Writing Is One Helluva Time

Very new to Tumblr so kinda bumbling around here lol

(Another one that I am very proud of as I be a coin nerd at heart too)

At various sites around the old world, spanning from England and roman coin hordes, China in the immerse treasures buried with the Terracotta Army, to the sunken hulls of ships in the Caribbean, the occasional coin that was so distinctly different in appearance from those found in the area would be found.

The minting technics would always been similar, if not the same to the civilization responsible for the other coins found nearby, but they depicted a figure that seemingly was distinctly not human. They were coined (hah) Mammon coins by archeologists and numismatists (Person who collects coins) when those that were in better condition could make out the name in Latin inscribed on them

But past that, archeologists have no idea where they originated from and how they had such a wide reach. Given the coins spanned centuries of time and have been found in all over the place geographically

More interestingly yet, coins dating only back to the 17th/18th century were found circulating in numismatics shops. Only drawing more questions as they were matched to have more updated minting practices.

Theories very much range as to their purpose and origin, as the standard archeologist reasoning, cults are common explanation as to the reasoning for the coins existence. Especially as some examples of the coin also had the world 'soul' inscribed on it in a manor almost denoting that is what the currency that the coin represented was. Which suggested some kind of ritual attached to it (fyi, Cults/ritual are a common way in archeology of saying "We don't really know what this was used for")

(In leu of writers block stopping my narrtive writing, have some headcanons that fill out the whole wide world of Earth in the Hellaverse and a little history lesson as well)

Pompei may be one of the most studied and renowned archeological sites in the world. Everyone knows the story of the roman seaside town that in the blink of an eye was buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. However, it's in Pompei's quick and decisive fate that made it a gold mine of archeological data because in its destruction it preserved the city incredibly well.

Another detail many might be acutely aware of is that the fate of Pompei's citizens allowed for an intresting method of data collection. When mount Vesuvius erupted, it consumed the town in what is called a pyroclastic flow. (Which is basically a landslide of hot gas, ash and rock fragments that can travel easily over 100 km/h an hour, if not even higher by a wide margin)

This in tombed many of the victims in the exact position they died. As when things cooled down it basically created casts of the people. With time, the bodies rotted away yet the impression of their body remained in the ground.

Now fast forward a millennium or two

Some culling archeologists slowly digging out the city of Pompei discover these impressions and have a brilliant idea. If they discover these casts in the soil before fully exposing them, one would just need to create a small hole to the empty space, pour in a little plaster. Then let it dry and carefully dig up and BOOM! You have the full body cast of the untimely victim of 2000 year old natural disaster.

Many interesting casts has been created from these impressions, even including that of a dog still tied around a pole. Yet in retriveieing one of these casts, they dug up a one helluva mystery

One of the casts seemingly had what looked like a pair of horns on it's head. Some archeologists on hand beleived it might've been a casting mistake, maybe a fluke in the person casting it actaully forming what looked to be horns. Yet with that was ruled out it only lead to more questions that no one had the answer for.

The most popular explanation put forward was that body may have been wearing some kind of ritualistic mask that included some animals horns. CT scans of the cast also found strange anomalies, but most were dismissed as damage during the eruption.

Some dispute it of course, but sadly there hasn't been much else to explain the horns other than going back to the external cause of it being a mistake on behalf of the person casting the body.

The sex of the body is also up for debate, though is assumed to have been female on account of an ornate gold neckless with an orange gem at its center found in close proximity to the cast. New technology that allowed for the analysis of the DNA to uncover the sex produced no results when applied to this cast as the DNA had seemingly degraded to ap oint that it wasn't giving any useable data