Giant Human Skeleton Found Buried Under Odessos Fortress Wall

a reply to: Bone75

I'm thinking someone is digging, hits something hard, clears the area around it, identifies it as something important and then starts removing more dirt in an orderly fashion.

Yotov himself says he sees nothing “exceptional” about the discovery of the skeleton.

Some have even been quick to describe the ancient man as a representative of the “long extinct race of Atlantis giants”.

“There are no indications that this man was a vampire, an Atlantis giant, or anything like that,” archaeologist Valeri Yotov has commented jokingly, apparently referring to a host of discoveries in Bulgaria in recent years of impaled medieval skeletons, apparently to protect them from turning into vampires after their deaths.

So they found a tall person, I'm not getting why this is a big deal. There have been exceptionally tall people documented for a long time.

a reply to: DjembeJedi


The well know king Pacal of Palenque was 7ft+ by estimations and yet this fact is hardly mentioned. His son Kan Balam is shown in with 6 toes and would have been close to 10ft if memorials are to scale.

a reply to: rickymouse

Not really. If you read through the source material you will see that they were excavating the original fortress wall and that this man was partially buried beneath said wall. Finding him was a happy coincidence due to where he was buried and/or where the wall was constructed. They weren't going to be able to dig all the way to the base if the fortress wall without finding him. Like a lot of finds in archaeology and anthropology it was sheer luck and coincidence that led to the discovery.

During the 3rd, 4th and 5th centuries (AD) the Black Sea region was not a particularly good place to be for Roman or Helenic settlements (such as Odessos) due to repeated attacks by Huns, Goths, Sarmatians, Alans, Heruls, Borani, Tervingi, etc. Usually along the lines of sack the sttlement, take slaves and rape the women (and boys), then exact a tribute to ensure they don't return the following year.

It is therefore entirely possible this skeleton is not even a local from that region - he could be from the Germanic tribes further north (who the Romans recorded as being big individuals compared to southern Mediterranean natives).

From the article posted on Ancient Origins:

Researchers have said that initial analyses suggest the skeleton belongs to a man who lived in the late 4th or early 5th century AD, a time when Odessus was an early Christian center.

So it makes perfect sense that he was buried in an east-west alignment, which is what we would expect from a Christian burial.

The remains were found near the remains of the ancient city wall and Yotov has suggested that the man may have died while working or during a ceremony held near the city walls. “His posture, with hands laid on his waist and his body pointing to the east (head) and west (feet) is a clear indication for archaeologists he was buried,” reports Novinite.

However, we would expect him to be buried head west and feet east. In some Christian traditions, ordained clergy are traditionally buried in the opposite orientation, so that when the resurrection arrives they rise facing the people they minister. This could indicate that we're dealing with a priest of some sorts, but I really don't know that much about early Christian societies in this region in order to say.

originally posted by: SpongeBeard

originally posted by: Brotherman
I thought main stream archaeology has been hiding the giants and all that for a long long time and covering it all up? lol

Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with the 'giant ancient humans' hypothesis. Any appearance of such is merely sensationalism/clickbaiting in the title. They discovered a "tall man."

Thats amazing you destroyed the comment and item without any proof, any justification, anything valid than your opinion.
Where did that come from, what motivated that comment.

That sounds like a very strange thing to say

a reply to: Flavian
We're not talking about the Thrakian era though, but the Christian era. And it was the Hellenic people who were the ones doing the boy raping!

originally posted by: borntowatch

originally posted by: SpongeBeard

originally posted by: Brotherman
I thought main stream archaeology has been hiding the giants and all that for a long long time and covering it all up? lol

Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with the 'giant ancient humans' hypothesis. Any appearance of such is merely sensationalism/clickbaiting in the title. They discovered a "tall man."

Thats amazing you destroyed the comment and item without any proof, any justification, anything valid than your opinion.
Where did that come from, what motivated that comment.

That sounds like a very strange thing to say

Could it have been because the archaeologist is quoted as saying it's the skeleton of a tall man in the OP article? Doesn't sound that strange to me.

a reply to: theantediluvian

It's Goliath

originally posted by: FormOfTheLord
I think there were plenty of giants in ancient times, its just our modern civilization tries to cover it all up.

There have always been atypically sized people from the very short to the very tall. Now if you have a 6ft 6 man with a sword twice the size of the guy who is "typical for his day" of 5ft 6 then I suspect the tall guy will be King or chief. Thus he will get a special burial.

originally posted by: Ridhya
a reply to: Flavian
We're not talking about the Thrakian era though, but the Christian era. And it was the Hellenic people who were the ones doing the boy raping!

