Alexander the Great was preserved in a giant vat of natural honey after he suddenly died from a mysterious illness in Babylon at the remarkably young age of thirty-two.

A closer look

Alexander the Great was preserved in a giant vat of natural honey after he suddenly died from a mysterious illness in Babylon at the remarkably young age of thirty-two. Because his loyal generals needed to transport his divine royal corpse all the way back to Macedonia during the blistering ancient heat, they utilized honey's incredible antibacterial properties to prevent him from violently rotting along the way. His sticky, sweet-smelling sarcophagus was ultimately hijacked by Ptolemy and diverted to Egypt, where it served as a wildly popular tourist attraction for wandering Roman emperors for centuries. There is something profoundly deeply disturbing about treating one of history's most ruthless and successful military conquerors like a massive piece of ancient Greek baklava. The fact that the ancient world's greatest tactical mastermind ended up as human fruit preserves really highlights the utter indignity of death