Tell humanity to fly to the moon, and we're like, "Got you covered!"
Tell us to take a walk through a clown cemetery, and we're like, "Fuck
you; you ask the impossible." It doesn't matter how logical and rational
you think you are, chances are there's at least one place in the world
where you would never dare venture.
#6. Kampung Monyet, the Masked Monkey Slum of Jakarta
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| Ed Wray via Time |
Come, visit mystical Jakarta, a beautiful and ancient city -- now 90 percent free of doll-faced, plague-monkeys! (Note: This implies a 10 percent doll-faced, plague-monkey population rate.)
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| Perttu Saska |
That's Kampung Monyet ("Monkey Village"), an infamous shantytown in the eastern part of the capital where people train macaque monkeys to wear children's clothes and doll head masks.
Why? To beg for money on the streets, but no one would have blamed you if you'd answered "for the glory of Satan."
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| Perttu Saska |
"Hold on, I want no part in this shit." - Satan
The performances, called "Topeng Monyet" (Mask Monkey) are actually an old Indonesian tradition that goes back centuries, but it's only in recent years that they started to resemble final bosses from Japanese horror games. Past estimates have put the number of masked macaques in Kampung Monyet at 150, living in complete squalor with their owners and a whole lab-full of transmittable diseases, most notably hepatitis and tuberculosis.
The performances, called "Topeng Monyet" (Mask Monkey) are actually an old Indonesian tradition that goes back centuries, but it's only in recent years that they started to resemble final bosses from Japanese horror games. Past estimates have put the number of masked macaques in Kampung Monyet at 150, living in complete squalor with their owners and a whole lab-full of transmittable diseases, most notably hepatitis and tuberculosis.
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| Beawiharta/Reuter |
Plus, an unidentified disorder makes kids smile when they should scream.
A few years back, the Indonesian government undertook measures to eradicate monkey shows, because they're obviously wildly inhumane, both to the monkeys and to humanity in general. But they're still around now; they're just underground. So if this sounds like your kind of thing, head on over to Kampung Monyet, and ask the shadiest guy on the street where a guy could go to stare into the face of madness and everything that's worst in humanity. You're either going to a monkey show or the room he rents behind the butcher shop. You deserve it, either way.
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| Perttu Saska |
But what did Bongo do to deserve this? Nothing. He did nothing.
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| Patrick Giroud |
The Sanctuary of Tophet, in Tunisia, consists of an enclosed cave altar and a graveyard where over 20,000 buried urns dating back to the fourth century B.C. have been found, most of them containing the burned remains of children no older than 4 years old.
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| Robert Clark |
Well, at least they died before Tunisia got too attached to them.
Now, we know what you're thinking, but don't worry: there is very little chance of their angry ghosts rising to attack you. See, a depiction on one of the grave markers showing a priest carrying a child has led some historians to believe that the site was used to sacrifice kids to the Carthaginian deities Baal Hammon and his wife, Tanit. So you see, ancient gods would have long ago consumed the souls of those children, leaving the graveyard perfectly free of poltergeists. (That may be of thin comfort to you, now that we think about it.)
This hypothesis is corroborated by the accounts of ancient Greeks and Romans, who also claimed that the Carthaginians would sacrifice their young by burning them alive. Not everyone believes them, though. Some maintain that it's all ancient libel, and that the Tophet is merely a resting place for children that have died naturally ... and were then cremated ... and number in the tens of thousands.
Now, we know what you're thinking, but don't worry: there is very little chance of their angry ghosts rising to attack you. See, a depiction on one of the grave markers showing a priest carrying a child has led some historians to believe that the site was used to sacrifice kids to the Carthaginian deities Baal Hammon and his wife, Tanit. So you see, ancient gods would have long ago consumed the souls of those children, leaving the graveyard perfectly free of poltergeists. (That may be of thin comfort to you, now that we think about it.)
This hypothesis is corroborated by the accounts of ancient Greeks and Romans, who also claimed that the Carthaginians would sacrifice their young by burning them alive. Not everyone believes them, though. Some maintain that it's all ancient libel, and that the Tophet is merely a resting place for children that have died naturally ... and were then cremated ... and number in the tens of thousands.
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| Dennis Jarvis |
Dead baby jokes aren't jokes in archaeology.
In the last few years, Tunisia has strongly favored the non-sacrifice theory to help promote tourism to their ancient ... burned child ... graveyard (best of luck with the brochures, guys). But if they were really serious about putting a more positive spin on the Sanctuary, the first step would probably be to rename it to something besides "Tophet," which has come to mean, among other things, "hell."
In the last few years, Tunisia has strongly favored the non-sacrifice theory to help promote tourism to their ancient ... burned child ... graveyard (best of luck with the brochures, guys). But if they were really serious about putting a more positive spin on the Sanctuary, the first step would probably be to rename it to something besides "Tophet," which has come to mean, among other things, "hell."
#4. Lake Natron, the Mummifying Blood Waters of Tanzania
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| Paul & Paveena Mckenzie/Oxford Scientific/Getty Images |
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