Archaeologist Joshua Pollard, who was not involved in the find, agreed. The discovery is “remarkable,” he said, given the decades of intense archaeological attention to the greater Stonehenge region.

“I think everybody assumed such monument complexes were known about or had already been discovered,” added Pollard, a co-leader of the Stonehenge Riverside Project, which is funded in part by the National Geographic Society.

Six-Thousand-Year-Old Tombs

At the 500-acre (200-hectare) site, outlines of the structures were spotted “etched” into farmland near the village of Damerham, some 15 miles (24 kilometers) from Stonehenge.

Discovered during a routine aerial survey by English Heritage, the U.K. government’s historic-preservation agency, the “crop circles” are the results of buried archaeological structures interfering with plant growth. True crop circles are vast designs created by flattening crops.

The central features are two great tombs topped by massive mounds—made shorter by centuries of plowing—called long barrows. The larger of the two tombs is 70 meters (230 feet) long.

Estimated at 6,000 years old, based on the dates of similar tombs around the United Kingdom, the long barrows are also the oldest elements of the complex.

Such oblong burial mounds are very rare finds, and are the country’s earliest known architectural form, Wickstead said. The last full-scale long barrow excavation was in the 1950s, she added.

The Damerham tombs have yet to be excavated, but experts say the long barrows likely contain chambers—probably carved into chalk bedrock and reinforced with wood—filled with human bones associated with ancestor worship.

During the late Stone Age, it’s believed, people in the region left their dead in the open to be picked clean by birds and other animals.

Skulls and other bones of people who were for some reason deemed significant were later placed inside the burial mounds, Wickstead explained.

“These are bone houses, in a way,” she said. “Instead of whole bodies, [the tombs contain] parts of ancestors.”

Later Monuments, Long Occupation

Other finds suggest the site remained an important focus for prehistoric farming communities well into the Bronze Age (roughly 2000 to 700 B.C. in Britain).

Near the tombs are two large, round, ditch-encircled structures—the largest circular enclosure being about 190 feet (57 meters) wide.

Nonintrusive electromagnetic surveys show signs of postholes, suggesting rings of upright timber once stood within the circles—further evidence of the Damerham site’s ceremonial or sacred role.

Pollard, of the University of Bristol, likened the features to smaller versions of Woodhenge, a timber-circle temple at the Stonehenge World Heritage site.

Damerham also includes a highly unusual, and so far baffling, U-shaped enclosure with postholes dated to the Bronze Age, project leader Wickstead said.

The circled outlines of 26 Bronze Age burial mounds also dot the site, which is littered with stone flint tools and shattered examples of the earliest known type of pottery in Britain.

Evidence of prehistoric agricultural fields suggest the area was at least partly cultivated by the time the Romans invaded Britain in the first century A.D., generally considered to be the end of the regions’ prehistoric period.

Riches Beneath Ravaged Surface?

The actual barrows and mounds near Damerham have been diminished by centuries of plowing, but that, ironically, may make them much more valuable archaeologically, according to Pollard, of the University of Bristol.

The mounds would have been irresistible advertisements for tomb raiders, who in the 18th and 19th centuries targeted Bronze Age burials for their ornate grave goods.

And “even if the mounds are gone, you are still going to have primary burials [as opposed to those later added on top] which will have been dug into the chalk, so are going to survive,” Pollard added.

The contents of the Stone Age long barrows should likewise have survived, he said. “I think there’s good reason to assume you might have the main wooden mortuary chambers with burial deposits,” he said.

Redrawing the Map

An administrative oversight may also be partly responsible for the site remaining hidden—and assumedly pristine, at least underground—project leader Wickstead said.

When prehistoric sites in the area were being mapped and documented in the 1890s, a county-border change placed Damerham within Hampshire rather than Stonehenge’s Wiltshire, she said.

“Perhaps people in Hampshire thought [the monuments] were someone else’s problem.”

This lucky conjunction of plowing and politics obscured Damerham’s prehistoric heritage until now.

The site shows that “a lot of the ceremonial activity isn’t necessarily located in these big centers,” such as Stonehenge, Pollard said. “But there are other locations where people are congregating and constructing ceremonial monuments.”

With a new book on the market entitled AK-47: The Story of the People’s Gun, Michael Hodges is an expert on this particular weapon, and we got Hodges to let us in on a few little-known facts about the AK-47 while researching his work.

1- The inventor of the AK-47 did not profit from the gun

Although by some estimates there are 100 million AK-47-style assault rifles in circulation around the world, the gun’s inventor, Mikhail Kalashnikov, did not become rich (unlike Eugene Stoner, the inventor of the American M16 assault rifle, who died a wealthy man). Communist states had no patents, and until its collapse in 1991, Kalashnikov was simply an employee of the Soviet Union. “I invented a weapon to save the motherland, to save the state from fascism,” he said. “My career has been dedicated to my country.”

