Remember That 'Cursed' Scary Coffin? It's Filled With Sewage
Back in June, the world was instantly made a billion times more interesting by the discovery of an enormous black sarcophagus at an archaeological dig during an excavation in Alexandria, Egypt. It was exciting to everyone. To archaeologists, it promised not only treasures untouched since it was buried 2,000+ years ago, but the possibility that it was the long-lost tomb of Alexander the Great. To the internet, meanwhile, it promised nothing less than the goddamn apocalypse.
When archaeologists decided to open the tomb earlier this week, therefore, it seems an understatement to say that tensions were running a little high. They probably shouldn't have been. When everyone peered inside, they found some skeletons. There were no royals, no jewels, no scrolls, not even a single flesh-eating scarab -- just three normal skeletons submerged in a thick red liquid resembling blood ...
... which turned out to be raw sewage that'd leaked into the chamber via a crack in the wall and dissolved all of the presumably mummified remains inside. In a press conference announcing this finding, Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, told reporters, "The sarcophagus has been opened, but we have not been hit by a curse." No matter your level of disappointment over how this played out, you gotta give Waziri props for being able to spin this as a good thing. "Yeah, we found a putrid stew of sewage and melted mummy, but at least the world didn't end."
Both the tomb and skeletons are being transported to the local museum for examination and cleaning, although it's debatable whether any amount of scrubbing is enough to stop people from now referring to them as "the smelletons."
Adam Wears is on Twitter and Facebook, and has a newsletter about depressing history that you should definitely subscribe to.
Support your favorite Cracked writers with a visit to our Contribution Page. Please and thank you.
For more, check out This Tiny Village Is Being Menaced By A Runaway Iceberg and Bad News: The Plastic Drinking Straw Ban Is BS.
Follow us on Facebook ... or else.
