The Maine Penny: Evidence of Norse in America
By Emilia Wellesley · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 Last reviewed: May 7, 2026. What the Maine Penny Is, and Why a Single Coin Carries So Much Weight The Maine Penny is a small silver Norwegian coin, struck during the reign of King Olaf Kyrre of Norway between 1067 and 1093, […]
The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine
By Emilia Wellesley · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 Jacob Waltz, the German-immigrant prospector whose nickname gave the legend its name, died of pneumonia in a Phoenix bedroom on the night of 25 October 1891. He left behind a wooden candle box of high-grade gold ore beneath his bed and, depending […]
The Khmer Empire: Builders of Angkor Wat
By Emilia Wellesley · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 The Khmer Empire built Angkor Wat between roughly 1113 and 1150 CE under King Suryavarman II, who reigned over a Hindu polity that, at its height, governed much of mainland Southeast Asia. The temple is the surviving centerpiece of a far larger […]
The Expeditions of Roald Amundsen
By Emilia Wellesley · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 Who Was Roald Amundsen and Why Do His Expeditions Still Matter? Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen (1872 to 1928) was the Norwegian polar navigator who first sailed the Northwest Passage, first reached the geographic South Pole, and first crossed the Arctic by air. […]
The Georgia Guidestones Mystery
By Emilia Wellesley · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 Last reviewed: May 7, 2026. What the Georgia Guidestones Were The Georgia Guidestones were a granite monument that stood in a cow pasture seven miles north of Elberton, Georgia, from March 1980 until July 2022. Six slabs, twenty feet tall together, weighing […]
The Giants of Mont’e Prama
By Emilia Wellesley · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 What Are the Giants of Mont’e Prama? The Giants of Mont’e Prama are a group of large stone statues carved by the Nuragic civilization of Sardinia, dated by most scholars to the late ninth through early eighth centuries BCE. They were unearthed […]
The Tomb of Genghis Khan
By Dr. Wren Ashby · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 A working ethologist will tell you that the most informative animals in a story are the ones nobody is looking at. In the case of the lost tomb of Genghis Khan (born Temüjin, c. 1162-1227), the animals nobody is looking at […]
The Bosnian Pyramids
By Riley Tanaka · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 The Origin Post Was a Press Conference Most contemporary mysteries have a patient zero. A first thread, a first upload, a first screenshot. The Bosnian Pyramids have one too, and the timestamp is unusually clean. October 2005, Visoko, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Semir […]
The Shroud of Turin
By Cassiel Marlowe · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 A linen cloth folded in a silver casket beneath the apse of Turin Cathedral has, for nearly seven centuries, asked the same uncomfortable question of every visitor: what kind of object is this, exactly? The Shroud of Turin bears a faint, life-sized, […]
The Han Dynasty Seismograph
By Dr. Felix Chen · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 What the Han Dynasty Seismograph Actually Was The Han dynasty seismograph, properly the Houfeng didong yi (候風地動儀, “instrument for measuring the seasonal winds and the movements of the Earth”), is the world’s first known seismoscope. It was completed in 132 CE […]