Despite that country awarding him the Hero of Socialist Labor medal and many other accolades, this particular Socialist hero, who just happened to change the world, started life as an enemy of the Soviet Union. Kalashnikov narrowly escaped being shot by Stalin’s special police after his family was denounced as Kulaks in 1932, and exiled to Siberia. Kalashnikov escaped again when a Panzer shell blew him from his tank in 1941, as the Soviets fought desperately to halt the Nazi advance on Moscow.

2- The AK-47 is the perfect weapon for children

The AK-47 can be stripped in under a minute and cleaned quickly in almost any climatic condition. Even if it isn’t cleaned, an AK-47 is still more likely to fire than any of its rivals given similar treatment on the battlefield. With only eight moving parts the AK-47 is cheap to manufacture and easy to use — so easy in fact that children can be taught how to properly handle this weapon in a single hour. Sudanese child soldier Emmanuel Jal picked up his first AK-47 when he was 9 years old. A fully loaded AK-47 weighs four kilograms: “I don’t know how I lifted the AK when I was tired. It was so heavy,” he remembers. “We only had a few AKs but we weren’t scared, it was like a game with toy guns. When the fighting starts you can put the gun down and run away, or pull the trigger. Once you’ve done that you are hooked; it makes you think that no one can touch you. Once you’ve fired an AK-47 you become brave.”

3- America may have given bin Laden his first AK-47

Since 1998, Osama bin Laden has regularly included an AK-47 in the propaganda videos he releases after terrorist outrages. Consequently, the gun has come to represent the global jihad, and AK-47 is an integral part of the regime at fundamentalist camps, as far apart as the English home counties and the jungles of the Philippines.

These groups and their adherents are dedicated to the destruction of Israel and America — yet it is highly likely that it was Israel and America that inadvertently put an AK-47 into bin Laden’s hands. When the Israel Defense Forces invaded Lebanon in 1982 to “crush” the Palestinian Liberation Organization they captured thousands of AK-47s.These guns found their way, via the CIA and the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence Agency, to the Mujahadeen resisting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. It is probable that amongst them would have been the AK-47 that equips bin Laden.

4- The AK-47 is the U.S. army’s most resilient enemy

U.S. forces first came into large-scale contact with the AK-47 during the Vietnam War. Their own M16s malfunctioned in the heat and damp of the jungle, but the Chinese-supplied AK-47s used by the communists continued to fire. Consequently, thousands of GIs picked up AK-47s from fallen Viet Cong guerrillas. This led Americans to open fire on their own side because they presumed the distinctive pop-pop-pop sound of an AK-47 revealed an enemy position. So many GIs threw away their guns in favor of AK-47s that a House of Representatives hearing in 1971 discovered that the U.S. Army attempted to stop the media reporting the phenomenon. Today, nearly 40 years later, in the sand and heat of Iraq, American soldiers are once again giving up their own U.S.-manufactured weapons in favor of the AK-47.

5- The AK-47 is the weapon of choice for U.S. mass murderers

On January 17, 1989, Patrick Purdey walked into the Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, California, armed with a Chinese-manufactured AK-47. It was fitted with a barrel magazine holding 75 rounds — both of which he bought legally over a gun-shop counter. When he walked out again five children were dead and 29 were injured. In December 1997, Arturo Reyes Torres entered his former place of work, the Caltrans Maintenance Yard, with an AK-47, killed four and wounded two. There are many more examples of AK-47 murders in the U.S. The online Urban Dictionary defines “Columbine” like so: “The constant bullying of the preppies and jocks has caused him to pick up his AK-47 and go Columbine on everyone.”

Ironically, the Columbine killers did not use AK-47s, but it doesn’t matter; in America gun crime is now perceived as AK crime.

rifle-ing through history

From the killing grounds of Sadr City to the murderous barrios of Bogotá, from the battlefields of Somalia to the ghettos of the United States, the AK-47 dominates the world. Invented by a Russian tank commander at the end of World War II, by rights it should be in the dustbin of history. However, such was the genius of his design that 60 years later — for millions of unfortunate people around the world, and scores of countries wracked by conflict — Mikhail Kalashnikov’s iconic assault rifle is both the present and, tragically, the future.

To learn even more about the AK-47, check out Michael Hodges’ book, AK-47: The Story of the People’s Gun.

SOURCE

Thus, our criteria for our top 10 modern mysteries does not necessarily concern unsolved mysteries, but the enduring public fascination with the mystery itself as well as the implications of the possible answers (even if conventional wisdom suggests the mystery has more than adequately been solved).

Number 10

What happened to the Carroll A. Deering?

