Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. It's time
Speaker 1: for Unearthed. I know there are folks who are very
Speaker 1: excited about this because when we had a Saturday Classic
Speaker 1: come out recently that had the word unearthed in the title,
Speaker 1: heard from some excited people, and I was like, hold
Speaker 1: on just a tiny bit longer until the actual new
Speaker 1: unearthed stuff comes out, which is finally now. So if
Speaker 1: you're new to the show, this is when we talk
Speaker 1: about things that have been literally or figuratively unearthed over
Speaker 1: the last few months. In this case, this is the
Speaker 1: last quarter of this is two parts. Uh. Today we're
Speaker 1: going to be talking about lots of updates to prior
Speaker 1: episodes and some books and letters. Uh. Somehow the exhumations
Speaker 1: and repatriation so been in part two of these for
Speaker 1: a long time. I put him in part one this time, uh,
Speaker 1: and then we'll talk about different stuff in part two
Speaker 1: on Wednesday, and she's changing it up. Look out. Uh.
Speaker 1: We have quite a few updates, but we are starting
Speaker 1: on a more somber note to begin with. On August seen,
Speaker 1: we did an episode called The Motherhood of Mamie Till Mobley.
Speaker 1: She was the mother of Emmett Till, who was murdered
Speaker 1: in Mississippi in nineteen fifty five after Caroline Dunham claimed
Speaker 1: that he had grabbed her, threatened her, and made lewd
Speaker 1: comments to her in her husband's grocery store. Emmett was
Speaker 1: just fourteen at the time, and this was a particularly
Speaker 1: brutal murder, one that was part of a pattern of
Speaker 1: lynchings in which white men murdered black men and boys,
Speaker 1: often after allegations of wrongdoing by white women. In a
Speaker 1: tween episode of Unearthed, we talked about how the U. S.
Speaker 1: Department of Justice had reopened the case and to Emmett
Speaker 1: Sells murder. Let's follow the seventeen publication of a book
Speaker 1: called The Blood of Emmett Till. The author of this
Speaker 1: book had interviewed Caroline Donham and had reported that she
Speaker 1: admitted to lying about her encounter with Emmett. When the
Speaker 1: d o J announced that it was reopening this case,
Speaker 1: some of the response to that announcement was understandably cynical.
Speaker 1: The book had been out for more than a year
Speaker 1: and a half at this point, so people were like,
Speaker 1: why now. In December, the Justice Department announced that it
Speaker 1: was closing the case again. Donham denied that she had
Speaker 1: recanted her earlier testimony, and the FBI could not prove
Speaker 1: whether that was true or not. The d o J
Speaker 1: issued a release noting that if Donnam had lied to investigators,
Speaker 1: that would be perjury, but perjury in state court is
Speaker 1: not a federal matter, and the statute of limitations had
Speaker 1: expired regarding both Donham's testimony in nine and an investigation
Speaker 1: when the case was previously reopened in two thousand four. J. W.
Speaker 1: Milum and Roy Bryant, who were both acquitted of this
Speaker 1: crime but later confessed to it in a magazine article,
Speaker 1: are both dead. The dj did not find any evidence
Speaker 1: that would allow them to charge a living person with
Speaker 1: a crime, so it closed the case again. The release
Speaker 1: about this also noted quote in closing this matter without prosecution,
Speaker 1: the government does not take the position that the state
Speaker 1: court testimony the woman gave in nineteen was truthful or accurate.
Speaker 1: Descendants of Henrietta Lacks have filed a suit against Thermo
Speaker 1: Fisher Scientific for its use of lax cells without her
Speaker 1: or her family's consent and without compensation to them. These
Speaker 1: cells were taken from LAX's body without her knowledge or permission,
Speaker 1: while she was being treated for cervical cancer at Johns
Speaker 1: Hopkins in nineteen fifty one. Most cells die really quickly
Speaker 1: after being removed from the human body, but these kept
Speaker 1: living and repre you sing. They became the first immortal
Speaker 1: human cell line and were known as HeLa cells. They've
Speaker 1: been part of all kinds of medical research. This includes
Speaker 1: research into drugs and treatments that were then sold for profit.
Speaker 1: According to coverage in the Washington Post, civil rights attorney
Speaker 1: Ben Crump, who's representing the family, expects to file other
Speaker 1: suits against other companies that similarly earned a profit from
Speaker 1: LAX's cells. We have not done an episode about Henrietta
Speaker 1: Lax specifically, but she was part of our Six Impossible episodes.
Speaker 1: There's a book about that in which we recommended that
Speaker 1: people who were interested in Lax the story read The
Speaker 1: Immortal Life of Henrietta A. Lax. That's a book by
Speaker 1: Rebecca Sclute. That episode came out on September six. Moving on,
Speaker 1: in our year end Unearthed for we talked about archaeologists
Speaker 1: starting work at the site of Williamsburg's first Baptist church.
