Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.

Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry.

Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry.

It is time for Part two of this latest installment of Unearthed. We talked about a lot of stuff with animals and updates and other stuff in part one. Part two, we've got some repatriations, just a whole bunch.

It is time for Part two of this latest installment of Unearthed. We talked about a lot of stuff with animals and updates and other stuff in part one. Part two, we've got some repatriations, just a whole bunch.

Of shipwrecks, a lot of shipwrecks. There's art.

Of shipwrecks, a lot of shipwrecks. There's art.

We're going to end with some things that seemed particularly appropriate since it is October and Halloween season. As always, we are starting off this second part of Unearthed with the stuff that didn't categorize very well, but all seems cool and interesting to me, and I always call that the potpourri. An arrowhead dating back to between nine hundred and eight hundred BCE, which has been in the collection of Burn History Museum, was made of iron that came from a meteorite. Although there are examples of people using the metals from meteorites to make things in other parts of the world, there have not been as many examples from Central or Western Europe during this period. At least there aren't that many yet. It is possible that other examples have been overlooked, and this one was found as teams intentionally tested objects from the collections of museums around Switzerland. This particular one included aluminum twenty six isotopes that does not occur naturally on Earth, but does exist in meteorites. Next, archaeologists in Meredith, Spain, have unearthed an intricate for mosaic featuring a depiction of Medusa's head, along with geometric patterns and animal motifs all around the frame. The animals include four peacocks, one for each season, and the depiction of Medusa is believed to have been included as a protection symbol for the household. Archaeologists in Peru have found what they believed to be an open air dance floor that could make a sound like thunder when it was danced on, basically amplifying the sounds the dancers made as they moved around that dance floor. It was built by layering clay and guano, which left gaps that would reverberate when struck, like by a dancer's foot. This platform was built sometime between one thousand and fourteen hundred, not far from a temple that may have been dedicated to a lightning deity. So this is an interpretation of how this site may have been used, but there's lots of existing evidence for ritual dancing and belief in lightning and thunder deities in the area next. Roughly one point four million years ago, early human ancestors were making these limestone spears about the size of a tennis ball, and there's been debate about these things, like were our ancestors deliberately trying to shape the limestone into spheres or was this the byproduct of using stones as tools for pounding or grinding, sort of like gradually forming them into spheres over time just by using them for that purpose. New research at Hebrew University of Jerusalems suggests that this was likely a deliberate effort at sphere making. They came to this conclusion after using three D analysis to reconstruct the geometry of one hundred and fifty of these limestone spheroids. Over time, these pieces of limestone became more and more spherical, but not smoother like riverstones do, as they're shaped by sediment and running water. It's still not known why these were made, though, like they don't appear to have been an accidental byproduct of tool making, but they could have been intended for use as tools, or maybe they were projectiles, or maybe our ancestors just thought they were neat like that. That's always an option proto croquet. We have talked about archaeological sites found ahead of the construction of stores and roads and railroads, but now we have one discovered at the future site of a rocket launch pad. This is on the island of Unst Shetland in the UK and based on the presence of burned bones, pits and arrangements of boulders, it was likely a cremation cemetery. This is the first time a cremation cemetery has been excavated in the Shetland Islands. And in our last little bit of randomness, we have this addition's installment of things discovered by children at school. An eight year old in Bremen, Germany found an eighteen hundred year old silver denarius while digging in the school sandbox.