On January 31, 1921, the schooner Carroll A. Deering was spotted having run aground off the coast of North Carolina. When rescue ships finally reached her, they found nothing short of a ghost ship to rival the Mary Celeste, which suffered a similar fate 50 years earlier. The Deering’s entire crew was missing. Evidence in the galley suggested that food was being prepared for the following day, yet nothing was found of the crew; none of their personal effects and nothing relating to the schooner itself, such as the ship logs.

Speculation has pointed to the paranormal, notably to the fact that she was in the region that is today known as the Bermuda Triangle. Alternative theories have come forward as well, including one that is a sign of its times: that it was part of a communist plot spearheaded by Russia to seize U.S. ships.

Number 9

Who was D.B. Cooper?

How hard is it to dislike this guy? On November 21, 1971, in Portland, Oregon, a man calling himself Dan Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727 en route to Seattle by discreetly flashing a bomb to the stewardess and handing her a note. On landing, as the other passengers disembarked without any clue of Cooper’s intentions, authorities met his demands of $200,000 in cash and a set of parachutes. The 727 then took off following Cooper’s instructions and, shortly thereafter, he leapt from the plane into a stormy night.

Since then, few clues have surfaced concerning the crime. A boy found some of Cooper’s cash along a riverbank and, recently, the FBI thought his parachute had been found, but it turned out not to be the case. One man emerged as a suspect after he died, since on his death bed he told his wife, “I’m D.B. Cooper.”  She told the Discovery Channel’s Unsolved History that his confession, true or not, had ruined her life. If Cooper died in the jump, which the FBI contends, his remains won’t be found as Mount St. Helens covered the region with ash in 1980.

Number 8

Is the Riemann hypothesis true?

The Riemann hypothesis is not as well-known as other mysteries for at least one good reason: it has no catchy made-for-TV nickname. There’s so much to like about
“E = mc²,” no wonder it swept the world. Riemann, on the other hand, sounds like this: “The real part of any non-trivial zero of the Riemann zeta function is ½.”

The curious thing about this hypothesis is that not only do most mathematicians believe it to be fact despite the lack of a comprehensive solution, a number of other complex mathematical problems have been solved on the basis that the Riemann is true. Right now, $1 million awaits the person who can prove the hypothesis. While a proof would be tantalizing, the more fascinating outcome would be if it were proven to be false.

Number 7

Who killed the Black Dahlia?

The discovery of the grossly mutilated body of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short in Los Angeles, on January 15, 1947, set off the biggest homicide investigation in the Southland, one that continues to baffle everyone who takes a look at the case even today. Short’s body had been drained of blood and cut in two, and her killer had morbidly given her the Glasgow smile: He cut her mouth from ear to ear.

The list of suspects is long, and any one of them can sound convincing; that is, if the argument is presented without a rebuttal, which is generally when they tend to fall apart. One notable suspect, Dr. George Hodel (now deceased like virtually all the suspects), has an unlikely man promoting his guilt: Hodel’s son and former LAPD homicide detective Steve Hodel. The case remains unsolved, and has inspired numerous books and movies, along with endless speculation. Physical evidence is scant, meaning this mystery is unlikely to ever be solved.

Number 6

Where is Jimmy Hoffa’s body?

On July 30, 1975, Jimmy Hoffa, the former head of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, had been out of prison for about four years. President Nixon had commuted his original 13-year sentence on attempted bribery to time-served, provided he stay away from unions until his prison time would have ended in 1980.

On that late July day, Hoffa, who was in the process of regaining union control in spite of Nixon’s restriction, got into a car in the Machus Red Fox restaurant parking lot in Bloomfield Township, Michigan. He hasn’t been seen since. The mystery has less to do with who killed him — the mob seems like the safest bet — than the location of his body. It has become something of a cultural landmark, a metaphor for the best hiding spot of all time.

Number 5

What causes the Taos Hum?

The Taos Hum is perhaps the best-known among a handful of very low-frequency “humming” sounds that people have reported hearing in various parts of the world, including the UK, North America and New Zealand. Questions persist about its origins, that maybe it’s paranormal or that it may be the sound of the universe expanding.

Curiously, the most sensitive acoustic devices — far more sensitive than the clumsy human ear — typically fail to pick up a note of humming. While local investigators have succeeded in tracing the source in some cases. For instance, the Kokomo Hum in Kokomo, Indiana, proved to be coming from a Chrysler plant. Could it be that it’s just all in our heads? After all, the regional “hums” and the symptoms reported by sufferers are so varied and often so contradictory that the source of the noise may be our imaginations.

Number 4

Who was the Zodiac Killer?

America did not invent the serial killer, but she has perfected him. And nowhere is this frightening perfection better brought to fruition than with the Zodiac Killer, the scourge of Bay Area detectives since the 1960s.