Speaker 1: This church was founded by enslaved in free black people
Speaker 1: in seventeen seventies. The congregation met in places like a
Speaker 1: brush harbor and a carriage house before the church structure
Speaker 1: was built. In eighteen fifty six, when we talked about
Speaker 1: this in archaeologists had found thousands of artifacts and evidence
Speaker 1: of two graves. In October of this year, it was
Speaker 1: announced that the team has unearthed the building's foundations, as
Speaker 1: well as more than twenty additional graves. This work has
Speaker 1: been happening as Colonial Williamsburg has been trying to emphasize
Speaker 1: Williamsburg's black history during the colonial period, something that the
Speaker 1: historical attraction really ignored in earlier decades. This even extends
Speaker 1: to the church itself. When First Baptist Church moved to
Speaker 1: a new building in nineteen fifty six, it was because
Speaker 1: Colonial Williamsburg had bought the property to turn it into
Speaker 1: a parking lot. Next project is underway to study the
Speaker 1: mummies in the Capucine Catacombs in Sicily, specifically focusing on
Speaker 1: mummified children there. It's too early to share any results
Speaker 1: from this work yet, but it intends to try to
Speaker 1: close a current gap in the research by using non
Speaker 1: invasive imagery to study forty one mummified children and get
Speaker 1: a better idea of their lives and how they died.
Speaker 1: We talked about the Capuchin Catacombs in the episode six
Speaker 1: More Impossible Episodes on September six, Turkey open shipwrecks from
Speaker 1: the Gallipoli Campaign as an underwater museum in October. Until
Speaker 1: this area had been guarded by the Turkish military because
Speaker 1: of the presence of unexploded torpedoes and other weaponry among
Speaker 1: the wrecks, but the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism
Speaker 1: took control of the site in advance of the anniversary
Speaker 1: of the Gliboli Campaign and worked to map the site
Speaker 1: and mark the locations of any explosives and make the
Speaker 1: area safer for public diving. So this is now the
Speaker 1: Gallipoli Historic Underwater Park, with twelve of the sixteen ships
Speaker 1: in the area open to the public for diving. One
Speaker 1: of the future plans for the site is to install
Speaker 1: plaques with QR codes at the rex so that divers
Speaker 1: can use waterproof phones to see what these vessels used
Speaker 1: to look like. The site was originally planned to open
Speaker 1: during the summer, but that had to be delayed due
Speaker 1: to the COVID nineteen pandemic. Our episode on the Gallipoli
Speaker 1: campaign came out on November. UNESCO called on Britain to
Speaker 1: return the Parthenon marbles to Greece. At a meeting of
Speaker 1: the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for the Return of Cultural Property
Speaker 1: to its Countries of origin in September, the committee unanimously
Speaker 1: adopted a decision acknowledging that Greece's demand for the marbles
Speaker 1: be returned was quote legitimate and rightful. In October, a
Speaker 1: UK government spokesperson issued a statement that set, in part
Speaker 1: quote our position is clear the Parthenon sculptures were acquired
Speaker 1: legally in accordance with the law at the time. The
Speaker 1: British Museum operates in the pendently of the government and
Speaker 1: free from political interference. All decisions relating to collections are
Speaker 1: taken by the museum's trustees. This was also on the
Speaker 1: agenda during a meeting between the British and Greek Prime
Speaker 1: ministers in November. Also, the parson On Gallery was closed
Speaker 1: to visitors for more than a year, including after the
Speaker 1: British Museum reopened. After its closure due to the pandemic.
Speaker 1: This led to questions and contradictory answers from the museum
Speaker 1: about what has led to that closure and whether that
Speaker 1: closure is related to a roof leak in the gallery
Speaker 1: where the sculptures are housed. Our two part episode on
Speaker 1: Lord Elgin and the Marbles came out on January and
Speaker 1: two of twenty twenty. Next Up, researchers have analyzed and
Speaker 1: o'b Citian mirror belonging to John D, adviser to Queen Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: The first prior host did an episode on John D
Speaker 1: on October five eleven. This research was published in the
Speaker 1: journal Antiquity. In our tober D used this mirror for
Speaker 1: ritual purposes, including as a scrying object. Eighteenth century historian
Speaker 1: Horace Walpole described it as quote the black stone into
Speaker 1: which Dr D used to call his spirits. This research
Speaker 1: is confirmed that the mirror is of Aztec origin and
Speaker 1: made a volcanic glass from Mexico. The same was true
Speaker 1: of three other obsidian objects also held at the British Museum,
Speaker 1: all of which were studied using geochemical analysis. This mirror
Speaker 1: was probably made in the early sixteenth century, and it's
Speaker 1: possible that it was commissioned by the Spanish to take
Speaker 1: back to Europe. The Spanish knew that obsidian was religiously
Speaker 1: significant to the Aztecs, but we don't totally know how
Speaker 1: it came into John D's possession. Everybody loves a shipwreck
Speaker 1: and the Mary Rose sank in battle in fifteen forty
Speaker 1: five and in n conservators raised it from the ocean
Speaker 1: floor and took steps to conserve it. Today it is
Speaker 1: in the mirror a Rose Museum. The Mary Rose was
Speaker 1: part of prior Hosts episode five Shipwrecked Stories on April,
Speaker 1: and it has also come up in previous editions of Unearthed.