We're going to end with some things that seemed particularly appropriate since it is October and Halloween season. As always, we are starting off this second part of Unearthed with the stuff that didn't categorize very well, but all seems cool and interesting to me, and I always call that the potpourri. An arrowhead dating back to between nine hundred and eight hundred BCE, which has been in the collection of Burn History Museum, was made of iron that came from a meteorite. Although there are examples of people using the metals from meteorites to make things in other parts of the world, there have not been as many examples from Central or Western Europe during this period. At least there aren't that many yet. It is possible that other examples have been overlooked, and this one was found as teams intentionally tested objects from the collections of museums around Switzerland. This particular one included aluminum twenty six isotopes that does not occur naturally on Earth, but does exist in meteorites. Next, archaeologists in Meredith, Spain, have unearthed an intricate for mosaic featuring a depiction of Medusa's head, along with geometric patterns and animal motifs all around the frame. The animals include four peacocks, one for each season, and the depiction of Medusa is believed to have been included as a protection symbol for the household. Archaeologists in Peru have found what they believed to be an open air dance floor that could make a sound like thunder when it was danced on, basically amplifying the sounds the dancers made as they moved around that dance floor. It was built by layering clay and guano, which left gaps that would reverberate when struck, like by a dancer's foot. This platform was built sometime between one thousand and fourteen hundred, not far from a temple that may have been dedicated to a lightning deity. So this is an interpretation of how this site may have been used, but there's lots of existing evidence for ritual dancing and belief in lightning and thunder deities in the area next. Roughly one point four million years ago, early human ancestors were making these limestone spears about the size of a tennis ball, and there's been debate about these things, like were our ancestors deliberately trying to shape the limestone into spheres or was this the byproduct of using stones as tools for pounding or grinding, sort of like gradually forming them into spheres over time just by using them for that purpose. New research at Hebrew University of Jerusalems suggests that this was likely a deliberate effort at sphere making. They came to this conclusion after using three D analysis to reconstruct the geometry of one hundred and fifty of these limestone spheroids. Over time, these pieces of limestone became more and more spherical, but not smoother like riverstones do, as they're shaped by sediment and running water. It's still not known why these were made, though, like they don't appear to have been an accidental byproduct of tool making, but they could have been intended for use as tools, or maybe they were projectiles, or maybe our ancestors just thought they were neat like that. That's always an option proto croquet. We have talked about archaeological sites found ahead of the construction of stores and roads and railroads, but now we have one discovered at the future site of a rocket launch pad. This is on the island of Unst Shetland in the UK and based on the presence of burned bones, pits and arrangements of boulders, it was likely a cremation cemetery. This is the first time a cremation cemetery has been excavated in the Shetland Islands. And in our last little bit of randomness, we have this addition's installment of things discovered by children at school. An eight year old in Bremen, Germany found an eighteen hundred year old silver denarius while digging in the school sandbox.

At least all the English.

At least all the English.

Language reporting of this says it was in the school sandbox, but there's also a video interview with him which is in German, where he is digging as he sort of shows the interview where what he was doing it doesn't look like the kind of structured sandbox that you might see it a playground, but just like in the dirt, the boy whose name is Bjarn took the coin home, but eventually he and his family contacted an archaeologist. Eventually that coin was identified as from the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius and it is one of only three such coins to be found in Bremen. Next, we have some returns, repatriations, and repatriations.

Language reporting of this says it was in the school sandbox, but there's also a video interview with him which is in German, where he is digging as he sort of shows the interview where what he was doing it doesn't look like the kind of structured sandbox that you might see it a playground, but just like in the dirt, the boy whose name is Bjarn took the coin home, but eventually he and his family contacted an archaeologist. Eventually that coin was identified as from the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius and it is one of only three such coins to be found in Bremen. Next, we have some returns, repatriations, and repatriations.

It seems like.

It seems like.