Remarkably, all confirmed Zodiac killings occurred in a 10-month span, between December 1968 and October 1969, yet his ability to outfox the police — as well as countless armchair detectives –has inspired movies, TV shows, novels, music, and practically his own shelf in the true-crime section at book stores. One of the ciphers he sent to police over three decades ago has still not been solved. Most recently, DNA evidence retrieved from licked envelopes sent by the Zodiac only heightened the mystery, when results ruled out a long-time favorite suspect in the case.

Number 3

What is pulling the universe apart?

Credible cosmologists and astrophysicists tell us that there is conclusive evidence that the universe is expanding — but they can not say why. The most prominent explanation for this theory is that there is a force at work that seems to be operating contrary to the force of gravity. Lacking a definitive explanation, they nonetheless gave it a tantalizing name: dark energy.

Dark energy, they believe, is the dominating force in our universe, representing a shocking two-thirds of its entire composition. In fact, they go a step further and suggest that another 30% of the universe is composed of dark matter, a concept as poorly understood as dark energy. Not quite getting this? It’s OK. Even those who proposed this don’t get it any better than you.

Number 2

What really happened at Area 51?

UFO buffs have gathered at the edges of Area 51 in Nevada for years, hoping to catch a glimpse of the alien spacecraft alleged to be docked at the sprawling, secretive government site. No one has done more to fuel speculation — as well as to remind people to consider individual credibility — than Bob Lazar.

As Bob told it in 1989, the U.S. government had nine UFO spacecraft at Area 51, and they needed some brilliant physicists to come in and “reverse engineer” them (read: figure out how they work). Lazar, a self-proclaimed physicist who by day ran a one-hour photo lab, got the nod and a top-level security clearance. Unfortunately, he had to show off the UFO to friends and got caught.

While it is well-known that the government developed top secret military technology there — including the likes of the F-117 Stealth Fighter and the B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber — it is supremely unlikely that Area 51 ever held a UFO. Nonetheless, a cottage industry was born around Area 51, much of it thanks to conspiracy theorists with no concern for the government’s official line on the incident.

Number 1

Was the JFK assassination a conspiracy?

The assassination of President Kennedy lands at No. 1 not because it is one of the great unsolved mysteries of our time, but because of its unmatched cultural impact. For many people — who were alive at the time and who were not born yet — President Kennedy represented something truly larger than life. Consequently it was, and still remains, nearly impossible for them to imagine a giant like JFK being killed by a loser with a scope and a view.

Among the many testaments to this is the remarkably desperate diligence of conspiracy theorists, who can ignore 2,999 pages of declassified CIA documents and focus on a single line from page 3,000, and build a complicated theory of a mob hit or a Cuban connection.
The inability to accept the theory of a lone gunman, and the ability to believe in any other scenario despite the lack of even a trace of conclusive evidence, is the greater mystery here because it hints at something mysterious, remarkably fragile and even endearing about the human psyche.

In the early morning of 30 June, 1908, witnesses told of a gigantic explosion and blinding flash. Thousands of square kilometres of trees were burned and flattened.
Scientists have always suspected that an incoming comet or asteroid lay behind the event – but no impact crater was ever discovered and no expedition to the area has ever found any large fragments of an extraterrestrial object.

The explosion, equivalent to 10-15 million tonnes of TNT, occurred over the Siberian forest, near a place known as Tunguska.

A flash fire burned thousands of trees near the impact site. An atmospheric shock wave circled the Earth twice. And, for two days afterwards, there was so much fine dust in the atmosphere that newspapers could be read at night by scattered light in the streets of London, 10,000 km (6,213 miles) away.

Nearly a century later, scientists are still debating what happened at that remote spot. Was it a comet or an asteroid? Some have even speculated that it was a mini-black hole, though there is no evidence of it emerging from the other side of the Earth, as it would have done.

What is more, none of the samples of soil, wood or water recovered from the impact zone have been able to cast any light on what the Tunguska object actually was.

Researchers from several Italian universities have visited Tunguska many times in the past few years. Now, in a pulling together of their data and information from several hitherto unused sources, the scientists offer an explanation about what happened in 1908.

The Cando Event – A fireball in the sky

The Cando event was an explosion that occurred in the village of Cando, Spain, in the morning of January 18, 1994. There were no casualties in this incident, which has been described as being like a small Tunguska event.
Witnesses claim to have seen a fireball in the sky lasting for almost one minute. Up to 200 m³ of terrain was missing and trees were found displaced 100 m down the hill.
Opinions are divided about the causes of the explosion.Local residents, claim it was a meteor, as an object “the size of a full moon” was seen in the skies of the Spanish region of Galicia. The mystery became fertile ground for conspiracy theories that point to military or “alien activities”.

