocratic warriors. They may have been meant to enhance the power of the owner, or perhaps served as talismans in battle.

Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

(via fyeahswords)

theoddmentemporium:

Original Greek statues were brightly painted, but after thousands of years, those paints have worn away. MORE.

foreverstarving:

thevegancheese:

internetcultureenthusiast:

Say hello to mechanically separated chicken. It’s what all fast-food chicken is made from—things like chicken nuggets and patties. Also, the processed frozen chicken in the stores is made from it.

Basically, the entire chicken is smashed and pressed through a sieve—bones, eyes, guts, and all. it comes out looking like this.

There’s more: because it’s crawling with bacteria, it will be washed with ammonia, soaked in it, actually. Then, because it tastes gross, it will be reflavored artificially. Then, because it is weirdly pink, it will be dyed with artificial color.

But, hey, at least it tastes good, right?

High five, America!

And people think tofu is gross? What the fuck. Seriously, people, you need to rethink your eating habits an entire lifestyle. Please go vegan.

This picture is actually a description of how I feel right now

Hey, this was posted by a joke blog, but there’s still going to be people who buy into it totally, as evidenced by SuperVegan up there.

First off, click the source. It’s an art piece.

Here’s what mechanically separated meat actually looks like:

Significantly less disgusting.

And no, it’s not what all fast food is made of. It’s not even what most fast food is made of. USDA requires that products using MSM are labeled as such. Your lunch meat is more likely to be made of this than your chicken mcnuggets.

It’s held to the same standards as unprocessed meat, so it doesn’t include “bones, eyes, guts, and all.”

As far as it being “soaked in ammonia,” it’s occasionally treated with small amounts of ammonium hydroxide to lower the acidity and retard bacterial growth. Ammonium hydroxide is a common food additive that’s deemed safe by the FDA and the FSIS.

That took like five minutes to find out, as opposed to blindly trusting some blogger (who is really funny by the way. Go follow Internet Culture Enthusiast. It’s like, right up there).

theoddmentemporium:

The Giant Colon
A circus sideshow performer who was billed as both the “Balloon Man” and the “Human Windbag” has a part of himself on permanent display in the Mütter Museum. A grotesquely enlarged colon and severe constipation gave the poor man an over-sized and unusually shaped abdomen. While he made his unusual appearance into his occupation, his affliction ultimately killed him before he even reached the age of 30. An autopsy of the circus performer found his colon contained 40 pounds of feces at the time of his death. The colon, which is on display, measures an incredible 8 feet in length and 27 inches in circumference. 

theoddmentemporium:

Hinterkaifeck

On March 31, 1922, a farmstead 70km north of Munich became the scene of one of Germany’s most infamous unsolved crimes. Living there at the time were Andreas Gruber (63), his wife Cäzilia (72), their widowed daughter Viktoria Gabriel (35), and her two children Cäzilia (7) and Josef (2). Six months prior, a maid at the farm quit after complaining that the place was haunted. The new maid arrived just in time to be among the victims. A few days before, Andreas told neighbors about finding footprints in the snow leading to the farm but none leading away. He also talked about strange noises in the attic. One by one, everyone but Josef and the maid were all somehow lured to an outbuilding where they were savagely killed with a pickaxe. The murderer then went into the house and finished the job. Nothing was taken, ruling out robbery as a motive. An autopsy later revealed that the girl had been alive for several hours after her attack, and that she had torn out her hair in tufts. The skulls of all six victims were sent to Munich so that clairvoyants could have a go at solving the mystery. They were never returned, and the bodies were ultimately buried without heads. Perhaps most chilling of all, neighbors saw smoke issuing from the chimney for several days after the murders, and when the authorities finally discovered the crime scene they determined that the cattle had been fed and several meals prepared in the kitchen after the fact. At the time and over the intervening years, over 100 suspects have been interviewed, and several theories developed, but the case remains unsolved. [Source] MORE.