--- title: "Forgotten Mysteries You've Never Heard Of" description: "Even More Forgotten Mysteries\n\nHello, everybody, and welcome back to this, our 3rd video on ancient unsolved mysteries. Just before we jump into our 4 main mysteries, we'd like to start you off with another small mystery—a micro-mystery, if you will. One that starts in Paris during the 1880s when the body of a young woman washed up on the banks of the river Seine. There were no signs of physical violence on her body and no indicators as to exactly who she was. In such cases, the customary procedure of the time was to send such a body to the morgue where a cause of death could be determined, and members of the public who might be searching for a missing person could visit to check if any of the unidentified bodies were their missing person.\n\nThe coroner determined her to be around the age of 16, and her cause of death was likely drowning. After his examination of her body, he brought her to the public viewing area and waited for someone to hopefully identify her. As the days ticked by, many would pass through and see her, but none could put a name to her face. After several weeks of waiting, she remained unidentified and was given a pauper's funeral, bringing a premature end to her short life.\n\nBut not an end to her story, you see in those intervening weeks she had become somewhat famous across the city. From the first day she was visible to the public, she began attracting visitors to the morgue, from people who wanted to see the so-called \"most beautiful girl in Paris.\" Brushing past the fact that she was supposed to be 16 and also DEAD, she became somewhat famous, with people lining up outside the morgue to gaze upon her putrescent beauty because apparently there was nothing better to do in Paris in the 1880s.\n\nThough her real name is still unknown to us, she did earn a new title, 'L'Inconnue de la Seine' or 'The Unknown Woman of the Seine.' And it would be because of this fact that we still know about her today because her story had only just begun, and it concludes with one of the biggest pop songs of the 20th century. How exactly did this come to pass? All will be told in due course, dear viewer. For now, I present to you 4 more ancient unsolved mysteries.\n\n## The Megaliths of Malta\n\nIf you were to look at a globe of the world, you would be forgiven for missing the three tiny islands that make up the Maltese micronation. And were it not for the work of a forgotten civilization many thousands of years ago, Malta's primary claim to fame would be that it's the 10th smallest nation in the world. Instead, many now know Malta for a different reason, and that is as the home of some of the oldest and most awe-inspiring subterranean Neolithic structures yet discovered. Look beneath the surface, and you will find structures that tell a story of a forgotten culture, one that revered, feared, and celebrated death… And also, very large women.\n\nOur story begins roughly 7000 years ago, when we find the first evidence of humans on the island of Malta. As their culture settled and developed the area, they began using the numerous caves that dot this island as key locations to bury their dead. Roughly 1000 years after the first humans set foot on the island, our first megalith appears. Though most of them are little more than dispersed rubble by now, the structures that remain show exceptional architectural skill from those that built them. There are too many sites to list off in this video; however, the best-known of these structures is the hypogeum.\n\nThis treasure of the ancient world was all but unknown to us until its discovery in 1904. Comprising 3 floors, the upper level stands above ground and is made up of a passageway leading to a large courtyard with 5 chambers branching-off. The floor below is known as the middle level and is perhaps the most striking part of the whole temple. Within this middle section is a variety of rooms, each grander than the last. There is the main chamber and its statue of the sleeping lady. The Oracle room, carved in such a way that it creates haunting acoustic resonances. The decorated room and its geometric spiral patterns and finally, there is the so-called holy of holies, the largest and grandest area of the entire structure. Below this area is the lower level and it is perhaps the most enigmatic area of the temple. There is no clear purpose for this room, and not even a clear method of entry, the stairs leading into the room stop before they make it to the ground, and there are few if any clear indications of its purpose.\n\nThen there are the statues. Along with megaliths, the Maltese also built statues. The majority of these depict very large, corpulent women; we have already talked about the sleeping lady found in the hypogeum. However, there were many more dotted around the island depicting women in a variety of poses and varying in their height and rotundity. And of course, we couldn't mention the statues of Malta without mentioning the penises. These statues were also dotted around the island, though less numerous and also varying in their size and shape, but unlike the ladies, these statues all seem to have the same very particular posture.\n\nAnd you may be now wondering, well, why did they build all these magnificent structures? And therein lies the mystery. What possible cause would this culture, with already limited resources, have to put such time and effort into building these intricate megaliths? Well, for starters, it's worth bearing in mind that the Maltese people were incredibly isolated from the other societies that were also developing around the Mediterranean and Middle East at this time. A fact that seems to have resulted in the formation of obsessions around certain aspects of daily life.\n\nOne theory suggests that the numerous megalithic sites were centers for animal sacrifice in the name of a god or gods unknown. Almost all of them had the remains of farmed animals within them—cows, sheep, and the like. This is significant because bone fragments from island inhabitants show they had a diet that was primarily made up of seafood. The limited available land would make rearing livestock a highly resource-intensive activity.\n\nIt's perfectly possible that they were a matriarchal society, based on the fact that the women were depicted in their entirety and commanding quite a presence with their substantial height and width. And the fact that the only statues that make any reference to men are the statues depicting their most precious assets and nothing else. However the reason may also be that the temples were used as a site for fertility rituals. Seeing as the statues depicting women, always made their hips, thighs and breasts disproportionately larger than the rest of their bodies, the theory being that these are all characteristics of a woman more likely to bear a child to term.