The Vela Incident – An unidentified double flash of light

On 22 September 1979, sometime around 3:00am local time, a US Atomic Energy Detection System satellite recorded an unidentified double flash of light in a remote portion of the Indian Ocean.
Moments later an unusual, fast-moving ionospheric disturbance was detected by the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, and at about the same time a distant, muffled thud was overheard by the US Navy’s undersea Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS). Evidently something violent and explosive had transpired in the ocean off the southern tip of Africa.
Half a year later, researchers in western Australia detected increased amounts of radiation in the area. The signal appeared to come from a 3,000 mile area that included the South Atlantic, Indian Ocean, tip of Africa, and part of Antarctica. A presidential panel concluded in May 1980 that the signal was more likely an artifact of a meteoroid hitting the satellite and sunlight reflecting off particles ejected as a result of the collision.
Much of the information about the event is still classified.

Eastern Mediterranean Event – Calculated yield of about 2 Hiroshima bombs

The Eastern Mediterranean Event was a high-energy aerial explosion over the Mediterranean Sea, -between Libya and Crete, Greece- on June 6th, 2002.
This explosion, similar in power to a small atomic bomb, has been related to an asteroid undetected while approaching the Earth. The object disintegrated and no part was recovered. Since it did not reach the surface and it exploded over the sea, no crater was formed.
It was detected by satellites and seismographic stations, with a calculated yield of about 26 kilotons of TNT, approximately double the yield of the Hiroshima bomb, comparable to a small modern nuclear bomb.

The first Olympics, delicious Gyros, but most importantly The Greek Gods.

Today we’re going to jump into the Delorian and take a look at what might have happened if you somehow disappointed one of them.

Does the punishment fit the crime?  In many cases we’d like to say no, but we’ll let you be the judge.

Actaeon – Actaeon was a hunter who spent his days chasing wild life with his hound dogs.  One afternoon he was hunting in the woods when he stumbled across Artemis who was bathing.  Like any heterosexual male, he took a moment to admire her cans.

His Punishment - Artemis didn’t like the fact that she was being stared at by a nobody, so she cursed him with forbidden speech.  Talking would result in a shape shift.  Basically he had to shut the f**k up for the rest of his life or he would turn into a deer.  Sadly, he couldn’t keep quiet long and he tried to call out to his hunting party.  Upon doing so, he was turned into a stag and ripped to pieces by his own dogs.  Pretty steep fine for accidentally stumbling across a set of t**s.

Arachne – Archne was a weaver, and a damn good one.  Like many people who become the best at something, she slowly started to develop a monster ego.  She even went so far as to tell people that she could out weave Athena (the goddess of wisdom and war as well as the weaving arts).  Athena gets pi**ed, disguises herself, and challenges Archne to a ‘weave off’.  Arachne weaves up several portraits of the gods displaying infidelity (oops).  Although the tapestry was flawless, it sent Athena into a rage.

Her Punishment – Athena (now pi**ed) completely destroys Arachne’s work, and touches her forehead.  Doing so instilled the notion of guilt upon her.  This sent Arachne into a depression and eventually she hanged herself.  Now feeling bad that Arachne had off’d herself, Athena decides to bring  her back to life…as a fu**ing spider.

IO – Zeus liked to play the field.  One of the hunnies he liked to mess with was a slammin’ betty named IO.  One day they were getting it on, when Zeus’ jealous wife (Hera) rolls up on them.  Not wanting to get caught, Zeus quickly turned IO into a cow.  Hera wasn’t completely fooled though so she demanded the cow as a gift.

Her Punishment – Poor IO really didn’t do anything wrong.  Sure she was grabbing her ankles for Zeus, but what would’ve happened if she had said no? Exactly.  Eventually Zeus decides he wants her back so he gets Hermes to kill Argus (who was gaurding IO in her cow state).  The now very jealous (and bat s**t crazy) Hera just became more upset and had a gadfly chase down IO, stinging her in the ass, so she could never rest again.

Sisyphus – Zeus had taken the daughter of the river god Asopus for his sexual desires.

Sisyphus knew where she was, so he made a stupid move and told Asopus of her whereabouts.

His Punishment – Naturally this made Zeus furious, so he gave him a slap on the wrist.

By slap on the wrist I mean, being cursed to push a gigantic boulder up a hill, only to have it roll back down again – for eternity.

Narkissos – This guy was a regular lady killer.  By the time he was 15 years old, every girl in town wanted to be with him.  One day, a grl by the name of Echo stalked him into the woods.  When she finally showed herself he wasn’t the least bit interested and basically said “t**s or gtfo” (without the t**s part).  This devastated Echo.

His Punishment – Since Echo was a total crybaby, she spent the rest of her life doing so, until Nemesis heard her prayers.  Apparently Nemesis was tired of her belly aching as well so he decided to give Narkissos a taste of his own medicine.  Later, Narkissos saw his reflection in the water, fell love with it, realized that it was an image of himself, and died (knowing he couldn’t act upon his love).  His soul was sent to the darkest hell (the narcissus flower grew where his body once l**d).  Keep this story in mind next time you’re about to shun the girl with f***ed up teeth at the bar.