Speaker 1: Even though the water logged wood was treated to try
Speaker 1: to preserve it, there were still bacteria living in the wreckage.
Speaker 1: Conservators learned fairly recently that some of these bacteria were
Speaker 1: secreting zinc sulfide nanostructures, which could turn acidic when exposed
Speaker 1: to the air. This is threatening the wreck. The polyethylene
Speaker 1: glycol that was used to preserve the ship can also
Speaker 1: form acidic byproducts when breaking down over time. Researchers have
Speaker 1: used X rays with scanning electron microscopy to pinpoint exactly
Speaker 1: where the problem areas are this is still a work
Speaker 1: in progress. It has basically let conservators see where the
Speaker 1: problem is so they can figure out how to address it.
Speaker 1: We still have a few more updates and we will
Speaker 1: get to them after we take a quick sponsor break
Speaker 1: now that we're back from the break. The latest round
Speaker 1: of work at the Anti Catheras shipwreck site has concluded.
Speaker 1: Although there were some objects that were brought to the surface,
Speaker 1: this was really mostly a planning effort getting ready for
Speaker 1: a project that will span from so there was a
Speaker 1: lot of mapping work along with completing a three D
Speaker 1: high resolution model of the site. One thing that they
Speaker 1: have flagged for a future study is a partial statue
Speaker 1: that's trapped under a boulder. The Anti Catheras shipwreck is
Speaker 1: something else that makes a lot of appearances on Unearthed,
Speaker 1: and our episode on the mechanism that it's named for
Speaker 1: came out on July. The Neolithic city of Catay has
Speaker 1: come up on several installments of Unearthed. The latest discovery
Speaker 1: there involves what kind of fabrics its residents typically used.
Speaker 1: The two biggest contenders have long been wool and linen,
Speaker 1: but according to research published in the journal Archaeology, it
Speaker 1: was neither of those. Instead, it was bass fiber, which
Speaker 1: comes from trees. It's in the layer between the bark
Speaker 1: and the wood. Moving on, in November, the Louisiana Board
Speaker 1: of Pardons overwhelmingly voted to posthumously pardoned Homer Plessy. Homer
Speaker 1: Plessy intentionally violated Louisiana's separate car law, which segregated its
Speaker 1: street cars in eight The resulting legal action went to
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, and the court established that segregation was
Speaker 1: legal as long as the segregated facilities were equal. The
Speaker 1: final step in the pardon process is the approval of
Speaker 1: Governor John Bell Edwards. As of recording this episode, Edwards
Speaker 1: has not given that approval, but he had stated that
Speaker 1: he planned to do so, hopefully at a formal ceremony
Speaker 1: that would include members of the Plessy family. Our episode
Speaker 1: on Plessy Versus Ferguson came out on February and other news,
Speaker 1: The Boston Globe has reported a new clue in the
Speaker 1: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Heist Paul Callin Tropo told the
Speaker 1: Globe that in his friend Bobby Denaty came to his
Speaker 1: office and showed him a finial in the shape of
Speaker 1: an eagle. The fennel seemed to be one of the
Speaker 1: thirteen pieces of art that had been stolen from the
Speaker 1: museum in a very famous heist. After their conversation, Donaty
Speaker 1: wrapped this fennel up and he left, but then he
Speaker 1: was murdered the following year. Callin Tropo never saw him again.
Speaker 1: Although this account is newly revealed, the possible connection between
Speaker 1: Denaty and the heist is not new. He was identified
Speaker 1: as a potential suspect back in and his name has
Speaker 1: come up in other investigations into the heist. Our episode
Speaker 1: on the Gardener Museum Heist most recently came out as
Speaker 1: an update on April. We have talked about the system
Speaker 1: of residential boarding schools that separated Indigenous students in the
Speaker 1: US from their families and an act of cultural genocide
Speaker 1: in several previous episodes. On December seven, the Department of
Speaker 1: the Interior and the National Indian Boarding School Healing Coalition
Speaker 1: announced a memorandum of understanding relating to sharing records and
Speaker 1: other information. The Department will create a report due by
Speaker 1: April one that will focus on historical records, especially on
Speaker 1: burial sites. As part of all this, and in our
Speaker 1: last update of one, the Gilgamesh dream tablet, which has
Speaker 1: been discussed on more than one edition of Unearthed, was
Speaker 1: formally repatriated to Iraq in a formal ceremony at a
Speaker 1: Rocks Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and that happened in December.
Speaker 1: We are going to move on now to books and letters.
Speaker 1: During the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette kept up a correspondence
Speaker 1: with Swedish count Axel von Ferston. He was her confidante
Speaker 1: and there were rumors that he was also her lover.
Speaker 1: They kept at this correspondence secretly while the royal family
Speaker 1: was held at Tweelery Palace in seventeen nine one and
Speaker 1: seventeen two. During that time, the family made a failed
Speaker 1: escape attempt. Some of these letters are in the French
Speaker 1: National Archives, but it's tricky to learn a lot about
Speaker 1: this period in her life because parts of them have
Speaker 1: been scribbled out. Researchers have now used X ray fluorescent
Speaker 1: spectroscopy to read the scribbled out parts of eight letters.
