A Handful of Mysteries Trivia Quiz

Answer: Peat

The remains found so far have included children as well as adult males and females. The tannins found in the peat bogs have helped to preserve these bodies by preventing the action of bacteria and other microbes, as well as causing their darkened appearance. This has also allowed both hair and clothing to be well-preserved, with the 'Elling Woman's' elaborate 90cm braid still intact over 2000 years later.

Carbon dating has shown that the oldest known body, 'Koelbjerg Man', dates from 8000 BCE, with most other remains dating from the Iron Ages. It is speculated that most of these people were human sacrifices, possibility in fertility rituals, whilst others may have been punished for crimes.

Some bodies have been so well preserved that it is possible to take fingerprints from them. Scientists have also been able to identify food particles from stomachs, as well as determine diets.

'Tolling Man' (pictured) is perhaps the best preserved body found, with his features, including creases in his skin clearly visible. He and 'Elling Woman' were found located close to each other.

Answer: UNESCO

Research from the University of Melbourne shows that some of these stone jars date from 773-987 CE, nearly 3000 years ago.

Documents provided to UNESCO as part of the application for world heritage status indicates that there are over 2100 jars along with 'stone discs, secondary burials, tombstones, quarries and funerary objects dating from 500 BCE to 500 CE. The jars and associated elements are the most prominent evidence of the Iron Age civilization that made and used them until it disappeared, around 500 CE.'

Archaeologists have found evidence of burials at the site including bones placed in pits with a large limestone block on top, bones buried in ceramic vessels, and a single body in a grave. French archaeologist, Madeleine Colani, in the 1930's excavated a cave site that she believed may have been used as a crematorium.

The Laos Field of Jars also has the dubious distinction of being in the centre of up to 80 million unexploded cluster bombs dropped by the United States Air Force in the 1960s as part of the 'Secret War' in South East Asia.

Answer: First analogue computer

Models of the Antikythera Mechanism show that it was quite compact in size, around the size of a mantel clock. Consisting of 37 gears, the design shows a high level of engineering that did not reappear until the renaissance.

The Mechanism was able to calculate both lunar and solar calendars, illustrate the position of both the sun and moon relative to Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn (the known five planets of that period), and count down to regularly scheduled events such as the Olympics.

While the first piece of the Antikythera Mechanism was recovered intact, it quickly broke into three larger pieces. There are over 80 pieces which have been identified.

Answer: Eagle

After 108 CE there are no definitive records of the Ninth Legion. While some artefacts have been found of the Legion in the modern day Netherlands, these can only be best dated to the period 104-120. Two separate lists of Legions (one of which can be dated to 197) have been found, but the Legio IX Hispana is not among them.

This has naturally led to speculation about their fate. One popular theory, covered in 'Eagle of the Ninth', speculates that the Ninth marched into Caledonia (modern day Scotland) and were destroyed in battle by the Caledonians. The Emperor, Hadrian, visited the region in around 120, when he gave the order for what became as 'Hadrian's Wall' to be built. However, no archaeological evidence has yet been found to support this theory.

Other theories suggest that the Ninth could have been withdrawn from Britannia and absorbed into other legions.

'The Eagle of the Ninth' by Rosemary Sutcliff was published in 1954. The main character, Marcus Flavius Aquila, is determined to find out the fate of his father who disappeared with the Ninth Legion. In the book, the Ninth were obliterated by the Caledonian tribes, with Marcus able to recover the lost eagle, emblem of the Legion and settles in Britannia.

Answer: Roman

The purpose of these intriguing objects remains open to interpretation. The devices are of different sizes, and without any markings, which has only deepened the puzzle. Theories that have been put forward to explain the use of the shapes include: a candlestick, a children's toy, a geodetic measuring instrument, and fortune telling devices.

As some have been found with coin hoards, they were perhaps considered valuable, especially at a time when metal was hard to manufacture. One device was found in the grave of a wealthy Roman woman, perhaps used to top the bone staff with which she was also buried.

One recent theory is that they were astronomical instruments, used in determining crop sowing times. Other people have come up with more creative uses, with YouTube videos showing how to use the dodecahedrons to knit gloves.

Answer: Roger Bacon

The Voynich manuscript is written in a cipher or code that is yet to be identified, despite many attempts. A small number of Latin and German words have been identified but this has not assisted with translation.