Ixion – One evening Zeus invited Ixion over for dinner.  The not so bright Ixion started to lust after Hera.  Playing footsie with Zeus’ old lady was definitely frowned upon, so he was scolded and told to stop.  Being a generous host, Zeus invites Ixion to stay the night.  To test his loyality he formed a cloud like replica of his wife and sent her to Ixion’s room.  Ixion, without missing a beat, hit that s**t.

His Punishment – Zeus was done giving this guy warnings so fired a lightning bolt at him.  He wasn’t quite satisfied with just a lightning bolt though so he fastened him to burning wheel…for eternity.

Tiresias – This guy once came across two snakes mating, so he decided to kill one of them (the female snake).  For some reason this turned him into a woman.  Years later he saw different set of snakes mating, so he killed the male this time, turning him back into a man.  Meanwhile, Zeus and his woman (Hera) were arguing about who gets the most pleasure out of sex, the man or the woman.  They called upon Tiresias to settle this (since he had been bent over quite a few times when he was in his female state).  Tiresias explained that men give 10 times more pleasure then they receive during sex.

His Punishment - Surprise, surprise – Hera is fu**ng fired up yet again.  Displeased with losing the argument, she decides to blind poor Tiresias.  Zeus was like “Damn dude I hate when she gets in these moods, I can’t get your eyes back but I will extend your life by 7 and also give you the gift of foresight.”  There really isn’t a moral here besides ‘never try to win an argument with a woman’.

Prometheus – It is said that without Prometheus, mankind would have never had fire.  He did this by putting some hot coal in a fennel-stalk that he took from the gods, then gave the contraption we call fire, back to the humans.

His Punishment - Zeus did not like this act of betrayal so he chained Prometheus to a rock.  That doesn’t seem to bad does it?  Oh I forgot to mention that a motherfu****g eagle swoops down every day to eat out his liver which regenerated at night.

Conclusion: Sure the gods were a bit harsh, and sometimes I’d go so far as to say they were being as**oles, but look what it accomplished.  People knew that if they messed up, they’d be eating a s**t sandwich (possibly for eternity).  Wouldn’t you feel a whole lot better if the douchebag who cut you off in the Ford Ranger got a Greek God smack down?  “Dear Zeus, some bro in a Ranger just cut me off, also his bumper sticker said ‘Hera sucks d**k’.”.

You can be gr

Street cooks are magicians: With little more than a cart and a griddle, mortar, or deep-fryer, they conjure up not just a delicious snack or meal but the very essence of a place. Bite into a banh mi—the classic Vietnamese sandwich of grilled pork and pickled vegetables encased in a French baguette—and you taste Saigon: traditional Asia tinged with European colonialism. What better proves the culinary genius of Tuscany than the elevation of a humble ingredient like tripe into a swoon-worthy snack? To sample merguez sausage in Marrakesh’s central square is to join a daily ritual that has persisted for centuries.

Sadly, street food has acquired a reputation as a potential trip-wrecker, which means too many travelers leave, say, Singapore without having a steaming bowl of fish head curry or a few skewers of saté. No one wants to get sick, but avoiding street food means denying yourself an essential part of the travel experience. So peruse our list of some of the world’s best street food vendors, and don’t be afraid to try something new. But pack a little Pepto—just in case.

The dish: Banh mi

Where to find the best: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Word on the street: It takes almost no time for the peddler who sets up her tiny cart and knee-high charcoal brazier every weekday at 5 pm at 37 Nguyen Trai Street (in District 1) to turn you into a banh mi lover. As soon as you order, she swiftly assembles a sandwich that, despite its colonial French exterior (a stubby baguettelike loaf), is Vietnamese through and through. Peel back the newspaper wrapper and bite: Your teeth crash through the bread (a touch of rice flour makes it exceptionally crispy) and into still-warm morsels of grilled pork, a crunchy spear of cucumber, sweet-tangy shreds of pickled carrot and daikon, cilantro, and a smear of Vietnamese mayo. Add a squirt of hot sauce, and this might be the best sandwich you’ve ever had. Or at least the best one you’ve ever had for 30 cents.