\n\nI also have my own theory about the statues, which is that—well… Humans are gonna be human. Take video games for example, no matter what game you're playing, whether it is solitaire or Skyrim, someone somewhere will have made a mod that adds large breasts. And I don't think there is a single school book in existence that doesn't have at least one dong drawn in it. Don't get me wrong, human's do great things, these temples and megaliths are a prime example of what humans can do with just their bare hands but also, sometimes we just do stuff for no other reason than a love of boobs or it's just kind of funny. Again, this is just my unproven, unsubstantiated and silly theory.\n\nThe most popular theory, however, is that these megaliths were the product of a culture that was obsessed with death, so much so that they have often been referred to as a death cult. This may be somewhat of a hyperbole; however, as they weren't so much obsessed with the coming of death as they were with the celebration of it, or so the theory goes. Along with the animal bones, there were a great many sets of human bones found at these megalithic sites. It's very possible that these animal bones were not there from sacrifices but as the long-overdue washing up from a feast. Whatever their reasoning was, we will never really know why these structures came to exist, but if there is one thing we can say for sure, it's that artistic representations of dongs are apparently something humans never grow out of.\n\n## The Indus Valley Script\n\nThere is generally just one big question mark above the Indus Valley Civilization. Located in modern-day Pakistan and India lies a sprawling valley, set with rich fertile soil and a life-giving water source in the form of the Indus River. First quote-unquote \"discovered\" in 1921, the Indus Valley civilization is thought to be the second oldest civilization in all human history. We say \"discovered\" because the British East India Company had been stripping the bricks from the ancient Indus structures to build their railways for about a century prior to any archaeologist paying attention to the region. Also, because the cultural significance of the area was no mystery to those who actually lived in that region.\n\nHowever, the year that the British realised the area was of archaeological significance and therefore classified it as discovered was in 1921. The first organised excavation occurred near the town of Harappa and proved to be one of the most significant archaeological digs in history. The findings revealed a remarkably preserved ancient city that dated back to 3500 BCE. Estimates suggest that at its peak, the city supported roughly 23,500 inhabitants spread across 1.5 square kilometres of land. The brick construction of each building serves as a testament to just how advanced the Indus Valley civilization was.\n\nHowever, the true treasure lay in the abundance of artefacts unearthed from said buildings and what they told us about this ancient forgotten civilization. The amazing capabilities and achievements of this civilization could fill an entire video all on its own, so let us know if you'd like to see that. Relevant to this video, however, was the discovery of several well-preserved stone seals adorned with a variety of enigmatic symbols and markings.\n\nAnd it's these strange carved seals that we will focus upon today. After 3 years of digging at Harappa, someone drew a connection between the strange markings on those stone tablets to other tablets with similar markings that had been found in an ancient Mesopotamian city some 1,450 miles away. It has since been established that trade between the ancient Indus and Mesopotamian people was a fairly common thing. In the years following the discoveries at Harappa, a slew of archaeological sites began popping up all around the Indus Valley, uncovering some small and some not so small settlements, eventually uncovering a sprawling civilization that stretched from the base of the Himalayas to the Gujarat state in the south.\n\nBy 1992, some 4000 inscriptions had turned up from these dispersed sites; we now know that the Indus had been one of the first civilizations to have a standardised writing system and perhaps the first to implement one on such a large scale. Which brings us to our mystery, what were they actually writing about? And the truth is, we don't really know. We have been able to decipher several of the discovered stones, such as one showing a boat with land-finding birds aboard, presumably describing a primitive method of navigation. However, the vast majority of tablets that we have found are indecipherable, with some of the world's best philologists, cryptographers, and language experts being ultimately stumped by the largely pictorial script.\n\nSo far we have identified anywhere between 400 and 700 distinct symbols. And if you're wondering why it's such a large range, just think about how broadly handwriting can vary from person to person, then look at this picture… This could be 27 symbols written one way or one symbol written 27 ways, and anything in between, we can't be certain. We don't even know if the script relates to the spoken Harappan language or if it's a kind of shorthand. What we can be confident about is that its primary use was to boost trade between settlements, and it was also very likely written and read from right to left.\n\nThere have been many attempts to decipher it over the years, beginning as early as the 1920s when these tablets were first discovered. However, with no bilingual artefacts—such as the Rosetta Stone—being discovered, there is no concrete foundation upon which to build an understanding of the language. Computational analysis has suggested that the Indus script is most similar to the modern Dravidian languages, a collection of languages spoken by those now living in South India.\n\nThe thinking is that when the Earth's last glacial maximum came about, the Indus population migrated to the southern tip of India, where many people stayed, and their language continued to develop through the passing centuries. There are many scholars that argue against this last point; however, the fate and the Indus people is a mystery all on its own and this appears to be the most broadly accepted hypothesis. It has become a point of serious contention between many academics, with hundreds of books being written on what we already know. Which may sound like a lot, but the truth is that we could write several thousand books on all the stuff we don't know, and they'd all be written in Indus script, so we couldn't really read them anyway.\n\n## The Rohonc Codex\n\nHave you ever found yourself reading a book, staring at the pages, and feeling the words just slip through your brain without taking any of them in? Or so tired that the words begin to seem like an entirely new language? Well, the Rohonc [Ro-han-ss] Codex is the type of book that is guaranteed to give that feeling to literally anyone who reads it, and that's because it's written in an entirely made-up language, and nobody knows why.\n\nNamed after the village in western Hungary where it was discovered, the Rohonc Codex is perhaps one of the most famous and enigmatic books ever created. Verified documentation of the book's existence goes back as far as 1838, the year a rich Hungarian count known as Gustav Batthyany donated his sizable library to the Hungarian Academy of Science. Here the book caught the eye of Hungarian scholar Ferenc Toldy, who was baffled by not only the entirely alien script but also by the many bizarre and incomprehensible diagrams that seemed to pull motifs from several of the major religions.