Sw18)The creepiest things that were normal in ancient times

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In this Video, We Will Talk About The creepiest things that were normal in ancient times

1: Gidim

In ancient Mesopotamia, the living and the dead were closely connected. It was believed that mortality was one of the defining characteristics of humans. Anyone who died young had been cursed by the gods. Those who were healthy were watched over by beneficial spirits, and when that protection faded, so did life. Once a person died, they became a gidim, or “death spirit.” The spirit was a shadowy creature, sometimes appearing to friends, family, and loved ones and always recognizable as the person that they had been in life. However, the guide didn’t appear at random. But it could be summoned by the living. Burial mounds in Mesopotamia were more than a place where earthly remains were interred for passage into the afterlife. 

2: Assyrian Exorcisms

In addition to the half-human, half-supernatural beings that were thought to prowl through Assyrian homes, it was believed that anyone who hadn’t been honored with a proper burial would return to haunt the living as a ghost. Looking at the unburied, unprepared corpse of a dead man could allow the spirit to enter the body of a living person, but they were equally troublesome when they were haunting the living in their ghostly form. They were believed to suck the life force from the living, with strange rituals performed for those who were plagued by a ghostly presence. In some cases, the man who was haunted would be bathed, or the body of the person believed to be doing the haunting would be buried. In other cases, a ritual involving the god Shamash would be used. In this ritual, the Assyrians would first ask the ghost why they had returned and why they had targeted a particular person. 

3: The Ghosts Of Demons And The Childless

In ancient Babylonia, it was believed that ghosts walked through the night like the living walked through the day. They weren’t the incorporeal spirits that we think of today when someone mentions ghosts. Back then, it was thought that ghosts could possess the bodies of living animals and that the ghosts of the world’s demons had a particular affinity for possessing the bodies of birds. Evil spirits possessed wild dogs and lions, which were driven to hunt—and to occasionally hunt humans—because of the ghosts within them. One of the most powerful and dreaded of the Babylonian ghosts was the spirit of the woman who had died in childbirth, driven mad by grief and cursed to walk the night for the rest of time.

4: Pliny The Younger’s Ghost Stories

Pliny the Younger was a Roman senator, born the son of a knight in AD 62. He lived through the reign of the tyrannical Nero, was taught by some of the most brilliant minds in ancient Rome, and left behind a ghost story among his many writings. In the first part of the story, he tells a tale of Curtius Rufus, an attendant to a Roman governor in Africa. One night, Curtius was out walking, and the ghostly visage of a beautiful woman appeared to him, telling him that she was a powerful spirit that watched over all of Africa. She told him of his future, revealing that he was to return to Rome, become elevated to a lofty position, and ultimately die on Roman soil. Eventually, he achieved the fame she promised, and when he returned to Carthage, he saw her again before he was overcome with an illness that led to his death, fulfilling the rest of the ghost’s prophecy.

5: The Hand Of Ghost

In ancient Babylonia, seeing a ghost could be downright deadly. Dating to around the first millennium BC, ancient Mesopotamian texts on clay tablets went into great detail about illnesses and misfortunes stemming from the “Hand of Ghost.”Hand of Ghost seems to refer to both the illness and the method by which it was given. The most deadly diseases were believed to be passed on by ghosts of people who died of specific causes, such as drowning, immolation, or murder. When a family member died in such a way, it was cause for particular concern because of the connection that continued between life and death through the blood of relations. Sometimes, particular afflictions were linked to how the person died. 

6: The Roman Manes

In ancient Rome, tombstones that bore Latin inscriptions often included the words dis manibus, meaning “to the divine manes.” The manes are thought to date back to the earliest beginnings of the Roman Empire. Although there are numerous mentions of them throughout Roman texts, they’re somewhat hard to define because religious beliefs kept shifting. Originally believed to be the spirits of deified ancestors, the manes were something between ghosts and gods. To understand the manes, we have to strip away modern Christian ideas and look at the worship of the dead with an open mind. Removing any notion of the afterlife and returning to a pre-Christian world, the manes become a sort of Everyman’s god. 

7: Aibhill And The Worship Of The Banshees

The word “banshee” conjures up the image of a ghostly woman wailing the name of the next person to die. However, banshees weren’t always such dire harbingers. At one point, they were worshiped as goddesses. One of the most famous banshees is Aibhill, the ghost that haunted Crag Liath and the House of Cass. She was the one who appeared to Brian Boru in 1014, telling him that he wouldn’t walk from the battlefield that he led his men onto that Good Friday. The tradition of the banshee had been around for hundreds of years. Although we’re not sure exactly when or how it started, we do know that the banshee Catabodva was worshiped as a goddess of war for the Gauls in the early fifth century. 

8: Enkidu And The Sumerian Ghosts

The epic stories of Gilgamesh date back to at least 1800 BC, with an alternate ending appearing for Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld about 800 years later. In the original, Enkidu is long dead, having offended the dead so much they’ve decided not to let him go. However, in the alternate version, Gilgamesh prays for the release of his friend, and the Sun god grants his request. Enkidu returns from the netherworld and reports on the ghosts that he met there. Enkidu paints a gloomy picture of the dead living a dreary sort of existence that parallels their life among the living. They live in dark homes that no one ever leaves, forced to survive on dust and dirt. 

9: The Haugbui And The Icelandic Ghosts

In ancient Icelandic and Norse folklore, ghosts are defined in a way that’s rather different from the rest of the world’s traditional views on the forms of spirits taken by the dead. Perhaps the most well-known is the draugr, a corporeal ghost that leaves its burial place and restlessly wanders. The draugr has a counterpart, the haugbui, and like the draugr, this creature retains its physical form. Unlike the draugr, the haugbui is confined to its burial mound, and its wrath is reserved for those who disturb the sleep of the dead or try to pillage its place of rest. The haugbui are frequently mentioned in the great Norse sagas, and some real-life precautions were taken to ensure that the deceased would rest peacefully. When a dead person was prepared for burial, his big toes were often tied together, needles were inserted into the bottoms of his feet, and open scissors were placed on his chest.

10: The Ghosts Of The Cult Of The Dead

The ancient Celts had a huge number of rituals associated with worshiping ancestors and caring for the ancestral ghosts that they believed spent their afterlife around the family hearth. Some of the earliest traditions included taking the heads of enemies slain in battle and dedicating them to the ghosts of the great warriors and leaders in the family’s history. In places like Brittany, it was believed that the ghosts of the dead gathered at night around the fire in the hearth, seeking the same warmth and comfort they had known in life. Harvest festivals were also a way to appease ghosts who might be angry about the continued practice of sacrifice among the Celts. Lugnasad typically involved the ritual killing of a person whose sacrifice was meant to represent a corn spirit. 

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