The dish: Tacos

Where to find the best: San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

Word on the street: The taco is made for snackers on the move, the invention, supposedly, of itinerant Mexican cowboys who relished the convenience of an edible plate. Given its modest origins, it’s no surprise that when connoisseurs nominate their favorite taco spots, they’re more likely to name street corners than proper restaurants. This is especially true in San Miguel de Allende, an artsy colonial city about four hours north of the capital. At night, when the expats and tourists are headed home from their fancy dinners, street vendors are just warming up their griddles. The best taco peddler sets up on the corner of Calle de Mesones and Pepe Llanos, just a short walk from the main square (look for the floodlights illuminating a mass of happy people gathered around a cart). Order up a few tacos al pastor, and watch as one of the cooks carves off some hunks from a block of red-tinged pork cooking on a vertical spit, presses them into a double layer of delicate corn tortillas—each no larger than a CD—and splashes it with an exhilaratingly tart and salty pineapple salsa. Just a few bites obliterate each taco, leaving behind a slick of sauce and grease on your hands and lips. Pity the sleeping gringos.

The dish: Tripe sandwiches

Where to find the best: Florence, Italy

Word on the street: Florentines adore their traditional peasant dishes, shining examples of how Tuscan ingenuity can transform even the humblest ingredients into the sublime. Take tripe, for instance: Even if you’re not an avid consumer of cow stomach, when you’re in Florence we urge you to close your eyes, take a bite, and become a convert. Florentines stew their tripe with garlic and aromatics until meltingly tender, then tuck it into a crusty roll and enliven it with either chile-laced red sauce or a zippy salsa verde made with capers, parsley, and anchovies. Everyone has a favorite spot, such as Civiltà della Trippa, a stand in the northwest part of Florence, or the cart in the Piazzale di Porta Romana run by a seasonally inclined fellow who adds artichokes to his sandwiches during the spring. Before you know it, you’ll be ordering yours bagnato—dipped in the tripe’s cooking liquid—as many locals do.

The dish: Green papaya salad

Where to find the best: Bangkok, Thailand

Word on the street: It’s a siren song for most Thais, the pop-pop-pop of shredded green papaya being bruised by a stone pestle. The sound signals the presence of som tam, a salad that showcases the quartet of flavors—salty, sweet, sour, and spicy—that epitomize Thai cuisine. Som tam is a tangle of crisp, unripe papaya, peanuts, and dried shrimp, tossed in a lip-tingling dressing of fish sauce, palm sugar, and lime juice, then crammed, to-go style, into a plastic bag. You’ll find it all over Bangkok, but the quintessential version is found just off Phaholyothin Soi 7, a busy street in the Soi Ari neighborhood packed with vendors—seek out the cart whose window flaunts stacks of shredded papaya and tomatoes, plus a coiling bunch of long beans. More daring chowhounds should seek out the style of som tam popular in Isaan, Thailand’s Northeastern region, where many think the dish originated. Stop by the open-air haunt called Foon Talop, in the Chatuchak Weekend Market, where the salad is made with pla ra, a supremely funky, murky fish sauce whose flavor you won’t soon forget.

The dish: Currywurst

Where to find the best: Berlin, Germany

Word on the street: Germany has perhaps as many sausages as France has cheeses, so naturally, Berlin’s favorite street treat involves Wurst. But currywurst is no New York–style hot dog: A dense, juicy 13″ sausage cut into chunks, it lounges in a puddle of ketchup spiked with curry powder and paprika. The lovably odd, decidedly local snack was the creation, legend has it, of a clumsy Wurst peddler who dropped the containers of ketchup and curry powder that she was carrying and licked the fortuitously tasty spillage from her fingers. In any case, the snack mirrors modern Berlin: traditional yet cosmopolitan, and perfect for a long night of carousing. The best of the Wurst spots make their own sauce, including the exalted Krasselt’s in the Steglitz area and Konnopke’s in Prenzlauer Berg. But wherever you end up ordering it, wash it down with a cold pint of Warsteiner.

The dish: Just about any Asian food you can imagine

Where to find the best: Singapore

Word on the street: Singapore is Asia’s melting pot, populated by Chinese, Indonesians, Indians, and Malays—a culinary dream team that makes Singaporean street food the most diverse and celebrated on earth. And the safest: All sidewalk chefs here work in “hawker centers,” little open-air venues where the government enforces its strict health codes. At the Old Airport Road Food Centre, you’ll find Indian-style fish head curry bubbling away at one stand and Hainanese chicken rice—stuffed with scallions and ginger, poached, and served with sticky rice—at the next. The Matter Road Seafood Barbecue stall specializes in Singapore’s celebrated chile crabs, which come slathered in a garlicky, fiery, prepare-to-get-messy paste. Toa Payoh Rojak deals only in rojak, an inspired salad of pineapple, cucumber, and other fruits and vegetables dressed in a bracing syrup made with tamarind and shrimp paste. Naturally, the plethora of options has inspired some serious connoisseurs, most famously K.F. Seetoh, whose Makansutra site is a well-respected guide to Singapore’s best vendors.