Speaker 1: They looked for the presence of different elements used in
Speaker 1: the inks, along with using statistical analysis and other techniques
Speaker 1: to further clarify those results. Historians who have reviewed the
Speaker 1: revealed text has said that the letters show a lot
Speaker 1: of affection for the Count, but they don't conclusively say
Speaker 1: one way or the other whether the Queen and the
Speaker 1: Count were having an affair. However, this research has suggested
Speaker 1: who did that redacting and that it was the Count himself.
Speaker 1: One of the challenge aspects with this research was how
Speaker 1: similar the inks were that they were trying to separate
Speaker 1: out to get a look at and after the original
Speaker 1: writing and the redaction was done using the exact same ink,
Speaker 1: suggesting that the Count did the scribbling himself, either as
Speaker 1: he was making the copies of these letters or shortly
Speaker 1: after copying them. This research was published in the journal
Speaker 1: Science Advances in October under the title two d macro
Speaker 1: XRF to reveal redacted sections of French Queen Marie Antoinette's
Speaker 1: secret correspondence with Swedish Count excels on Person another correspondence news.
Speaker 1: A team of researchers from M I T and King's
Speaker 1: College London have been researching letter locking techniques. That is
Speaker 1: a process of folding letters in a way that they
Speaker 1: make their own envelope and then cutting a piece of
Speaker 1: the paper and folding it through itself to make a
Speaker 1: lock that, like seals, the letter shut the safeguarded the
Speaker 1: letter because you could only open it by destroying that
Speaker 1: paper lock, so it was impossible to read somebody else's
Speaker 1: letter without them knowing it had been tampered with. These
Speaker 1: locks could be incredibly intricate. A video that the team
Speaker 1: released in ten shows a letter lock modeled after the
Speaker 1: one on Mary, Queen of Scott's last letter. The folding
Speaker 1: and cutting processes obviously slow for the sake of video clarity,
Speaker 1: but even with that in mind, it takes about thirty
Speaker 1: steps and four minutes to complete. Studying letter locking is
Speaker 1: really challenging. This practice was most prevalent in the sixteenth
Speaker 1: and seventeenth centuries, and so the letters involved are old
Speaker 1: and fragile, and then often at least part of the
Speaker 1: lock is missing since it was destroyed when the letter
Speaker 1: was opened. Unopened letters with intact locks do exist, but
Speaker 1: they're extremely rare. But after studying about a dozen locks,
Speaker 1: including those on letters by Mary, Queen of Scott's, Elizabeth First,
Speaker 1: and Catherine de Medici, the team has published the Spiral
Speaker 1: locked Letters of Elizabeth the First and Mary, Queen of
Speaker 1: Scots that was published in Electronic British Library Journal. In
Speaker 1: addition to illustrating specific locks using step by step diagrams,
Speaker 1: this paper proposes a generic version of the spiral locks.
Speaker 1: This is also an open access paper, so you can
Speaker 1: go check out all these locks yourself if you want. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm waiting and I'm aching for someone to make like
Speaker 1: a cricket file that we can I'll have a locked
Speaker 1: letter um because it sounds amazing. A document known as
Speaker 1: Chronica Universalist was discovered in it Is by Milanese friar
Speaker 1: Galvinnius Flama, and it dates back to thirteen forty five.
Speaker 1: While working with the document, professor Paolo Kisa of the
Speaker 1: University of Milan found a passage that seems to describe
Speaker 1: the continent of North America. Flamma describes sailors from Denmark
Speaker 1: in Norway traveling to Iceland and beyond that a place
Speaker 1: called Grolandia presumably Greenland, and then further west another land
Speaker 1: named Marco Latta, where giants live. Kaisa believed that marco
Speaker 1: Latta is the same place that the Norse described as Markland.
Speaker 1: That was a place west of Greenland, probably what we
Speaker 1: know today as Newfoundland or Labrador. This doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: anybody from the Mediterranean, where this document was written, had
Speaker 1: actually traveled there themselves, but it does suggest that at
Speaker 1: least some people from the area had heard of it
Speaker 1: all the way back in thirteen forty five, almost a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty years before Columbus's voyages. This was published
Speaker 1: in the journal Terre Inconnite at the end of September,
Speaker 1: but it didn't make mainstream news coverage until October. Moving on,
Speaker 1: archaeologists from County Clare, Ireland, have found Ireland's oldest ink
Speaker 1: pen at ca her Connell Castle ring Fort. This is
Speaker 1: made of a hollow bird bone with a copper alloy
Speaker 1: nib and it dates back to the eleventh century. At
Speaker 1: that time, literacy was most associated with the clergy, but
Speaker 1: this seems to have belonged to lay people. So archaeologists
Speaker 1: wanted to confirm that this really was a pen, not
Speaker 1: some other object that would not have had to do
Speaker 1: with literacy, so they made a replica of it, and
Speaker 1: it did indeed work as a dip pen that you
Speaker 1: would dip into your ink. Uh. This suggests that literacy
Speaker 1: may have been more common outside the clergy at this
Speaker 1: point than was previously thought, especially among wealthier people, and
Speaker 1: in our last bit of books and letters. According to
Speaker 1: Dr Irving Finkel, curator of the Middle Eastern Department of
Speaker 1: the British Museum, the oldest ever drawing of a ghost
Speaker 1: has been discovered on a thirty five hundred year old
Speaker 1: Babylonian clay tablet. This tablet was part of an exorcist's
Speaker 1: instructions on how to get rid of ghosts by transferring
Speaker 1: the ghost into a figurine aid by the exorcist. The
Speaker 1: drawing shows what appears to be a male ghost with
Speaker 1: his hands tied and the rope appearing to be held
Speaker 1: by a woman. This tablet has been in the collection
Speaker 1: of the British Museum since the nineteenth century, but it
Speaker 1: had never really been studied before now. The first translation
Speaker 1: of its uniform text was apparently incorrect, and then the
Speaker 1: space where this drawing is looks empty unless it's lit
Speaker 1: from above at the right angle, so the drawing in
Speaker 1: particular was tricky to spot. And the text ends with
Speaker 1: the magnificent phrase do not look behind you creeped me
Speaker 1: out a little bit when I was working on this.