\n\nThere are a total of 87 illustrations across the book, ranging in size from small postage stamp-sized pictures to illustrations that take up entire pages. The vast majority have been interpreted as depicting famous scenes and iconography from the Old and New Testaments, such as the binding of Isaac, Jesus expelling the moneylenders from the temple, and the crucifixion of Christ. However, dispersed through the books are also clear Pagan and Islamic symbols, such as the crescent and the swastika. The language itself is made up of 782 distinct characters and symbols. There is a theory that the language in the cipher is logographic, similar to Chinese writing, which would explain why there is such a huge alphabet; however, this is just one of many theories.\n\nSome suggest that the language is a kind of Proto-Romanian, while others say that it is something known as paleo-Hungarian script. However, many have suggested, not without reason, that the entire thing is just a fake. You see, as the bizarre manuscript began to garner more and more attention, people began searching for a source. What they found was that at the same time the Rohonc Codex appeared in the Hungarian Academy of Science, a world-renowned Hungarian antiques dealer known as Sámuel Literáti Nemes was getting caught up in some good old nationalistic fervour. The theory goes that Nemes, who ended up becoming notorious for making forgeries that fooled even the best scholars, forged the Rohonc Codex to legitimise Hungary as a nation and enrich its history.\n\nPersonally, I'm not buying this theory. For one thing, if you want to legitimise your nation's past, why do it in a book that is impossible to read? For another thing, handwriting analysis suggests that whoever wrote the codex did so in a confident manner, without hesitation. Generally, someone who is making up a language and writing it for the first time needs to constantly pause and check to see if they are putting down the correct characters, but the analysis showed that this person was well-practised in this particular script.\n\nAs interest around this strange book grew, so did the search for answers. Several decades after its discovery, a catalogue of Gustav Batthyany's library—the Hungarian count who donated the book—dated 1743 turned up. In it, there was the description of a book that seemed to match up with the Rohonc Codex. The title of the book was listed as 'Hungarian prayers in one volume, size duodecimo.' Considering the plethora of religious iconography, it's not difficult to see how it could be a prayer book of some kind. However, there is no certainty that the book from the catalogue is indeed the Rohonc Codex, and even if it is, that still doesn't explain where it came from or why it was written in such a strange language.\n\nThe last piece of evidence of this book's past comes from between its pages. You see, as far back as the 12th Century, artisanal papermakers have put watermarks on their products to identify their work from one another. The watermark that was found on the Rohonc Codex paper would put its creation around the 15th Century, near Venice, Italy. The specific form of this particular watermark, a star and anchor, supposedly ties it to a guild of Venetian master papermakers, a promising lead, but it apparently goes nowhere, and there is no more information after this.\n\n## The Eleusinian Cult\n\nWhen it comes to ancient mystery cults, you can't beat the ancient Greeks. Back then, cults weren't seen in quite the same way as they are today. Generally, it was seen as far more acceptable, even normal, to be part of a cult, and your cult of choice would very likely be tied to your location. In fact, mathematics as a discipline originated from an ancient Greek cult started by the one and only Pythagoras, of A-squared-plus-B-squared-equals-C-squared infamy. The story behind this cult is incredibly interesting, but we don't have time for it today. The cult that we are really interested in is the Eleusinian Cult.\n\nAs cults go, the Eleusinians were quite popular in their time, drawing pilgrims from all over who wished to partake in their annual initiation rituals. According to legend, those who successfully completed these rituals would transcend the human realm and ascend to the divine. It is thought that at the height of their popularity, the majority of the population of Athens had joined the cult, with hundreds and possibly thousands joining their annual initiation event.\n\nAll who wished to do so would travel to the panhellenic sanctuary known as Eleusis, a small town based several miles out of Athens. The pilgrimage to the town was considered part of the rituals, and upon their arrival, initiates would enter a temple dedicated to Demeter and her daughter Persephone. At which point the temple doors closed, our understanding stops, and the mysteries begin… Like the mysteries literally began at this point; the word \"mystery\" originated in ancient Greece and refers to secret rituals.\n\nWhat makes these mysteries so… Mysterious is the fact that we just don't know what they were. Cults like to keep secrets; that's nothing new, and the Eleusinians were no different. Indeed, everyone who took part in these rites also took an oath of silence. But when a cult attains popularity akin to that of the Eleusinians, it becomes very difficult to maintain that secrecy. Eventually, someone will inadvertently or intentionally break their silence, and even if the cult does manage to safeguard their secrets during their own time, archaeologists have no qualms about reading someone's private diary or letters. However, the rites conducted at Eleusis, for whatever reason, have remained a complete secret.\n\nWe do have knowledge of some rituals carried out prior to entering the temple. In total, the process took 10 days and began in Athens, with initiates bathing to purify themselves and carrying out animal sacrifices. Then they would travel from Athens to Eleusis on foot, once there they would fast for a day before taking part in various vigils, all of which would take place over a week and would result in the initiates entering the temple for 3 more days before exiting in a supposedly enlightened state. We can see from the known rituals that the process centred around creating an altered state of mind; walking 22 miles in September would be exhausting, followed by fasting and sleep deprivation from the vigils, which would certainly make a person's mind more susceptible to hallucinations and altered states of mind.\n\nAfter the initiates exited the temple, they would be sworn to secrecy about what exactly happened inside those walls and indeed very few broke their silence. We do have accounts of some people speaking out, but we have no record of what they said, and those who did were arrested and usually executed for their crime. I suppose this entry counts as two mysteries in one: the first mystery is what exactly went on in that temple? And the other mystery—and the one I find more interesting—is how they managed to keep their secrets actually secret? Not only in their own time but from modern archaeologists. Perhaps the US government was the one to figure out the latter mystery, and that's how they managed to keep the faked moon landings a secret for so long.