6500-year-old skeleton found dripping in jewellery with a gold 'penis sheath'

A Reddit post has gone crazy viral in the last 24 hours, and when I read the headline, I knew I had to do some more ‘digging’ if you will (pun absolutely intended). 

Archaeologists in Bulgaria thought they’d found a boring old ancient grave. But what they actually uncovered was history’s earliest gold hoard, and one seriously flash burial.

Back in 1972, construction workers in the city of Varna accidentally cracked open a Copper Age cemetery packed with insane jaw-dropping treasure - photographic evidence of which is now popping off online. 

Buried beneath the soil were more than 3,000 gold objects, dating back over 6,500 years, officially making it the oldest gold ever found on Earth.

Out of roughly 300 graves, only a handful contained gold… but ONE grave went completely off the rails.

Grave 43 belonged to an elderly man who clearly did not believe in subtlety. 

Archaeologists found him buried with gold necklaces, bangles, earrings, pendants, gold-stitched clothing, a gold-wrapped axe,  and yes, a gold penis sheath. 

Because, apparently, even the afterlife requires a status symbol. 

The Reddit comments did NOT disappoint, with one user writing: 

Imagine your wedding ring could have been the ancient cock cap of royalty thousands of years ago.

Another joked: "‘Ancient Cock Cap of Royalty’ sounds like a randomly generated Diablo item."

Personally, my favourite comment paid tribute to Austin Powers Goldmember, in the form of a GIF. It got me real good.

That skeleton alone made up nearly one-third of all the gold found at the site. 

Experts believe he may have been a powerful leader or master metalsmith, basically the equivalent of an ‘elite’ in today's world.

The cemetery revealed more than six kilograms of gold, proving humans were making luxury items thousands of years earlier than anyone expected.

But here’s the twist: This gold wasn’t about money. According to archaeologists, it symbolised power, control, and social rank, meaning Varna may have been home to one of the world’s first class-based societies.

Translation? This wasn’t just a grave. It was a prehistoric power move.