Speaker 1: I love it so much. We now have a couple
Speaker 1: of interesting finds involving toilets. First, in Smyrna, near Turkey's
Speaker 1: western coast, archaeologists have found what they believe is the
Speaker 1: actor's rest room from a theater. The space had room
Speaker 1: for about twelve toilets arranged as a you, with eats
Speaker 1: that were about sixteen inches high, so just about standard
Speaker 1: in height. Right, it isn't a standard toilet in the
Speaker 1: US between sixteen and seventeen. I haven't. I haven't done
Speaker 1: any toilet work on my house recently. You gotta renovate,
Speaker 1: pull out, and reinstall a toilet once in a while.
Speaker 1: Um in Jerusalem, archaeologists have found a twenty seven year
Speaker 1: old toilet and indoor toilet would have been a luxury
Speaker 1: on its own at this point, and this one seems
Speaker 1: to have been particularly nice, with the seat made to
Speaker 1: be comfortable to sit on and a very deep septic
Speaker 1: tank underneath. As is often the case with these kinds
Speaker 1: of fines, there's lots to examine in that septic tank,
Speaker 1: including animal bones and pottery that could offer some insight
Speaker 1: into what the people of the household ate and drink.
Speaker 1: We also have a few pieces of DNA research talk
Speaker 1: about this time around first researchers have studied the DNA
Speaker 1: of mummies that were in the Tareem Basin in western
Speaker 1: China in the nineteen nineties. These mummies were preserved naturally
Speaker 1: in the desert, and archaeologists had found their facial features, dress,
Speaker 1: and hair color unusual for the region. That had fed
Speaker 1: into the idea that perhaps these had been people who
Speaker 1: had migrated into this area from somewhere else. The prevailing
Speaker 1: hypothesis has been that these were Indo Europeans, but when
Speaker 1: researchers evaluated the DNA from the thirteen oldest mummies at
Speaker 1: one burial site, they found that they were a genetically
Speaker 1: distinct ancient North Eurasian people. It's not clear why this
Speaker 1: one group of people remained so genetically isolated, but the
Speaker 1: people of the Tareem Basin also developed a unique and
Speaker 1: distinctive culture. For example, they buried many of their dead
Speaker 1: in wooden coffins shaped like boats with marker shaped like oars.
Speaker 1: And our next bit of DNA research, the US military
Speaker 1: has ended a six year project to identify the remains
Speaker 1: of soldiers and marines from the USS Oklahoma who died
Speaker 1: in the bonding of Pearl Harbor. They were doing this
Speaker 1: using DNA and dental records. This project identified three fifty
Speaker 1: five sailors and marines, but ultimately there were thirty three
Speaker 1: crew members who could not be identified. The remains of
Speaker 1: these marines and sailors were reinterred at the National Memorial
Speaker 1: Cemetery of the Pacific. Autosomal DNA analysis has confirmed that
Speaker 1: Ernie La Pointe is the great grandson of Tatonka Yotake,
Speaker 1: also known as Sitting Bull, making him and his sisters
Speaker 1: the Lakota Leader's closest living relatives. This analysis started with
Speaker 1: a lock of Tatonka Yotak's hair, which had been in
Speaker 1: the collection of the Smithsonian for more than a century
Speaker 1: before being returned to the family in two thousand seven.
Speaker 1: The family burned most of the hair in a religious ceremony,
Speaker 1: but kept part of it for future analysis. It had
Speaker 1: been stored at room temperature at the Smithsonian, which had
Speaker 1: caused it to degrade, so it took fourteen years for
Speaker 1: research ers to find a technique that would work. This
Speaker 1: research was done not just to confirm the points ancestry.
Speaker 1: Currently to Tonka yo Takes burial site is in South Dakota.