\n\n## Conclusion\n\nSo there you have it, even more unsolved ancient mysteries. It was surprisingly difficult tracking down real mysteries from history, mostly due to the surprising number of publications that seem to take no issue with calling something a mystery, even when there is a known explanation for said mystery. However, we still hope you enjoyed the mysteries that we found and explored together. As for our micro mystery at the beginning, apparently the coroner's assistant was so taken with the beauty of this unknown woman that prior to her burial, he decided to take a plaster cast mould of her face, otherwise known as a death mask. Weird as that sounds, it was marginally less weird in the 1880s.\n\nIn the years after her burial it would become somewhat of a fashion among the Paris elite to have a copy of this girl's death mask as an ornament, a trend which spread across Europe. Fast forward to 1955 where we meet a Norwegian toy manufacturer, by the name of Asmund Laerdal. Leardal had nearly lost his son in a recent swimming accident but had fortunately saved him, thank to his use of a fairly new medical technique known as cardiopulmonary resuscitation or CPR for short. Shortly thereafter an American collective approached him and asked if his toy company would be interested in developing a doll that could be used as an aid for teaching people how to carry out CPR, an offer that he was, of course, very receptive to.\n\nDuring the development process he recalled seeing the mask of a young woman in his grandparents house several years prior, this was the death mask of The Unknown Woman of the Seine. Feeling that a woman would be a less threatening subject for trainees he took a copy for his new CPR doll. It was ultimately this mask that made it onto the CPR dummy known as 'Rescue Annie'. As these dummies became commonplace in first aid seminars across the world, her face once again became famous, as did the question you were supposed to ask an unconscious person 'Annie are you okay?' and it was this line that became the chorus of one of the 20th century's most popular songs, Smooth Criminal by Michael Jackson. So in answer to the mystery: How does the death of an unknown woman in Paris during the 1880's relate to one of the 20th century's biggest pop songs? That's how. And thank you for watching.\n\n## Key Takeaways\n\n- The Unknown Woman of the Seine, found in the 1880s, became famous for her beauty and inspired a CPR training doll.\n- Malta's megaliths, dating back 7000 years, include intricate structures and statues of large women, with unclear purposes.\n- The Indus Valley Civilization's script, found on seals, remains largely undeciphered despite extensive research.\n- The Rohonc Codex, discovered in 1838, contains an unknown language and religious iconography, with uncertain origins.\n- The Eleusinian Cult's secret rituals, practiced in ancient Greece, have remained unknown despite their popularity.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n### Who was 'L'Inconnue de la Seine'?\n\n'L'Inconnue de la Seine' was a young woman whose body was found in the Seine River in Paris during the 1880s. She remained unidentified despite public viewings and was eventually buried in a pauper's funeral. She became famous for her beauty, attracting many visitors to the morgue.\n\n### What is the significance of the Megaliths of Malta?\n\nThe Megaliths of Malta are some of the oldest and most awe-inspiring subterranean Neolithic structures discovered. They include the hypogeum, a multi-level temple with various rooms and statues, and other megalithic sites that may have been used for animal sacrifice, fertility rituals, or as centers for a death cult.\n\n### What is known about the Indus Valley Script?\n\nThe Indus Valley Script is a standardized writing system used by the Indus Valley Civilization. It consists of 400 to 700 distinct symbols and was likely used for trade and administrative purposes. Despite numerous attempts, the script remains largely indecipherable.\n\n### What is the Rohonc Codex?\n\nThe Rohonc Codex is a mysterious book discovered in Hungary, written in an entirely unknown language. It contains religious iconography and diagrams, and its origin and purpose remain unknown. Some theories suggest it is a forgery, while others propose it could be a form of Proto-Romanian or paleo-Hungarian script.\n\n### What was the Eleusinian Cult?\n\nThe Eleusinian Cult was an ancient Greek mystery cult centered around the town of Eleusis. It was known for its annual initiation rituals, which were believed to grant participants divine experiences. The exact rituals performed within the temple remain unknown due to the cult's strict secrecy.\n\n### How did 'L'Inconnue de la Seine' become famous in the 20th century?\n\nA coroner's assistant created a death mask of 'L'Inconnue de la Seine,' which became a fashionable ornament among the Paris elite. This mask was later used for a CPR training doll named 'Rescue Annie,' making her face famous worldwide and inspiring the chorus of Michael Jackson's 'Smooth Criminal.'\n\n### What are some theories about the purpose of the Megaliths of Malta?\n\nTheories about the Megaliths of Malta include their use for animal sacrifice, fertility rituals, or as centers for a death cult. The statues found at these sites, depicting large women and penises, suggest a possible matriarchal society or a focus on fertility and death.\n\n### What challenges exist in deciphering the Indus Valley Script?\n\nThe Indus Valley Script is challenging to decipher due to the lack of bilingual artifacts and the variability in the symbols. Computational analysis suggests it may be related to modern Dravidian languages, but this remains uncertain.\n\n### What evidence supports the authenticity of the Rohonc Codex?\n\nHandwriting analysis suggests the Rohonc Codex was written by someone practiced in the script, and a 1743 catalogue lists a book matching its description. However, its origin and purpose remain mysterious.\n\n### What rituals were known to be part of the Eleusinian Cult's initiation process?\n\nThe initiation process for the Eleusinian Cult involved a 10-day ritual starting with purification and animal sacrifices in Athens, followed by a pilgrimage to Eleusis, fasting, vigils, and three days in the temple. The exact rituals within the temple remain unknown.\n\n## Sources\n\n- [Original Side Projects video: Forgotten Mysteries You've Never Heard Of](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W6ijuBMZkA)\n- [Hero image source](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Paris-2023-01-19-manif-retraites05.jpg) by Roland Godefroy / openverse, by-sa.