Earlier this week, Halloween delivered what was supposed to be the spookiest night of the year, with people across the globe getting into their creepiest costumes in order to celebrate the holiday. There were some good tries made by many, for sure, but - unfortunately for them - no attempt to be gruesome and grotesque was ever going to match up to one discovery made by a group of construction workers last week.
On October 25th, some builders working on a site in Valdosta, Georgia, discovered more than a thousand human teeth hidden in the walls of a commercial building that was being renovated.
In a post on Facebook, Gregory L. Williams Jr., a historian, shared these images of the teeth:
Records show that the building was occupied by at least two different dentists in the past, with the second floor - which is recorded as "office space" - being used as a surgery until 1930, at least. But, even so, why would a dentist cram their walls full of teeth? It seems a little sinister, don't you think?
On the contrary, some commenters on Facebook seem to think it's actually quite the opposite, and the teeth were placed in the walls in order to prevent mishaps.
"Undoubtedly like razor blades that you used to be able to slide in a little slot in the medicine cabinet wall - these teeth were treated the same way," explained Facebook user, Lynn Mayfield. "A hundred years ago there was probably a 'chute' or something in the wall where the dentist dropped the tooth and over the decades quite a few built up in the wall. There probably wasn't consistent trash disposal at the turn of the century, so it was probably figured harmless to drop them into a slot in the wall."
The discovery is not the first of its kind, either. This structure is actually the third in Georgia to be found to have teeth in its walls, with the other two buildings also having been dentists' offices at some point in fairly recent history.
And it's not just in the USA, either.
On the other side of the world, in Melbourne, Australia, thousands of old teeth were discovered below the city's business district. Once again, they were linked to a dentist who practised in the area. It was believed that he might have flushed patients' teeth down the trains rather than dispose of them in the trash.
In this most recent incident, some of the teeth are going to be moved to a local museum - and the team there have already decided to have a bit of fun with them:
The police have reported that they will not be investigating the site further, as it is not believed the teeth are suspicious in any way.
So, while the construction workers may have received a bit of a fright upon first discovering the wall full of gnashers, it turns out they were nothing to worry about, really.