Speaker 1: It's in an area that he wasn't culturally connected to,
Speaker 1: and which the Point has described as being desecrated. The
Speaker 1: point hopes that these remains can be exhumed, tested to
Speaker 1: confirm that they did belong to his great grandfather, and
Speaker 1: then reburied somewhere more appropriate. We should note here that
Speaker 1: there are nuances to the use of DNA analysis to
Speaker 1: confirm Indigenous family relationships. Different Indigenous nations have different perspectives
Speaker 1: on when and whether it's appropriate to use DNA research,
Speaker 1: and of course individual Indigenous people have their own opinions
Speaker 1: as well. Requirements for providing DNA evidence also imply that
Speaker 1: DNA is superior to Indigenous nations own records, but often
Speaker 1: when it comes to something like repatriating a person's remains,
Speaker 1: especially when it involves a non indigenous organization or government,
Speaker 1: DNA evidence can back up Indigenous records and histories that
Speaker 1: have already documented the family connections involved. There are also
Speaker 1: a lot of ethical considerations to DNA research more generally,
Speaker 1: and an ethical code for DNA research was just published
Speaker 1: in the journal Nature in October. So we're gonna pause
Speaker 1: here for another sponsor break, and then we'll come back
Speaker 1: for repatriations. Next up. We are going to talk about
Speaker 1: some repatriations from the last quarter of In October, the
Speaker 1: Smithsonian Museum of African Art removed ten works of art
Speaker 1: from the Kingdom of Benin from display. These ten are
Speaker 1: amongst sixteen works at the museum that are known to
Speaker 1: be connected to the raid on the Kingdom of Beneath,
Speaker 1: in which British colonial forces looted thousands of works of art.
Speaker 1: There are many other pieces at the Smithsonian which might
Speaker 1: have come from this rate as well, but those connections
Speaker 1: haven't been traced and confirmed yet. The museum is currently
Speaker 1: negotiating with Nigeria's National Commission for Museums and Monuments on
Speaker 1: a repatriation plan for these pieces. New York's Metropolitan Museum
Speaker 1: of Art returned three pieces of Benin artwork to Nigeria
Speaker 1: in November, including to sixteenth century brass plaques in a
Speaker 1: fourteenth century brass head. These had originally been in the
Speaker 1: UK and had actually been repatriated previously in nineteen fifty,
Speaker 1: but then we're purchased by a private collector and later
Speaker 1: donated to the met These artworks and the Kingdom of
Speaker 1: Benin and the raid in all of that has come
Speaker 1: up on several previous episodes of Unearthed and other episodes
Speaker 1: of the show, so there is a forthcoming episode on
Speaker 1: all of this dedicated just to it. The Government of
Speaker 1: France repatriated twenty six objects from the Kingdom of Dahomey
Speaker 1: to Benin in November as well. These are part of
Speaker 1: the Royal Treasures of abam May and include the doors
Speaker 1: of the Palace of Abba May. We've done an episode
Speaker 1: on the Palaces of abam May on the show before. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's also gets into the kingdom itself, which to be clear,
Speaker 1: this is not the same kingdom as Benin. The Kingdom
Speaker 1: of Benin was in what's now Nigeria. Kingdom of Dahomey
Speaker 1: is and what's and now. Another collection of objects was
Speaker 1: returned to Ethiopia in November. The items being returned this
Speaker 1: time came from Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands, but most
Speaker 1: of them had been taken by the British Army in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty eight. These pieces included a ceremonial crown, two
Speaker 1: silver embossed horned cups, a shield and other items. Ethiopian
Speaker 1: officials described this as the largest repatriation of artifacts to
Speaker 1: the tree so far. The Ethiopian government is also advocating
Speaker 1: for the return of a long list of other objects
Speaker 1: as well, including tablets representing the ark of the Covenant.
Speaker 1: During the expedition in which the British Army had taken
Speaker 1: these objects, they also attacked the fighting force of Emperor
Speaker 1: to a drowse. The second the Emperor had been losing
Speaker 1: ground and support among his nobility, and he ultimately took
Speaker 1: his own life. In the face of all this, a
Speaker 1: British Army officer took his son, Prince Ala Maehu to England,
Speaker 1: where he died at the age of eighteen and was
Speaker 1: buried at Windsor Castle. In addition to the other cultural
Speaker 1: and artistic objects the Ethiopian government is trying to have returned,
Speaker 1: they are also asking for the prince's remains. The US
Speaker 1: has returned more than nine hundred objects to Molly. These
Speaker 1: objects are presumed to have been stolen and falsely described
Speaker 1: as replicas in their paperwork. The first group of them
Speaker 1: was spotted in two thousand nine when they arrived at
Speaker 1: the port of Houston as part of an illegal shipment.
Speaker 1: Because have included axe heads, funerary urns, and pots. The
Speaker 1: Denver art museum is repatriating four Khmer objects to Cambodia.