\n\n## Related Coverage" url: https://sideprojects.pub/article/forgotten-mysteries-youve-never-heard-of.md canonical: https://sideprojects.pub/article/forgotten-mysteries-youve-never-heard-of datePublished: 2026-06-17 dateModified: 2026-06-17 author: - name: Simon Whistler url: https://sideprojects.pub/author/simon-whistler publisher: Side Projects image: "https://media.sideprojects.pub/cdn-cgi/image/width=1600,height=900,fit=cover,quality=80,format=auto/articles/9W6ijuBMZkA/hero.jpg" type: NewsArticle contentHash: 960b342484138c5888ca149542d18f3181c524039dbc4d6d2d95b563fa77aecf tokens: 7118 summaryUrl: https://sideprojects.pub/article/forgotten-mysteries-youve-never-heard-of.md.summary.md --- Even More Forgotten Mysteries Hello, everybody, and welcome back to this, our 3rd video on ancient unsolved mysteries. Just before we jump into our 4 main mysteries, we'd like to start you off with another small mystery—a micro-mystery, if you will. One that starts in Paris during the 1880s when the body of a young woman washed up on the banks of the river Seine. There were no signs of physical violence on her body and no indicators as to exactly who she was. In such cases, the customary procedure of the time was to send such a body to the morgue where a cause of death could be determined, and members of the public who might be searching for a missing person could visit to check if any of the unidentified bodies were their missing person. The coroner determined her to be around the age of 16, and her cause of death was likely drowning. After his examination of her body, he brought her to the public viewing area and waited for someone to hopefully identify her. As the days ticked by, many would pass through and see her, but none could put a name to her face. After several weeks of waiting, she remained unidentified and was given a pauper's funeral, bringing a premature end to her short life. But not an end to her story, you see in those intervening weeks she had become somewhat famous across the city. From the first day she was visible to the public, she began attracting visitors to the morgue, from people who wanted to see the so-called "most beautiful girl in Paris." Brushing past the fact that she was supposed to be 16 and also DEAD, she became somewhat famous, with people lining up outside the morgue to gaze upon her putrescent beauty because apparently there was nothing better to do in Paris in the 1880s. Though her real name is still unknown to us, she did earn a new title, 'L'Inconnue de la Seine' or 'The Unknown Woman of the Seine.' And it would be because of this fact that we still know about her today because her story had only just begun, and it concludes with one of the biggest pop songs of the 20th century. How exactly did this come to pass? All will be told in due course, dear viewer. For now, I present to you 4 more ancient unsolved mysteries. ## The Megaliths of Malta If you were to look at a globe of the world, you would be forgiven for missing the three tiny islands that make up the Maltese micronation. And were it not for the work of a forgotten civilization many thousands of years ago, Malta's primary claim to fame would be that it's the 10th smallest nation in the world. Instead, many now know Malta for a different reason, and that is as the home of some of the oldest and most awe-inspiring subterranean Neolithic structures yet discovered. Look beneath the surface, and you will find structures that tell a story of a forgotten culture, one that revered, feared, and celebrated death… And also, very large women. Our story begins roughly 7000 years ago, when we find the first evidence of humans on the island of Malta. As their culture settled and developed the area, they began using the numerous caves that dot this island as key locations to bury their dead. Roughly 1000 years after the first humans set foot on the island, our first megalith appears. Though most of them are little more than dispersed rubble by now, the structures that remain show exceptional architectural skill from those that built them. There are too many sites to list off in this video; however, the best-known of these structures is the hypogeum. This treasure of the ancient world was all but unknown to us until its discovery in 1904. Comprising 3 floors, the upper level stands above ground and is made up of a passageway leading to a large courtyard with 5 chambers branching-off. The floor below is known as the middle level and is perhaps the most striking part of the whole temple. Within this middle section is a variety of rooms, each grander than the last. There is the main chamber and its statue of the sleeping lady. The Oracle room, carved in such a way that it creates haunting acoustic resonances. The decorated room and its geometric spiral patterns and finally, there is the so-called holy of holies, the largest and grandest area of the entire structure. Below this area is the lower level and it is perhaps the most enigmatic area of the temple. There is no clear purpose for this room, and not even a clear method of entry, the stairs leading into the room stop before they make it to the ground, and there are few if any clear indications of its purpose. Then there are the statues. Along with megaliths, the Maltese also built statues. The majority of these depict very large, corpulent women; we have already talked about the sleeping lady found in the hypogeum. However, there were many more dotted around the island depicting women in a variety of poses and varying in their height and rotundity. And of course, we couldn't mention the statues of Malta without mentioning the penises. These statues were also dotted around the island, though less numerous and also varying in their size and shape, but unlike the ladies, these statues all seem to have the same very particular posture. And you may be now wondering, well, why did they build all these magnificent structures? And therein lies the mystery. What possible cause would this culture, with already limited resources, have to put such time and effort into building these intricate megaliths? Well, for starters, it's worth bearing in mind that the Maltese people were incredibly isolated from the other societies that were also developing around the Mediterranean and Middle East at this time. A fact that seems to have resulted in the formation of obsessions around certain aspects of daily life. One theory suggests that the numerous megalithic sites were centers for animal sacrifice in the name of a god or gods unknown. Almost all of them had the remains of farmed animals within them—cows, sheep, and the like. This is significant because bone fragments from island inhabitants show they had a diet that was primarily made up of seafood. The limited available land would make rearing livestock a highly resource-intensive activity. It's perfectly possible that they were a matriarchal society, based on the fact that the women were depicted in their entirety and commanding quite a presence with their substantial height and width. And the fact that the only statues that make any reference to men are the statues depicting their most precious assets and nothing else. However the reason may also be that the temples were used as a site for fertility rituals. Seeing as the statues depicting women, always made their hips, thighs and breasts disproportionately larger than the rest of their bodies, the theory