There have gradually been more of these as a trend from one installment of on Earth to the next. Looking back at some prior years of these episodes, sometimes there were not any repatriations mentioned at all. Some of this increase has come from criminal investigations to people who amassed or sold large collections of illegally acquired objects. I think there's been more effort into like pursuing criminal activity of things that were more recently looted in recent years. Some of this is also connected to institutions reevaluating their own collections and how they acquired the objects in those collections. So what we are about to talk about is not every single return that was mentioned over the course of the last three months, but more of like a selection of them. First, at the end of June, the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia returned a monolith to Nigeria. But what made headlines at the start of July was what the museum received in return, which was a resin facsimile from a not for profit organization called Factum Foundation for Digital Technology and Preservation. As its name suggests, Factum Foundation is devoted to digitally recording and preserving the world's cultural heritage, including creating facsimiles of recorded objects that are visually indistinguishable from the original. This monolith is a Bocor monolith, and these are stone sculptures representing ancestors that were carved between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. A lot of these monoliths have been stolen from Nigeria and then placed in museums in other countries, and this is the first one to have been repatriated. The Chrysler Museum returned it after finding photographic evidence that it had still been in Nigeria in nineteen sixty one, meaning that its removal from the country was illegal under Nigerian law. The Factum Foundation has been recording and making facsimiles of these monoliths since twenty sixteen, working very closely with Nigeria's National Commission for Museums and Monuments. The Netherlands has repatriated more than four hundred and seventy five objects to Sri Lanka and Indonesia, including the first ever repatriations from the Reis Museum, where six of the objects were being held. Many of these items were taken to the Netherlands while these regions were under Dutch colonial authority. This is part of an ongoing effort to return objects that were taken from former colonies when they were under Dutch control. In March, a woman in England sold the contents of her garden shed to a salvage company, and among the items in the shed were two stone statues. The salvage company decided to research those statues before selling them, and they turned out to be two tenth century stone idols of female deities that had been stolen from a temple in India. That theft happened sometimes between nineteen seventy nine and nineteen eighty two. Both of these stats have now been returned to India. They will likely be placed in the National Museum in New Delhi, where two other statues from the same temple currently are as. I understand it like all of the statues from this temple were stolen and it's not realistic to try to like return them to that original site, so they're going to the museum. The University of Manchester is returning one hundred and seventy four items to the Aboriginal and Indiyaqua community of Groot Island, off the northern coast of Australia. This follows years of discussions with the Anandiyaqua Land Council and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. These items were acquired in the nineteen fifties by Peter Worsley, who at the time was a PhD student in anthropology. He bought or traded for these items while building relationships with the local people and andi Yaqua representatives have said people may not have understood that from Worsley's point of view, he was a quiet baring them permanently. This return took place at Manchester Museum, but it followed a three year process in which representatives from the museum had traveled to Groot Island to speak with the Anendoyaqua people there. Australian National University is repatriating an amphora to Italy, one depicting Heracles an a lion that's been a key part of the university's collection. The university bought this amphora in nineteen eighty four in what's been described as a good faith purchase from Sothebys, but eventually Italian authorities notified the university that the amphora was connected to an art dealer who had been selling illegally acquired art. An investigation into the rest of the collection found other pieces that had also been illegally removed from Italy, so plans are being made to return those as well. While the university and the Italian government are expected to finalize an agreement for the return of this amphora by the end of year, the plan is for it to remain at Australian National University for four years for research and teaching purposes before it actually goes back. And lastly, the National Museum of Scotland has returned a totem pole that was stolen from the Nizga First Nation in the nineteenth century. An anthropologist and museum curator named Marius Barbo had been taking pictures of culturally and historically interesting objects around Canada and sending those pictures to museums around the world. The National Museum of Scotland, then known as the Royal Scottish Museum, offered to pay Barbou for the pole, and while most of the local people were away hunting or fishing, he cut it down and removed it from the area by raft. These totem poles are regarded as living beings, so this was particularly egregious. Last August, a delegation traveled to Scotland to ask for the poll's return, and plans were underway to return it by desc of twenty twenty two. About four hundred people attended a welcoming ceremony at the end of September of this year. This totem pole is now in the Niskan Nation at the Niskan Museum, and its former space in the National Museum of Scotland is going to remain empty, sort of as a starting point for conversations about how this totem pole was stolen and why it was returned. We're going to get to shipwrecks next, Tracy, we are We're going to take a quick break first though. Okay, we've got a bunch of shipwrecks this time around.