The Roman Empire didn't end until around AD 476 (although you could argue 453 with Attila) - this is the 5th Century. If this skeleton is from the 3rd or 4th century (as indicated) it would make it Roman Era, and the period of high levels of "Barbarian" attacks against the Empire, particularly around the Black Sea and Danube areas.

There is evidence in the form of testimonies (admittedly Roman) that survivors of sacked cities, both male and female, had been raped and brutalised (animals also!).

Anyway, that is all irrelevent, the point i was making was this corpse could be nothing to do with the city or its inhabitants, it could be from something else (ie Gothic / Germanic tribes).

a reply to: Logarock

There was even a Roman Emperor, Maximinus Thrax, who according to some sources was 8' 6". We don't know if he was really that big but all sources agree he was quite large.

Most claims of giant skeletons are just really tall people, if they find something outside of the known human sizes then they'll have something. Robert Wadlow was 8' 11" and as far as they know the tallest person ever and approaching the maximum height of a human being. If an archaeologist finds a skeleton that's over ten feet tall then the claim of a giant wouldn't be unfounded.

a reply to: Roxxo

If an archaeologist finds a skeleton that's over ten feet tall then the claim of a giant wouldn't be unfounded.

In general, anyone who is 7' or taller could be referred to as a giant. People this tall are exceedingly rare. A frequently referenced estimate is that there are approximately 2,800 people 7' and taller in the world today. There are an estimated 7.3 billion people in the world. That works out to be something like less than .0000004% of the global population being 7' or taller. Estimates for the global population in 500 AD are around 200 million. Divide 2,800 by 36.5 and you'll get 76.

A reasonable estimate is that at the time this man died, there were far less than 100 people 7' tall in the entire world if the frequency of 7 footers was the same then as it is now. That's all back of the napkin math of course and it ignores factors like different ethnic groups having different frequencies but to give a rough idea for the sake of argument, that would be like one 7' or taller person out of every 2,000,000. How many graves from antiquity have been excavated by archaeologists?

originally posted by: Bone75
So none of you find it suspicious that within that disorganized mess there's a perfectly carved 3 meter deep rectangle that just happens to lead to a giant skeleton?

As an archaeologist I've dug many sites like "that disorganized mess" to which you refer. Let me explain.
This is what is known in the US as a salvage operation (called rescue operation in the articles) because it began with an accidental find of artifacts due to utility workers' activities. When unexpected materials are encountered digging by the utility is stopped and the archies are called in. (It is called a "salvage" or "rescue" site because scientists are attempting to rescue or salvage whatever remains of the historic context of the find.) They begin where the workers left off, usually by clearing the entire surface of the dug area to determine if soil stains can be observed.
Soil stains occur as a result of human activity and thus can direct the archaeologists attention to the spots that holes have been dug in the earth. The materials recovered from those disturbances, even soil samples can sometimes tell the reason for the hole being dug. In this case they apparently observed what turned out to be a very deep grave pit.
The archies might also employ ground penetrating radar since it can show soil disturbances but in this case, the area has been extensively developed so GPR would probably not be the best choice since it cannot discern the chronology of the disturbances.
When soil stains are discerned digging into those stains proceeds, usually in arbitrary levels of say 10cm until sterile (meaning artifact-free) soil is encountered. (At least that is the normal methodology in the US. I can't say with any certainty that exactly the same methods are used in Bulgaria but the science is fairly standardized, even in Europe these days.)
At this point in the dig, with the bones only just appearing, there is little else that can be said since a lot of testing of the remains and the surrounding soil must be conducted. The archaeologist can make a lot of educated guesses by observing the strata of the sides of the pit and the artifacts found in association with the remains.
I do have to admit that I've never observed such laxity on crowd control with a salvage dig in public areas. Having people walk up to the immediate area just invites contamination of the soil samples as well as presenting a danger to the public should any of those walls crumble.
I have to be a bit surprised also at the comments of the lead archie---why can't he just measure the bones of the skeleton and give that information? That is the accepted method of determining height and with the presence of the all the long bones a highly accurate estimate can be made.
It will be interesting to hear what the analysis reveals---particularly the DNA.

a reply to: theantediluvian Don't give it to the Smithsonian, it will disappear.

If anyone ever asks for an example of ATS clickbait I shall point them to this thread.
Quite shameless indeed.

a reply to: Bone75

No. The perfectly carved rectangle was created by the excavators, not by the people who buried the body.

You guys should know that there are and there were pituitary problems that causes people to grow very tall. It has nothing to do with giants from Atlantis or giants from the bible.

Having a tumor in or near the pituitary gland can cause the person to grow uncontrollably. Nothing mythical about it.

the skeleton holding the pistol appears to have been stoned to death