being that these are all characteristics of a woman more likely to bear a child to term. I also have my own theory about the statues, which is that—well… Humans are gonna be human. Take video games for example, no matter what game you're playing, whether it is solitaire or Skyrim, someone somewhere will have made a mod that adds large breasts. And I don't think there is a single school book in existence that doesn't have at least one dong drawn in it. Don't get me wrong, human's do great things, these temples and megaliths are a prime example of what humans can do with just their bare hands but also, sometimes we just do stuff for no other reason than a love of boobs or it's just kind of funny. Again, this is just my unproven, unsubstantiated and silly theory. The most popular theory, however, is that these megaliths were the product of a culture that was obsessed with death, so much so that they have often been referred to as a death cult. This may be somewhat of a hyperbole; however, as they weren't so much obsessed with the coming of death as they were with the celebration of it, or so the theory goes. Along with the animal bones, there were a great many sets of human bones found at these megalithic sites. It's very possible that these animal bones were not there from sacrifices but as the long-overdue washing up from a feast. Whatever their reasoning was, we will never really know why these structures came to exist, but if there is one thing we can say for sure, it's that artistic representations of dongs are apparently something humans never grow out of. ## The Indus Valley Script There is generally just one big question mark above the Indus Valley Civilization. Located in modern-day Pakistan and India lies a sprawling valley, set with rich fertile soil and a life-giving water source in the form of the Indus River. First quote-unquote "discovered" in 1921, the Indus Valley civilization is thought to be the second oldest civilization in all human history. We say "discovered" because the British East India Company had been stripping the bricks from the ancient Indus structures to build their railways for about a century prior to any archaeologist paying attention to the region. Also, because the cultural significance of the area was no mystery to those who actually lived in that region. However, the year that the British realised the area was of archaeological significance and therefore classified it as discovered was in 1921. The first organised excavation occurred near the town of Harappa and proved to be one of the most significant archaeological digs in history. The findings revealed a remarkably preserved ancient city that dated back to 3500 BCE. Estimates suggest that at its peak, the city supported roughly 23,500 inhabitants spread across 1.5 square kilometres of land. The brick construction of each building serves as a testament to just how advanced the Indus Valley civilization was. However, the true treasure lay in the abundance of artefacts unearthed from said buildings and what they told us about this ancient forgotten civilization. The amazing capabilities and achievements of this civilization could fill an entire video all on its own, so let us know if you'd like to see that. Relevant to this video, however, was the discovery of several well-preserved stone seals adorned with a variety of enigmatic symbols and markings. And it's these strange carved seals that we will focus upon today. After 3 years of digging at Harappa, someone drew a connection between the strange markings on those stone tablets to other tablets with similar markings that had been found in an ancient Mesopotamian city some 1,450 miles away. It has since been established that trade between the ancient Indus and Mesopotamian people was a fairly common thing. In the years following the discoveries at Harappa, a slew of archaeological sites began popping up all around the Indus Valley, uncovering some small and some not so small settlements, eventually uncovering a sprawling civilization that stretched from the base of the Himalayas to the Gujarat state in the south. By 1992, some 4000 inscriptions had turned up from these dispersed sites; we now know that the Indus had been one of the first civilizations to have a standardised writing system and perhaps the first to implement one on such a large scale. Which brings us to our mystery, what were they actually writing about? And the truth is, we don't really know. We have been able to decipher several of the discovered stones, such as one showing a boat with land-finding birds aboard, presumably describing a primitive method of navigation. However, the vast majority of tablets that we have found are indecipherable, with some of the world's best philologists, cryptographers, and language experts being ultimately stumped by the largely pictorial script. So far we have identified anywhere between 400 and 700 distinct symbols. And if you're wondering why it's such a large range, just think about how broadly handwriting can vary from person to person, then look at this picture… This could be 27 symbols written one way or one symbol written 27 ways, and anything in between, we can't be certain. We don't even know if the script relates to the spoken Harappan language or if it's a kind of shorthand. What we can be confident about is that its primary use was to boost trade between settlements, and it was also very likely written and read from right to left. There have been many attempts to decipher it over the years, beginning as early as the 1920s when these tablets were first discovered. However, with no bilingual artefacts—such as the Rosetta Stone—being discovered, there is no concrete foundation upon which to build an understanding of the language. Computational analysis has suggested that the Indus script is most similar to the modern Dravidian languages, a collection of languages spoken by those now living in South India. The thinking is that when the Earth's last glacial maximum came about, the Indus population migrated to the southern tip of India, where many people stayed, and their language continued to develop through the passing centuries. There are many scholars that argue against this last point; however, the fate and the Indus people is a mystery all on its own and this appears to be the most broadly accepted hypothesis. It has become a point of serious contention between many academics, with hundreds of books being written on what we already know. Which may sound like a lot, but the truth is that we could write several thousand books on all the stuff we don't know, and they'd all be written in Indus script, so we couldn't really read them anyway. ## The Rohonc Codex Have you ever found yourself reading a book, staring at the pages, and feeling the words just slip through your brain without taking any of them in? Or so tired that the words begin to seem like an entirely new language? Well, the Rohonc [Ro-han-ss] Codex is the type of book that is guaranteed to give that feeling to literally anyone who reads it, and that's because it's written in an entirely made-up language, and nobody knows why. Named after the village in western Hungary where it was discovered, the