There have gradually been more of these as a trend from one installment of on Earth to the next. Looking back at some prior years of these episodes, sometimes there were not any repatriations mentioned at all. Some of this increase has come from criminal investigations to people who amassed or sold large collections of illegally acquired objects. I think there's been more effort into like pursuing criminal activity of things that were more recently looted in recent years. Some of this is also connected to institutions reevaluating their own collections and how they acquired the objects in those collections. So what we are about to talk about is not every single return that was mentioned over the course of the last three months, but more of like a selection of them. First, at the end of June, the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia returned a monolith to Nigeria. But what made headlines at the start of July was what the museum received in return, which was a resin facsimile from a not for profit organization called Factum Foundation for Digital Technology and Preservation. As its name suggests, Factum Foundation is devoted to digitally recording and preserving the world's cultural heritage, including creating facsimiles of recorded objects that are visually indistinguishable from the original. This monolith is a Bocor monolith, and these are stone sculptures representing ancestors that were carved between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. A lot of these monoliths have been stolen from Nigeria and then placed in museums in other countries, and this is the first one to have been repatriated. The Chrysler Museum returned it after finding photographic evidence that it had still been in Nigeria in nineteen sixty one, meaning that its removal from the country was illegal under Nigerian law. The Factum Foundation has been recording and making facsimiles of these monoliths since twenty sixteen, working very closely with Nigeria's National Commission for Museums and Monuments. The Netherlands has repatriated more than four hundred and seventy five objects to Sri Lanka and Indonesia, including the first ever repatriations from the Reis Museum, where six of the objects were being held. Many of these items were taken to the Netherlands while these regions were under Dutch colonial authority. This is part of an ongoing effort to return objects that were taken from former colonies when they were under Dutch control. In March, a woman in England sold the contents of her garden shed to a salvage company, and among the items in the shed were two stone statues. The salvage company decided to research those statues before selling them, and they turned out to be two tenth century stone idols of female deities that had been stolen from a temple in India. That theft happened sometimes between nineteen seventy nine and nineteen eighty two. Both of these stats have now been returned to India. They will likely be placed in the National Museum in New Delhi, where two other statues from the same temple currently are as. I understand it like all of the statues from this temple were stolen and it's not realistic to try to like return them to that original site, so they're going to the museum. The University of Manchester is returning one hundred and seventy four items to the Aboriginal and Indiyaqua community of Groot Island, off the northern coast of Australia. This follows years of discussions with the Anandiyaqua Land Council and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. These items were acquired in the nineteen fifties by Peter Worsley, who at the time was a PhD student in anthropology. He bought or traded for these items while building relationships with the local people and andi Yaqua representatives have said people may not have understood that from Worsley's point of view, he was a quiet baring them permanently. This return took place at Manchester Museum, but it followed a three year process in which representatives from the museum had traveled to Groot Island to speak with the Anendoyaqua people there. Australian National University is repatriating an amphora to Italy, one depicting Heracles an a lion that's been a key part of the university's collection. The university bought this amphora in nineteen eighty four in what's been described as a good faith purchase from Sothebys, but eventually Italian authorities notified the university that the amphora was connected to an art dealer who had been selling illegally acquired art. An investigation into the rest of the collection found other pieces that had also been illegally removed from Italy, so plans are being made to return those as well. While the university and the Italian government are expected to finalize an agreement for the return of this amphora by the end of year, the plan is for it to remain at Australian National University for four years for research and teaching purposes before it actually goes back. And lastly, the National Museum of Scotland has returned a totem pole that was stolen from the Nizga First Nation in the nineteenth century. An anthropologist and museum curator named Marius Barbo had been taking pictures of culturally and historically interesting objects around Canada and sending those pictures to museums around the world. The National Museum of Scotland, then known as the Royal Scottish Museum, offered to pay Barbou for the pole, and while most of the local people were away hunting or fishing, he cut it down and removed it from the area by raft. These totem poles are regarded as living beings, so this was particularly egregious. Last August, a delegation traveled to Scotland to ask for the poll's return, and plans were underway to return it by desc of twenty twenty two. About four hundred people attended a welcoming ceremony at the end of September of this year. This totem pole is now in the Niskan Nation at the Niskan Museum, and its former space in the National Museum of Scotland is going to remain empty, sort of as a starting point for conversations about how this totem pole was stolen and why it was returned. We're going to get to shipwrecks next, Tracy, we are We're going to take a quick break first though. Okay, we've got a bunch of shipwrecks this time around.

First.

First.

The latest dives at the Antikytheris shipwreck took place between May nineteenth and June eighteenth of this year, with findings being reported starting in July. A lot of this work has been focused on surveying and mapping the wreck itself, including areas that have not been explored before. Divers visited the site and also used remote controlled drones to gather data. The team has also continued to unearth things like statues, glassware, and pottery from the reck site. One piece of marble that they found might be the beard that goes to the head of a Heracles statue that was discovered at the site last year. Some newly discovered ceramic fragments also suggest that there might be another wreck of an older, smaller ship in this same area. This is part of a five year study of the site, and all the data being gathered now is being compiled with data from earlier work at the wreck. The goal is to create a comprehensive three D model of the site. Next, a couple of Roman shipwrecks made the news this time around One dates to the first or second century BCE and was found off the port of Chivitevekya. It is one of many ships that have been found full of hundreds of mfoa. Most of thoseore intact. We don't yet know what these particular ones are holding, but it's a type of jar that was usually used for things.