Speaker 1: The museum had acquired these objects between two thousand and
Speaker 1: two thousand five, but they had been looted from Cambodia
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies. The art dealer who sold these
Speaker 1: pieces to the museum was indicted in connection to a
Speaker 1: vast looting network in ten but died the following year
Speaker 1: before he could stand trial. These pieces include statues of
Speaker 1: Hindu and Buddhist religious figures, as well as a prehistoric
Speaker 1: bell that was believed to be part of a set
Speaker 1: used to call warriors to battle. A private collector has
Speaker 1: returned a piece of a Maya steely that disappeared from
Speaker 1: an archaeological site in the nineteen sixties. This piece depicts
Speaker 1: the masked head of an ancient Maya leader, and the
Speaker 1: collector plans to auction it off in twenty nineteen, but
Speaker 1: when Guatemalan authorities saw the listing, they called for the
Speaker 1: piece to be returned. The collector did return this piece voluntarily,
Speaker 1: although coverage of this does not deteril how they came
Speaker 1: to possess it in the first place. And lastly, billionaire
Speaker 1: hedge fund manager Michael Steinhardt has been banned from purchasing
Speaker 1: antiquities for the rest of his life as part of
Speaker 1: an agreement to return one d eighty objects that were
Speaker 1: smuggled out of eleven different countries. Steinhardt purchased them without
Speaker 1: regard to their legality, and this agreement means he will
Speaker 1: have to stand trial. In a statement, Manhattan District Attorney
Speaker 1: Cyvance Jr. Said, quote, for decades, Michael Steinhardt displayed a
Speaker 1: rapacious appetite for plundered artifacts without concern for the legality
Speaker 1: of his actions, the legitimacy of the pieces he bought
Speaker 1: and sold, or the grievous cultural damage he wrought across
Speaker 1: the globe. Investigations into this were a joint effort involving
Speaker 1: authorities in Bulgaria, Egypt, Greece, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Syria,
Speaker 1: and Turkey. Stolen objects are now being returned to these countries. Alright,
Speaker 1: it's time for everyone's favorite, we heart exhumations. Uh, And
Speaker 1: we have a few exhamations to talk about. In October,
Speaker 1: police in Belgium exhumed remains of seventeen victims of the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty six boas Decaisier mining disaster. Only about ten
Speaker 1: people who were in the mind when it caught fire survived.
Speaker 1: Two hundred sixty two people were killed. The seventeen bodies
Speaker 1: being exhumed were the ones who could not be identified.
Speaker 1: The hope is to use DNA evidence to confirm who
Speaker 1: they are by comparing their DNA to living relatives, but
Speaker 1: a few of the miners listed as missing after the
Speaker 1: disaster had no known relatives. Exhumations at the bon Secour
Speaker 1: Mother and Baby Home in tomb Ireland are slated to
Speaker 1: begin this year. The Mother and Baby Home has come
Speaker 1: up on several prior installments of unearthed Nearly eight hundred
Speaker 1: children are known to have died while this home was
Speaker 1: in operation, but there were no burial records for them,
Speaker 1: and part of the burial site is believed to be
Speaker 1: a disused septic tank. In late November, authorities exhumed the
Speaker 1: body of Poland's Commander in Chief, Edward Smigrids, who died
Speaker 1: suddenly in December of n but there have been a
Speaker 1: lot of unanswered questions about his cause of death and
Speaker 1: when he actually died. There has been speculation that he
Speaker 1: may have been poisoned and that his body was embalmed
Speaker 1: to hide evidence of that crime, or even that this
Speaker 1: was not his body and that he really escaped and
Speaker 1: died much later. It is, of course too early to
Speaker 1: have any results of that investigation yet. And lastly, there
Speaker 1: have been a couple of recent calls to exhume particular
Speaker 1: historical figures. German singer Roberto Blanco has called for the
Speaker 1: remains of Ludwig von Beethoven to be exhumed for racial
Speaker 1: DNA testing, and Joseph Stalin's grandson has called for his
Speaker 1: body to be exhumed to determine whether he was poisoned,
Speaker 1: as well as for him to be reinterred alongside his
Speaker 1: wife rather than at the Kremlin. Now we have two
Speaker 1: different signs about archipelagos that Europeans thought were uninhabited when
Speaker 1: they first arrived there and also didn't seem to have
Speaker 1: evidence of previous settlements. But it turns out people did
Speaker 1: live there much earlier. Yeah, it's uh, it's easy to
Speaker 1: sound real judge with this, but really this was challenging
Speaker 1: evidence to find. First Portuguese sailors arrived in the Azores
Speaker 1: in four seven, they believed it had never been inhabited.
Speaker 1: It didn't seem like it had ever been inhabited, but
Speaker 1: it's possible that people lived there seven hundred years before that.
Speaker 1: Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Speaker 1: Sciences examined sediment cores taken from several lakes on these islands.