Rohonc Codex is perhaps one of the most famous and enigmatic books ever created. Verified documentation of the book's existence goes back as far as 1838, the year a rich Hungarian count known as Gustav Batthyany donated his sizable library to the Hungarian Academy of Science. Here the book caught the eye of Hungarian scholar Ferenc Toldy, who was baffled by not only the entirely alien script but also by the many bizarre and incomprehensible diagrams that seemed to pull motifs from several of the major religions. There are a total of 87 illustrations across the book, ranging in size from small postage stamp-sized pictures to illustrations that take up entire pages. The vast majority have been interpreted as depicting famous scenes and iconography from the Old and New Testaments, such as the binding of Isaac, Jesus expelling the moneylenders from the temple, and the crucifixion of Christ. However, dispersed through the books are also clear Pagan and Islamic symbols, such as the crescent and the swastika. The language itself is made up of 782 distinct characters and symbols. There is a theory that the language in the cipher is logographic, similar to Chinese writing, which would explain why there is such a huge alphabet; however, this is just one of many theories. Some suggest that the language is a kind of Proto-Romanian, while others say that it is something known as paleo-Hungarian script. However, many have suggested, not without reason, that the entire thing is just a fake. You see, as the bizarre manuscript began to garner more and more attention, people began searching for a source. What they found was that at the same time the Rohonc Codex appeared in the Hungarian Academy of Science, a world-renowned Hungarian antiques dealer known as Sámuel Literáti Nemes was getting caught up in some good old nationalistic fervour. The theory goes that Nemes, who ended up becoming notorious for making forgeries that fooled even the best scholars, forged the Rohonc Codex to legitimise Hungary as a nation and enrich its history. Personally, I'm not buying this theory. For one thing, if you want to legitimise your nation's past, why do it in a book that is impossible to read? For another thing, handwriting analysis suggests that whoever wrote the codex did so in a confident manner, without hesitation. Generally, someone who is making up a language and writing it for the first time needs to constantly pause and check to see if they are putting down the correct characters, but the analysis showed that this person was well-practised in this particular script. As interest around this strange book grew, so did the search for answers. Several decades after its discovery, a catalogue of Gustav Batthyany's library—the Hungarian count who donated the book—dated 1743 turned up. In it, there was the description of a book that seemed to match up with the Rohonc Codex. The title of the book was listed as 'Hungarian prayers in one volume, size duodecimo.' Considering the plethora of religious iconography, it's not difficult to see how it could be a prayer book of some kind. However, there is no certainty that the book from the catalogue is indeed the Rohonc Codex, and even if it is, that still doesn't explain where it came from or why it was written in such a strange language. The last piece of evidence of this book's past comes from between its pages. You see, as far back as the 12th Century, artisanal papermakers have put watermarks on their products to identify their work from one another. The watermark that was found on the Rohonc Codex paper would put its creation around the 15th Century, near Venice, Italy. The specific form of this particular watermark, a star and anchor, supposedly ties it to a guild of Venetian master papermakers, a promising lead, but it apparently goes nowhere, and there is no more information after this. ## The Eleusinian Cult When it comes to ancient mystery cults, you can't beat the ancient Greeks. Back then, cults weren't seen in quite the same way as they are today. Generally, it was seen as far more acceptable, even normal, to be part of a cult, and your cult of choice would very likely be tied to your location. In fact, mathematics as a discipline originated from an ancient Greek cult started by the one and only Pythagoras, of A-squared-plus-B-squared-equals-C-squared infamy. The story behind this cult is incredibly interesting, but we don't have time for it today. The cult that we are really interested in is the Eleusinian Cult. As cults go, the Eleusinians were quite popular in their time, drawing pilgrims from all over who wished to partake in their annual initiation rituals. According to legend, those who successfully completed these rituals would transcend the human realm and ascend to the divine. It is thought that at the height of their popularity, the majority of the population of Athens had joined the cult, with hundreds and possibly thousands joining their annual initiation event. All who wished to do so would travel to the panhellenic sanctuary known as Eleusis, a small town based several miles out of Athens. The pilgrimage to the town was considered part of the rituals, and upon their arrival, initiates would enter a temple dedicated to Demeter and her daughter Persephone. At which point the temple doors closed, our understanding stops, and the mysteries begin… Like the mysteries literally began at this point; the word "mystery" originated in ancient Greece and refers to secret rituals. What makes these mysteries so… Mysterious is the fact that we just don't know what they were. Cults like to keep secrets; that's nothing new, and the Eleusinians were no different. Indeed, everyone who took part in these rites also took an oath of silence. But when a cult attains popularity akin to that of the Eleusinians, it becomes very difficult to maintain that secrecy. Eventually, someone will inadvertently or intentionally break their silence, and even if the cult does manage to safeguard their secrets during their own time, archaeologists have no qualms about reading someone's private diary or letters. However, the rites conducted at Eleusis, for whatever reason, have remained a complete secret. We do have knowledge of some rituals carried out prior to entering the temple. In total, the process took 10 days and began in Athens, with initiates bathing to purify themselves and carrying out animal sacrifices. Then they would travel from Athens to Eleusis on foot, once there they would fast for a day before taking part in various vigils, all of which would take place over a week and would result in the initiates entering the temple for 3 more days before exiting in a supposedly enlightened state. We can see from the known rituals that the process centred around creating an altered state of mind; walking 22 miles in September would be exhausting, followed by fasting and sleep deprivation from the vigils, which would certainly make a person's mind more susceptible to hallucinations and altered states of mind. After the initiates exited the temple, they would be sworn to secrecy about what exactly happened inside those walls and indeed very few broke their silence. We do have accounts