The latest dives at the Antikytheris shipwreck took place between May nineteenth and June eighteenth of this year, with findings being reported starting in July. A lot of this work has been focused on surveying and mapping the wreck itself, including areas that have not been explored before. Divers visited the site and also used remote controlled drones to gather data. The team has also continued to unearth things like statues, glassware, and pottery from the reck site. One piece of marble that they found might be the beard that goes to the head of a Heracles statue that was discovered at the site last year. Some newly discovered ceramic fragments also suggest that there might be another wreck of an older, smaller ship in this same area. This is part of a five year study of the site, and all the data being gathered now is being compiled with data from earlier work at the wreck. The goal is to create a comprehensive three D model of the site. Next, a couple of Roman shipwrecks made the news this time around One dates to the first or second century BCE and was found off the port of Chivitevekya. It is one of many ships that have been found full of hundreds of mfoa. Most of thoseore intact. We don't yet know what these particular ones are holding, but it's a type of jar that was usually used for things.

Like wine or oil.

Like wine or oil.

The other is known as the Kappa Corso TiO and it sank between Italy and France, also roughly two thousand years ago. This wreck was discovered a little more than a decade ago and has been explored since then. So this work focused on documenting changes to the wreck over time and removing some of its contents for analysis. There were mphoa on this ship as well, along with a lot of glass tableware like bowls and bottles. Researchers have been studying the oldest known European shipwreck in South Australia. That ship is called the South Australian. It is an English bark that sank in eighteen thirty seven. The wreck was found in twenty eighteen, but then the COVID nineteen pandemic delayed plans to send people to study it. Although this ship was originally a packet ship and it carried about eighty people to the Australian colony, it mostly worked as part of the whaling industry. It basically functioned as a platform for removing the blubber from harpooned whales. Work at this wreck is ongoing and it's historically and archaeologically important in several ways, including the vessels overall age, the fact that it was one of the earlier ships to bring colonists to Australia, and its function as part of the shore based whaling industry. It's also one of only two English packet ships to go through this kind of archaeological study. Next, divers in the Saint Lawrence River spotted what turned out to be the compass platform from the deck of the Empress of Ireland. That is a wreck we have gotten requests to cover on the show. We have not yet done an episode on that, so maybe this discovery will bump that up the list. The sinking of the Empress of Ireland has been described as the worst peacetime maritime disaster in Canadian history.

The other is known as the Kappa Corso TiO and it sank between Italy and France, also roughly two thousand years ago. This wreck was discovered a little more than a decade ago and has been explored since then. So this work focused on documenting changes to the wreck over time and removing some of its contents for analysis. There were mphoa on this ship as well, along with a lot of glass tableware like bowls and bottles. Researchers have been studying the oldest known European shipwreck in South Australia. That ship is called the South Australian. It is an English bark that sank in eighteen thirty seven. The wreck was found in twenty eighteen, but then the COVID nineteen pandemic delayed plans to send people to study it. Although this ship was originally a packet ship and it carried about eighty people to the Australian colony, it mostly worked as part of the whaling industry. It basically functioned as a platform for removing the blubber from harpooned whales. Work at this wreck is ongoing and it's historically and archaeologically important in several ways, including the vessels overall age, the fact that it was one of the earlier ships to bring colonists to Australia, and its function as part of the shore based whaling industry. It's also one of only two English packet ships to go through this kind of archaeological study. Next, divers in the Saint Lawrence River spotted what turned out to be the compass platform from the deck of the Empress of Ireland. That is a wreck we have gotten requests to cover on the show. We have not yet done an episode on that, so maybe this discovery will bump that up the list. The sinking of the Empress of Ireland has been described as the worst peacetime maritime disaster in Canadian history.

More than a.

More than a.

