Patrick Bennet 
Archaeology is a discipline that captures everyone’s imagination. However, most of us relate it to either Indiana Jones or Lara Croft. It is needles to point out that this idea is totally wrong. Archaeology has a lot to do with digging and examining (and less to do with shooting bad guys and performing stunts). It may seem weird but a lot of times, archaeologists dig in places where they don’t find anything. It takes a bit of luck to determine the spot that will yield a great archaeological find.
It takes a great effort by these guys to find anything. And as funny as it may seem, some ordinary folks have managed to make some of the greatest finds without even trying to. As I said, it takes bit of luck.
The list below is about some of the strangest things that people have found in their own property recently. I hope you enjoy reading it. Meanwhile, I am going out for a walk, and I’m taking my shovel with me, just in case.
1. Ancient church bells
In 2013 a man from the Czech Republic began working on a renovation of his house’s plumbing system. He was digging trenches in his yard to lay the new pipes in, when he struck something solid with his shovel. It was metal and it seemed to be big, but the man had no idea how big it really was until he excavated it. It turned out to be not one, but two massive, old church bells.
The mystery, however, was quickly revealed, as those two bells had been stolen from the local church in 2002. The bells were about 400 years old and made with great craftsmanship. It is still unclear why those bells were stolen, and what the thief hoped to achieve by burying them.
I’d place my bet that the thief is someone who lives nearby the church, hates bells, and has access to some heavy machinery.
2. Ancient burial ground
In 2014, Ali Erturk was a 14 year old boy, living in Salt Lake City, Utah. One day, he was digging in his father’s backyard to make a trout pond. Ali had been digging for a couple of weeks when he uncovered a piece of bone, which he assumed came from an animal. But soon he uncovered what seemed to be a human skull and that had him spooked. His father called the local police to investigate the remains. Experts from the Utah Department of Heritage and Arts removed the bones and studied them, revealing that they belonged to a Native American who lived about a 1000 years ago. Several different tribes lived in these lands at the time like the Fremont, Shoshone, Goshute and Utes.
These lands have been inhabited by people for at least 10,000 years, so stumbling upon their remains is not so unusual, the experts say. Finding skulls in your backyard is practically child’s play.
3. Cursed money bag
Wayne Sabaj was an unemployed carpenter from McHenry County, Illinois. In August 2011, he was picking some veggies in his garden, but on that fateful day he got much more than broccoli. He found two nylon drawstring bags containing no less than 150, 000 US dollars.
As a good citizen, Wayne turned over the money to the authorities, and he was told that if no one claims the money for a period of one year, he gets to keep it.
As expected several people made claims for the ownership of the money bags. Among them was a woman living next to Wayne. She claimed that her mother Delores Johnson threw away the money because she believed it was cursed. It is worth mentioning that Delores was an elderly woman with dementia.
The court decided to split the contents of the bags between the Delores and Wayne. However, Wayne did not live to enjoy his share, as he passed away soon after he got the money. Soon after, his father passed away too.
To many people, the sudden deaths of father and son meant that the curse on the money was real.
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