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THINGS TO KNOW
About Weird Stuff Buried Under Parking Lots
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An Ancient Curse Archaeologists have found all sorts of interesting things under the parking lot in Givati, Jerusalem, but the discovery of a stone tablet inscribed with an ancient curse sort of took everyone’s breath away (anybody else see the movie “The Mummy?”). The 1,700-year-old curse was apparently engraved by someone really angry: It invokes six different gods and asks them to “strike down and nail down the tongue, the eyes, the wrath, the ire, the anger, the procrastination, the opposition of Iennys,” among other things. No idea if it worked back in the day, but we’re inclined to leave it alone. Source: bit.ly/undergroundcurse
Headless Vikings Some lucky archaeologists stumbled on the headless remains of 51 Vikings while surveying a stretch of land before planned road construction in southern England in 2009. They estimated the men had died between AD 890 and 1034 and said the skeletons were covered in hack marks from axes or swords. Source: bit.ly/headlessvikings
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A Texas Navy Warship Yeah, you heard us. The National Underwater and Marine Agency announced finding an 1839 warship underneath the parking lot at Galveston’s Bean’s Wharf. The Zavala, a 200-foot schooner, was scuttled after being badly damaged during the Texas Revolution. While plenty of people were tempted to dig the old boat up, she remains under the lot used by employees of a local grain elevator. Source: bit.ly/texasship
A Few Dozen Coffins Construction workers putting up a building where a parking lot had been in Pennsylvania found dozens of (full) coffins, much to their surprise. Research was done that showed the bodies were part of an old cemetery that was supposed to be excavated and moved in 1860. That obviously never happened. After a fairly significant delay, all remains were relocated and construction on the building continued. Source: bit.ly/pacemetery
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Adolph Hitler’s Bunker This one wasn’t as much found as buried on purpose, but the bunker where the infamous Nazi leader killed himself in Berlin, Germany is underneath a parking lot that serves apartments and other buildings. The German government didn’t make much of the bunker when it was above ground, fearing it would become a macabre tourist destination, and eventually just built on top of the landmark. Today, its location is marked with a small plaque. Source: bit.ly/hitlerbunker
6 THE PARKING PROFESSIONAL | OCTOBER 2018 | PARKING.ORG /TPP
SHUTTERSTOCK / KAMIRA / ARTMARI / MJOSEDESIGN; ISTOCK / MPHILLIPS007
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The discovery of the remains of King Richard III under a parking lot made headlines a few years ago, but his royal highness isn’t the oddest thing to be found underneath striped spaces. From bodies to ships to the remains of entire civilizations, it seems parking’s been built on top of a little bit of everything. Here are five of the weirdest things discovered while digging under parking.