It appears to consist of a number of different sections including:
* Herbal with pages displaying 1-2 plants, most of which are not able to be identified
* Astronomical consisting of a range of diagrams, one of which shows the conventional zodiac signs.
* Balneological (treatment of disease) which has text broken up by drawings, mostly showing small nude women, bathing in pools or tubs connected by an elaborate network of pipes.
* Cosmological circular diagrams of an obscure nature.
* Pharmaceutical, labeled drawings of isolated plant parts (roots, leaves, etc.), as well as objects resembling apothecary jars, ranging in style
* Recipes, consisting of pages of text broken into many short paragraphs, each marked with a star in the left margin

The history of the document is also obscure. While the vellum has been dated to the period 1404-1438, the author and origin are unidentified. The first recorded owner is Georg Baresch, a 17th-century alchemist from Prague. A letter written by Baresch's friend Marci was found with the text and it is this letter which suggests Bacon as a possible author (carbon dating has since ruled this out).

It's provenance is unable to be traced after Marci sent the text to Athanasius Kircher in 1666, and it is believed that it remained with his papers in the Collegio Romano. No definite records confirm this, until Voynich produced it in 1912. After his death his wife claimed it had been bought from an Italian Jesuit College. It is now held by Yale University.

Answer: The Tower of London

While it is likely that the two boys were murdered, there are competing theories about who was responsible. Was it their uncle, Richard III, who had them declared illegitimate before taking the throne for himself? Could it have been Henry VII, who married their sister, Elizabeth of York, and who defeated their uncle, Richard III, at Bosworth Field in 1485?

Was it Henry VII's mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, from whom Henry VII claimed the right to the throne (Lady Margaret was the only child of John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset (1404-1444), a legitimised grandson of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster (son of King Edward III) by his mistress Katherine Swynford)?

To further add to the mystery, in 1647 bones from two small skeletons were found in a wooden box buried under a staircase in the Tower. King Charles II had the bones buried in Westminster Abbey, where they remain. To date, the English Royal Family have declined requests for DNA testing of the remains.

Answer: The Man in the Iron Mask

Despite the name by which he became known, contemporary descriptions describe him as either being veiled or wearing a black velvet mask to hide his identity. This was incorrectly described by Voltaire, writing one hundred years later, as an iron mask.

Records indicate that this prisoner was arrested in either 1669 or 1670 and he remained a prisoner until his death in the Bastille in 1703. On which charges he was arrested was never publicly revealed, which only added to the mystery. The prisoner was only to be spoken to once per day, and he was not permitted to discuss anything apart from his needs.

Voltaire speculated that he was the older, illegitimate brother of Louis XIV, while a different novelist, Marcel Pagnol, speculated in a 1965 essay that he was the identical twin of Louis XIV hidden to avoid dispute over who was the elder.

Documents rediscovered in 2015 in the 'Minutier central des Notaires de Paris' name the prisoner as Eustache Dauger, a man who was involved in several political scandals of the late 17th century, but again, there is no definitive evidence of this.

Answer: The Dancing Plague

There were numerous outbreaks of 'Dancing Plague' between the years of 1020 and 1518 (the last recorded outbreak). Instances took place predominantly in cities now located in modern Germany (Aachen), the Netherlands (Utrecht) and France (Strasbourg.)

In the thirteenth century an outbreak in Maastricht occurred where a group of up to 200 people danced on a bridge causing it to collapse and the dancers to drown. Other accounts describe groups of people dancing compulsively for up to several days at a time, continuing until they collapsed and sometimes died. In one reported case, reminiscent of the tale of the 'Pied Piper', a group of children travelled from Erfurt to Arnstadt (a distance of 20 km) in 1237.

Several theories have been put forward in an attempt to explain this behaviour: ergot poisoning; mass hysteria; and disguised pagan observations.

John Waller, writing in 'The Lancet' in 2009 noted that there were links between all of the known outbreaks. They occurred on the Rhine and Moselle rivers, they occurred shortly after acute distress (outbreaks of disease and crop failures), and in regions where there was a history of the dancing plague being seen as a curse. He noted that once the dancers had undergone pilgrimages, particularly to shrines of St Vitus and St John, the compulsive dancing stopped.

Answer: Distinguished Flying Cross

Amelia Earhart was also the first female passenger to cross the Atlantic. She was only the second pilot to successfully complete a cross-Atlantic flight after Charles Lindbergh.

After leaving Lae, Amelia and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were aiming to fly to Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean. While a US Coast Guard Cutter, Itasca, was deployed to assist with navigation, they were unable to communicate with Earhart and Noonan. They recorded her last radio transmissions on July 2, 1937. Despite extensive searches carried out, Earhart and Noonan were not located.

A number of theories have arisen regarding Earhart's fate. Did they crash and sink at sea? Did they land at Gardner Island and later perish? Were they taken prisoner as spies by the Japanese and later executed? TIGHAR (The International Group for Historical Aircraft Recovery) has focused their attention on the Gardner Island theory citing artefacts that correspond with those associated with Earhart's plane.