' Lord of the Flies Stuff': Grave Found on Shipwreck Island

Beacon Island off the western coast of Australia is better known as Murder Island or Batavia's Graveyard. 

The reason is simple: After the Dutch East India ship Batavia ran aground on a nearby reef in 1629, 282 survivors made it to Beacon Island, where at least 115 of them were slaughtered by mutineers over a period of three months, reports National Geographic

Experts know this in part based on journals later published by the ship's commander. But 400 years later, new details of the massacre are still emerging. Dutch and Australian archaeologists digging at the island say they've uncovered a neat grave containing the bodies of five people who were, surprisingly, not murdered. The "careful and respectful burial" is clearly "not the hurried work of hiding murder victims," archaeologist Al Patterson tells Perth Now.

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Photo: Wikimedia/Guy de la Bedoyere


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