Speaker 1: The cores suggests that between seven hundred and eight fifty
Speaker 1: there were livestock there, like cows and sheep. These were
Speaker 1: not animals that would have lived there unless there were
Speaker 1: humans there. These same years also saw an increase in
Speaker 1: residues from large fires and a corresponding decrease in the
Speaker 1: native tree pollen. One hypothesis is that these were North
Speaker 1: seafarers and that they arrived in the Azores due to
Speaker 1: shifting climate the temperatures and winds that encouraged exploration from
Speaker 1: the northeast Atlantic. Similarly, Europeans first arrived in the Falkland
Speaker 1: Islands in sixteen ten and similarly believed them to have
Speaker 1: never been inhabited, but it looks like people may have
Speaker 1: actually lived there hundreds of years earlier. The similar reasoning
Speaker 1: at work here. There's a sudden increase in evidence of
Speaker 1: large fires, including around the years one fifty and four ten,
Speaker 1: as well as in seventeen seventy, which was after Europeans
Speaker 1: that had established settlements there. Other evidence of earlier settlement
Speaker 1: includes a projectile point similar to ones that were used
Speaker 1: by indigenous people's on the South American continent, and mounds
Speaker 1: of bones that show evidence of human activity. Their current
Speaker 1: conclusion is that indigenous people from South America made brief
Speaker 1: visits to the islands rather than establishing long term settlements there,
Speaker 1: meaning that it would have been harder for Europeans to
Speaker 1: see evidence of that once they got there in the
Speaker 1: seventeenth century. It's also possible that these South American visitors
Speaker 1: introduced the wara to the islands. This is the only
Speaker 1: land mammal considered to be native to the Falklands, and
Speaker 1: it's also called the Falkland Island dog or the Falkland
Speaker 1: Islands wolf. It hasn't been entirely clear how this animal
Speaker 1: got to the island, but Europeans hunted them to extinction
Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century. Earlier research has suggested that they
Speaker 1: have walked across an ice bridge, but this latest research
Speaker 1: suggests that maybe folks from South America brought them along
Speaker 1: and we have a final random occurrence to end on.
Speaker 1: In October, the Westbrook Main Police Department reported that a
Speaker 1: nineteenth century grave stone had been found in the middle
Speaker 1: of a local road. The stone read Mrs Mary, wife
Speaker 1: of David Pratt, died January one, eighteen forty, age fifty nine.
Speaker 1: It appears that this stone belonged to Mary Pratt of Yarmouth, Maine,
Speaker 1: who had been buried at the old Baptist Cemetery there.
Speaker 1: The most likely scenario is that her grave had been
Speaker 1: marked with this stone at the time of her death,
Speaker 1: and that it was replaced when her husband died in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty one and was buried alongside her. There is
Speaker 1: a stone at their graves now that commemorates both of them,
Speaker 1: although it's not clear how this stone wound up in
Speaker 1: the road. A hundred and sixty years later. Westbrook police
Speaker 1: stressed that they did not believe foul play was involved. However,
Speaker 1: The Boston Globe noted in its reporting that this is
Speaker 1: one of a string of strange happenings in Westbrook, comparing
Speaker 1: the town to something out of a Stephen King novel.
Speaker 1: In ten there was a very large snake, as in
Speaker 1: a ten foot long snake that was reported to be
Speaker 1: living along the presump Scott River and was nicknamed Wessey
Speaker 1: or the presump Scott Python. This was followed by a
Speaker 1: strange disc of ice forming in the same river over
Speaker 1: the winner of followed by on landslide. So, at least
Speaker 1: in the Boston Globe's opinion, tombstone was just the latest
Speaker 1: thing the snake brought it. Um, We're gonna have more
Speaker 1: unearthed next time, but in the meantime, do you have
Speaker 1: listener mail? Real quick listener mail from Jenny. Jenny wrote
Speaker 1: and said I'm catching up on last month episodes and
Speaker 1: had to write in about your mother Goose episode and
Speaker 1: one of my favorite jokes on Sesame Street. Back in
Speaker 1: the eighties when I was primed Sesame Street age, they
Speaker 1: had a segment called the Ladybugs Picnic, and it's accounting
Speaker 1: song about all the things the ladybugs do on their
Speaker 1: nick like sack races and the like. But there's also
Speaker 1: a great line in there about how they quote talk
Speaker 1: about the high price of furniture and rugs and fire
Speaker 1: insurance for ladybugs. Just so morbidly dark and hilarious all
Speaker 1: at the same time. As an adult, it makes me
Speaker 1: laugh every time I hear it and thought you might
Speaker 1: enjoy it as well. Thanks for the great listening, Jenny.
Speaker 1: Thanks Jenny for telling us about this. When I read
Speaker 1: this email, I was like, I've never heard of this
Speaker 1: song before in my life, and then when I clicked
Speaker 1: on the YouTube link, I was like, no, wait, I
Speaker 1: definitely have. I remember this from my childhood that was
Speaker 1: similarly prime Sesame Street age. Maybe not quite in the eighties,
Speaker 1: but definitely in the late seventies. So thanks Jenny for
Speaker 1: this note and for the YouTube link. Uh It's on
Speaker 1: Sesame Street YouTube page if you want to look at it,
Speaker 1: if you want to send us a note. We're a
Speaker 1: history podcast at I heart radio dot com and we're
Speaker 1: also all over social media at missed in History, which
Speaker 1: is where you'll find our Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest
Speaker 1: and Instagram, and you can subscribe to our show on
Speaker 1: the iHeart radio app or wherever you like to get podcasts.
Speaker 1: Stuff you missed in History Class is a production of
Speaker 1: I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.