marvellous-things

10 Things That Ancient People Did Which Would Be Totally Weird Today

  • 5:58 pm July 20, 2018
  • vignesh

Research about our ancestral origin is something which fascinates many, we get to know about our genes about our origins our roots. This gives us a sense of pride and knowledge about what exactly we were from where do we come from. With the advent of technologies and better methods of research, we can claim that we know everything about the ancients. However, the more we learn about their everyday life, the more this knowledge fascinates us because some practices of the ancients were too weird even for our modern standards.

Unusual times unusual measures

From times immemorial women have used different measures to improve their beauty. Their chest were no exception. Some women used tropical treatments or homemade “growth creams” on their chest to make them bigger. Others massaged coconut oil into their skin.

However, the first implant surgery was performed only in 1895 by Vincenz Czerny. The doctor needed to make the chest of his patient even after he cut out a tissue.

After that, doctors used different materials to enlarge women’s chest: ivory, glass balls, ground rubber, and other fillers.



Healing treatments

The fact that It may sound disgusting, but its true ancient people used animal dung to cure and treat different diseases. For example, women in ancient Greece believed that crocodile dung could be used as a powerful contraceptive and inserted it into their reproductive organ.

In ancient Egypt, warriors applied animal dung to their wounds. Sheep droppings were used in Scottish folk medicine for treating smallpox, and fresh pig dung served to stop a nosebleed. Simple advice: do not try any of these at home.

Dyeing their hair

Since ancient times people have been colouring their hair, but the lack of assertive knowledge in chemistry and incorrect use of the wrong substances sometimes resulted in bad consequences for their health.

The ancestors also used plant materials to dye their hair, but the effect did not last long. The Greeks and Romans used a permanent hair dye that consisted of different chemicals including sulfur.



Strange measures

Doctors were always pretty curious about the human body and used several “proved” methods to cure many healings. Trepanation (drilling holes) was one of them.

Doctors believed they could cure illnesses such as convulsions, headaches, and infections. They thought that different issues were caused by an evil spirit trapped inside a human’s head, and so they drilled holes to let the spirit out.

Luckily, this practice was almost completely abandoned by the end of the Middle Ages. Thorough research of some unearthed excavations showed that some patients even managed to survive after these extreme methods of treatment.

They weren't allowed to cry

A regular funeral in ancient Rome was always marked with a procession that walked the departed down the street. The weeping and crying relatives followed the procession.

The more people that attended the funeral, the more respected a person was. Sometimes the family would hire special women who would weep to impress the crowd. To make their sadness believable, women would scratch their cheeks to draw red and rip their hair.

Later on, this tradition was considered too extreme and negative. People were not allowed to hire professionals for weeping because “these acts invoked strong emotions and were incompatible with the idea of the quiet life of the citizen.”



They could do this too

Fathers had a very strong influence on their whole family and especially on their unmarried daughters.

The fact that they had the right to choose a good husband for them. The rules were very rigid and a daughter had no right to have an intimate affair with anyone before her marriage.

A father had the legal right to execute his daughter’s lover (and even her) if he caught them committing adultery. If he excused only one of the lovers, he could be charged.

Interesting trivia: a Roman woman always belonged to her father’s family, even after marriage.