of some people speaking out, but we have no record of what they said, and those who did were arrested and usually executed for their crime. I suppose this entry counts as two mysteries in one: the first mystery is what exactly went on in that temple? And the other mystery—and the one I find more interesting—is how they managed to keep their secrets actually secret? Not only in their own time but from modern archaeologists. Perhaps the US government was the one to figure out the latter mystery, and that's how they managed to keep the faked moon landings a secret for so long. ## Conclusion So there you have it, even more unsolved ancient mysteries. It was surprisingly difficult tracking down real mysteries from history, mostly due to the surprising number of publications that seem to take no issue with calling something a mystery, even when there is a known explanation for said mystery. However, we still hope you enjoyed the mysteries that we found and explored together. As for our micro mystery at the beginning, apparently the coroner's assistant was so taken with the beauty of this unknown woman that prior to her burial, he decided to take a plaster cast mould of her face, otherwise known as a death mask. Weird as that sounds, it was marginally less weird in the 1880s. In the years after her burial it would become somewhat of a fashion among the Paris elite to have a copy of this girl's death mask as an ornament, a trend which spread across Europe. Fast forward to 1955 where we meet a Norwegian toy manufacturer, by the name of Asmund Laerdal. Leardal had nearly lost his son in a recent swimming accident but had fortunately saved him, thank to his use of a fairly new medical technique known as cardiopulmonary resuscitation or CPR for short. Shortly thereafter an American collective approached him and asked if his toy company would be interested in developing a doll that could be used as an aid for teaching people how to carry out CPR, an offer that he was, of course, very receptive to. During the development process he recalled seeing the mask of a young woman in his grandparents house several years prior, this was the death mask of The Unknown Woman of the Seine. Feeling that a woman would be a less threatening subject for trainees he took a copy for his new CPR doll. It was ultimately this mask that made it onto the CPR dummy known as 'Rescue Annie'. As these dummies became commonplace in first aid seminars across the world, her face once again became famous, as did the question you were supposed to ask an unconscious person 'Annie are you okay?' and it was this line that became the chorus of one of the 20th century's most popular songs, Smooth Criminal by Michael Jackson. So in answer to the mystery: How does the death of an unknown woman in Paris during the 1880's relate to one of the 20th century's biggest pop songs? That's how. And thank you for watching. ## Key Takeaways - The Unknown Woman of the Seine, found in the 1880s, became famous for her beauty and inspired a CPR training doll. - Malta's megaliths, dating back 7000 years, include intricate structures and statues of large women, with unclear purposes. - The Indus Valley Civilization's script, found on seals, remains largely undeciphered despite extensive research. - The Rohonc Codex, discovered in 1838, contains an unknown language and religious iconography, with uncertain origins. - The Eleusinian Cult's secret rituals, practiced in ancient Greece, have remained unknown despite their popularity. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### Who was 'L'Inconnue de la Seine'? 'L'Inconnue de la Seine' was a young woman whose body was found in the Seine River in Paris during the 1880s. She remained unidentified despite public viewings and was eventually buried in a pauper's funeral. She became famous for her beauty, attracting many visitors to the morgue. ### What is the significance of the Megaliths of Malta? The Megaliths of Malta are some of the oldest and most awe-inspiring subterranean Neolithic structures discovered. They include the hypogeum, a multi-level temple with various rooms and statues, and other megalithic sites that may have been used for animal sacrifice, fertility rituals, or as centers for a death cult. ### What is known about the Indus Valley Script? The Indus Valley Script is a standardized writing system used by the Indus Valley Civilization. It consists of 400 to 700 distinct symbols and was likely used for trade and administrative purposes. Despite numerous attempts, the script remains largely indecipherable. ### What is the Rohonc Codex? The Rohonc Codex is a mysterious book discovered in Hungary, written in an entirely unknown language. It contains religious iconography and diagrams, and its origin and purpose remain unknown. Some theories suggest it is a forgery, while others propose it could be a form of Proto-Romanian or paleo-Hungarian script. ### What was the Eleusinian Cult? The Eleusinian Cult was an ancient Greek mystery cult centered around the town of Eleusis. It was known for its annual initiation rituals, which were believed to grant participants divine experiences. The exact rituals performed within the temple remain unknown due to the cult's strict secrecy. ### How did 'L'Inconnue de la Seine' become famous in the 20th century? A coroner's assistant created a death mask of 'L'Inconnue de la Seine,' which became a fashionable ornament among the Paris elite. This mask was later used for a CPR training doll named 'Rescue Annie,' making her face famous worldwide and inspiring the chorus of Michael Jackson's 'Smooth Criminal.' ### What are some theories about the purpose of the Megaliths of Malta? Theories about the Megaliths of Malta include their use for animal sacrifice, fertility rituals, or as centers for a death cult. The statues found at these sites, depicting large women and penises, suggest a possible matriarchal society or a focus on fertility and death. ### What challenges exist in deciphering the Indus Valley Script? The Indus Valley Script is challenging to decipher due to the lack of bilingual artifacts and the variability in the symbols. Computational analysis suggests it may be related to modern Dravidian languages, but this remains uncertain. ### What evidence supports the authenticity of the Rohonc Codex? Handwriting analysis suggests the Rohonc Codex was written by someone practiced in the script, and a 1743 catalogue lists a book matching its description. However, its origin and purpose remain mysterious. ### What rituals were known to be part of the Eleusinian Cult's initiation process? The initiation process for the Eleusinian Cult involved a 10-day ritual starting with purification and animal sacrifices in Athens, followed by a pilgrimage to Eleusis, fasting, vigils, and three days in the temple. The exact rituals within the temple remain unknown. ## Sources - [Original Side Projects video: Forgotten Mysteries You've Never Heard Of](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W6ijuBMZkA) - [Hero image source](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Paris-2023-01-19-manif-retraites05.jpg) by Roland Godefroy / openverse, by-sa. ## Related Coverage