Thousand people died after the Empress of Ireland collided with another ship in May of nineteen fourteen. The compass platform had been removed from the wreck in the nineteen nineties and then dropped back into the water while it was being brought back to shore. Efforts to find it at the time were unsuccessful. If you're like, didn't they look very hard? The river right there is really wide. It was a month's amount of.

Thousand people died after the Empress of Ireland collided with another ship in May of nineteen fourteen. The compass platform had been removed from the wreck in the nineteen nineties and then dropped back into the water while it was being brought back to shore. Efforts to find it at the time were unsuccessful. If you're like, didn't they look very hard? The river right there is really wide. It was a month's amount of.

River bottom to try to search.

River bottom to try to search.

The divers who spotted this thought that it might be just an upside down table, and photos made their way to maritime historian David Sampierre, who had been studying the Empress of Ireland for thirty years and immediately realized what it was. After a two year search, maritime historians have found the largely intact wreck of the Trinidad, which sank about ten miles away from Algoma, Wisconsin, on Lake Michigan. The Trinidad was used to carry coal, iron, and grain across the lake, although apparently its owners did not keep up with its maintenance and repairs very well. It had been leaky for years when it started seriously taking on water in May of eighteen eighty one. Its crew decided to abandon ship and escaped In a small boat, although a dog who was on board sadly did not survive. This wreck was spotted using sonar scans and then there was a thorough survey. Apart from the masts and rigging having fallen, this ship is largely intact, like when you look at images of it, it just looks kind of like a boat sitting there on the floor. This includes the crew's personal effects, all still being in place, and dishes are still stacked in the cabinets.

The divers who spotted this thought that it might be just an upside down table, and photos made their way to maritime historian David Sampierre, who had been studying the Empress of Ireland for thirty years and immediately realized what it was. After a two year search, maritime historians have found the largely intact wreck of the Trinidad, which sank about ten miles away from Algoma, Wisconsin, on Lake Michigan. The Trinidad was used to carry coal, iron, and grain across the lake, although apparently its owners did not keep up with its maintenance and repairs very well. It had been leaky for years when it started seriously taking on water in May of eighteen eighty one. Its crew decided to abandon ship and escaped In a small boat, although a dog who was on board sadly did not survive. This wreck was spotted using sonar scans and then there was a thorough survey. Apart from the masts and rigging having fallen, this ship is largely intact, like when you look at images of it, it just looks kind of like a boat sitting there on the floor. This includes the crew's personal effects, all still being in place, and dishes are still stacked in the cabinets.

No fish stole them.

No fish stole them.

Next, a piece of wood bought at a garage sale has been identified as coming from the USS Main. It had been donated to the Pascak Historical Society in New Jersey, but there were no clear records about where it had come from. Staff had doubts about whether it was authentic or not. The word purported was even on the sign identifying it in the museum's display. Retired history teacher Christopher Kirsting decided to see if he could figure out the truth, and his search wound up involving a curator at Arlington National Cemetery, which is home to the USS Main Memorial, and a retired Navy captain and USS Main expert named Steve Whittaker. Whittaker examined the wood and the paint flex and compared those to historical records, and then compared the wood itself to photos of the main as it was being salvaged. This piece of wood was a match for a spar that had been cut from the mast during salvage operations. The spar was returned to the Historical Societciety, which then gave it to Arlington National Cemetery, seeing that as a more.

Next, a piece of wood bought at a garage sale has been identified as coming from the USS Main. It had been donated to the Pascak Historical Society in New Jersey, but there were no clear records about where it had come from. Staff had doubts about whether it was authentic or not. The word purported was even on the sign identifying it in the museum's display. Retired history teacher Christopher Kirsting decided to see if he could figure out the truth, and his search wound up involving a curator at Arlington National Cemetery, which is home to the USS Main Memorial, and a retired Navy captain and USS Main expert named Steve Whittaker. Whittaker examined the wood and the paint flex and compared those to historical records, and then compared the wood itself to photos of the main as it was being salvaged. This piece of wood was a match for a spar that had been cut from the mast during salvage operations. The spar was returned to the Historical Societciety, which then gave it to Arlington National Cemetery, seeing that as a more.

Appropriate home for the artifact.

Appropriate home for the artifact.