The dish: Bhel puri

Where to find the best: Mumbai, India

Word on the street: It only makes sense that India, a continent-size country with five major religions and 16 official languages, would have countless beloved snacks. But the chaat (as they’re known) of choice in the food-crazy city of Mumbai is bhel puri, a deceptively simple jumble of puffed rice, sev (tiny fried noodles), potato, red onion, and cilantro. Just before serving, the puri is ignited by a spicy tamarind chutney that not only rouses the palate but moistens the rice and sev to a texture that teeters between crunchy and soft. Chowpatty Beach, in Back Bay, is Mumbai’s street food mecca and where you’ll spoon up the city’s best bhel puri to the soundtrack of wallahs loudly advertising their edible wares. They may tempt you to also try pav bhaji (Portuguese-style bread served with a butter-bombed mash of vegetables cooked in tomato paste) or kulfi, India’s famous dense ice cream. Go for it—but be aware that Chowpatty is also known for being one of the less pristine spots in Mumbai. So for a taste of chaat with less risk of gastrointestinal distress, head about a mile north to the well-loved restaurant Swati Snacks, opposite Bhatia Hospital, which uses filtered water.

The dish: Frites

Where to find the best: Brussels, Belgium

Word on the street: Don’t blame us when Brussels destroys your tolerance for soggy, limp, or otherwise lacking French fries. Fried potatoes here are no sidekick to a burger—they’re the main event, sold in paper cones with a dollop of mayonnaise at little kiosks all over the city. Belgium claims—much to the frustration of the French—to have invented what we know as the French fry. The best frites stands, such as Frit’ Flagey (in Place Flagey) or Maison Friterie Antoine (in Place Jourdan), use only Bintje potatoes—a local variety that seems born for the deep-fryer—and cook them twice in clean peanut oil or beef fat (horse fat, thankfully, is no longer used). The result is a batch of impossibly airy, crisp, surprisingly greaseless fries that—whether crowned with mayo, tartar sauce, pineapple-spiked ketchup, or any of the other ten or so sauces offered—will ruin you for the inadequate kind waiting for you back home.

The dish: Arepas

Where to find the best: Cartagena, Colombia

Word on the street: Colombia might be the only Latin American country where rice is more important than corn. But Colombians have a special place in their heart for the cornmeal cakes they call arepas. If you’ve never had the pleasure, imagine corn bread with a more delicate crumb that’s been flattened into a pancake, filled with cheese or egg, and griddled or fried to form a brown, crispy crust. Each bite sends butter streaking down your chin and, for Colombians, inspires memories of abuela at the stove. For the best, fly down to Cartegena and seek out the Restaurante Club De Pesca in the Manga neighborhood. But you won’t find them on the menu there—it’s one of the fanciest places in town. Instead, head to the nearby soccer field, where a gaggle of ladies sell carimañolas (yuca fritters filled with ground beef), empanadas, and most importantly, those fabulous arepas.

The dish: Jerk pork and jerk chicken

Where to find the best: Ocho Rios, Jamaica

Word on the street: Jerk has changed quite a bit since its invention in the 17th century by the escaped slaves known as Maroons. These freedom fighters (and early gourmets) subsisted on wild boar while they were fighting the British, and to preserve the meat they rubbed it with a mixture of spices. Today, the aromatic blend has developed to include allspice, nutmeg, thyme, and Scotch bonnet chiles. But you see chicken more often than pork, and grills made from oil drums instead of traditional wood fires. That’s why anyone visiting the North Coast resort town of Ocho Rios should take the quick 12-mile trip to the valley of Faith’s Pen (about 12 miles south on Highway A3, just past the little town of St. Faith). Dozens of roadside stalls here serve perfect renditions of jerk pork loin (and chicken, if you insist). Smoke from the pimento wood intensifies the already-energetic spices and creates a tasty crust surrounding the juicy flesh. And you thought you’d find heaven on Jamaica’s beaches!

The dish: Sheep’s head

Where to find the best: Marrakesh, Morocco

Word on the street: During the day, Jemaa el-Fna, the main square of Marrakesh’s medina, is flanked by juice carts and filled with covered stalls selling lamps, bags, and other crafts. But as the sun begins to set and the oppressive Saharan heat abates, these wares give way to edibles. Almost 100 open kitchens take over, their proprietors setting up lights and tables, and a haze of smoke hangs above the vast square. What’s on the menu? Grilled merguez sausage, meat and vegetable brochettes of every variety, and pots of harira, the hearty lentil, chickpea, and vegetable soup that breaks the daily fast during Ramadan. But the street-food-lover’s holy grail is the luscious meat scraped from a whole sheep’s head and served with crusty Moroccan bread and sprinkled with a mixture of cumin and salt. It’s a dish almost as thrilling as the surrounding scene, a stage crowded with busy cooks and happy diners as well as acrobats, snake charmers, and mystical musicians.

from: concierge.com

]]> http://thebizzare.com/cool/worlds-best-street-food/feed/ 5