In September, Ocean Exploration Trust's expedition vehicle Nautilus took an expedition to Papahano Mokuakia Marine National Monument to study three historically significant shipwrecks from the Battle of Midway. There was the York Town, which was an American ship, and two Japanese vessels, the Akagi and the Kaga. All three of these were aircraft carriers. Remotely operated vehicles were used to take high resolution photos and videos of all three of the res This work was done in collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which manages the National Monument, and was part of a greater effort to study the area and guide decisions into how the monument should be managed and conserved. The Akagi's location was determined during a mapping survey in twenty nineteen, but this expedition was the first time that anybody has actually wily seen it with their eyes since it sank, and this was also the first real time look at the Yorktown. There were more than one hundred experts on hand watching the footage as it was being recorded, to both offer interpretations of what they were seeing and to guide where the vehicles and the expedition should go from there. So this next discovery isn't a shipwreck, but it came from one. Back in two thousand and one, a recreational scuba diver off the coast of Sweden found a metal object that turned out to be a muzzle loading shipboard cannon. The wreck it came from has not been found, but research published in August suggests that this may be the oldest European cannon ever found. This comes thanks to a piece of cloth that was stuck in the powder chamber, probably left over from the last charge loaded into it. That cloth dates back to the fourteenth century, which makes this the oldest shipboard cannon discovered to date. This research also looked at the cannon itself, finding that it was made from a copper alloy that really is not ideal for making cannons. It probably would have cracked under intense use. In one of my favorite quotes, I read this entire unearthed research in the words of Steffen von Arben, maritime archaeologists at the University of Guttenberg, quote, Clearly, the person who cast the cannon did not have the necessary knowledge and understanding of the properties of various copper alloys. And in one last thing that also isn't a shipwreck, but is sort of shipwreck adjacent divers have retrieved the engine from an airplane from Lake Huron, one that was being flown by Tuskegee airman Frank Moody when he was killed during a training accident. One of the machine guns malfunctioned and damaged the plane's propeller, and that is what caused the crash. Although Moody's body washed ashore a few months after his the wreckage of the plane was not found until twenty fourteen. The retrieval of the engine is part of an ongoing effort to bring all of the wreckage up from the floor of the lake. And this has been a year's long process, since pieces of this plane are scattered over about.

In September, Ocean Exploration Trust's expedition vehicle Nautilus took an expedition to Papahano Mokuakia Marine National Monument to study three historically significant shipwrecks from the Battle of Midway. There was the York Town, which was an American ship, and two Japanese vessels, the Akagi and the Kaga. All three of these were aircraft carriers. Remotely operated vehicles were used to take high resolution photos and videos of all three of the res This work was done in collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which manages the National Monument, and was part of a greater effort to study the area and guide decisions into how the monument should be managed and conserved. The Akagi's location was determined during a mapping survey in twenty nineteen, but this expedition was the first time that anybody has actually wily seen it with their eyes since it sank, and this was also the first real time look at the Yorktown. There were more than one hundred experts on hand watching the footage as it was being recorded, to both offer interpretations of what they were seeing and to guide where the vehicles and the expedition should go from there. So this next discovery isn't a shipwreck, but it came from one. Back in two thousand and one, a recreational scuba diver off the coast of Sweden found a metal object that turned out to be a muzzle loading shipboard cannon. The wreck it came from has not been found, but research published in August suggests that this may be the oldest European cannon ever found. This comes thanks to a piece of cloth that was stuck in the powder chamber, probably left over from the last charge loaded into it. That cloth dates back to the fourteenth century, which makes this the oldest shipboard cannon discovered to date. This research also looked at the cannon itself, finding that it was made from a copper alloy that really is not ideal for making cannons. It probably would have cracked under intense use. In one of my favorite quotes, I read this entire unearthed research in the words of Steffen von Arben, maritime archaeologists at the University of Guttenberg, quote, Clearly, the person who cast the cannon did not have the necessary knowledge and understanding of the properties of various copper alloys. And in one last thing that also isn't a shipwreck, but is sort of shipwreck adjacent divers have retrieved the engine from an airplane from Lake Huron, one that was being flown by Tuskegee airman Frank Moody when he was killed during a training accident. One of the machine guns malfunctioned and damaged the plane's propeller, and that is what caused the crash. Although Moody's body washed ashore a few months after his the wreckage of the plane was not found until twenty fourteen. The retrieval of the engine is part of an ongoing effort to bring all of the wreckage up from the floor of the lake. And this has been a year's long process, since pieces of this plane are scattered over about.

A half a mile.

A half a mile.

The engine and the other parts of the plane will eventually be on display at the Tuske Airman National Historical Museum in Detroit. We have another quick break and then talk about art. Now we have some art things. A few years ago, a woman bought a painting at Savers, which is a chain of secondhand stores. And I think diehard Savers fans might be upset that I just called it a chain of secondhand stores instead of the religious experience that it can be right.

The engine and the other parts of the plane will eventually be on display at the Tuske Airman National Historical Museum in Detroit. We have another quick break and then talk about art. Now we have some art things. A few years ago, a woman bought a painting at Savers, which is a chain of secondhand stores. And I think diehard Savers fans might be upset that I just called it a chain of secondhand stores instead of the religious experience that it can be right.

She liked the frame, just thought it was frame. This frame she liked.

She liked the frame, just thought it was frame. This frame she liked.

She put it in a closet, forgot about it until doing some spring cleaning, and then, after finding it again, posted a picture of it on a Facebook group, and that wound up catching the eye of an art conservator who realized this was a work by painter and illustrator N. C.

She put it in a closet, forgot about it until doing some spring cleaning, and then, after finding it again, posted a picture of it on a Facebook group, and that wound up catching the eye of an art conservator who realized this was a work by painter and illustrator N. C.

Wyeth.

Wyeth.

This was one of four possible cover designs for the cover of Helen Hunt Jackson's novel Ramona. That novel came out in eighteen eighty four, and that painting and that frame were bought at Savers for four dollars, but the painting, once it was recognized, sold at auction in September for one hundred and ninety one thousand dollars. Next, excavations at the ancient city of Maastris on the Black Sea have found an almost complete life size statue of a water nymph, assuming that water nymphs are the same size as people, dating back to about the second century. The only things that are missing are the left side of her nose and her right hand. This is a really beautiful statue. This missing right hand would have been holding the handle of what looks like a pitcher. Her left hand is holding fabric that sort of draped around her lower hips. This statue is going through a conservation process and there are plans to place it in a museum. Back in twenty twenty, we talked about a van go painting that had been stolen from a museum on van Go's birthday while the museum was closed due to the COVID nineteen pandemic. We later had an update that art detective arsur Brand had received proof of life photos of the painting, and now the painting, which was Van Goes's the parsonage garden at noonan in spring has been returned. An anonymous tipster dropped it off at Brand's apartment, wrapped in bubble wrap and carried in an Ikea bag. This was not the person who had originally stolen it. That perpetrator was identified through DNA evidence left behind at the scene and was fined and imprisoned. Next, we have a few things that are related to ancient art. Researchers from Spain and France have been studying ochre from a cave in Ethiopia where people processed it for at least forty five hundred years, starting about forty thousand years ago. Ochre is a name for mineral pigments, usually in tones of red and yellow, and historically it's been used for a lot of different purposes, including making art and bodily adornment. This research has documented how people processing ochre in the cave gradually modified their tools and techniques. During the earlier period that the cave was in use, people seemed to have sought out the highest quality raw materials that they could find, but over time transitioned to lower quality materials that were more readily available in their local environment, and then adjusted their techniques to compensate for that difference. This is the only site discovered so far that has preserved such a long time span of continuous ochre production, so it's the first time researchers have really been able to study this kind of progression. Next, a cave in Spain known as Covidonus, which was already well known to locals and hikers, has been discovered to contain more than one hundred ancient paintings and engravings. The first discovery of artwork in this cave was actually made in twenty twenty one, but the findings weren't announced until this year. This artwork is at least twenty four thousand years old, with at least nineteen different types of animals depicted. Researchers have described this find as particularly significant due to the number of images, the variety of techniques used to make them, and the fact that many of them were made using clay rather than ocre or another mineral pigment. People basically got red clay off the cave floor and used it to paint with their hands and fingers, and there are not many surviving examples of Paleolithic artwork that was made this way, and in our last art find, Researchers in Namibia have worked with indigenous tracking experts to examine engravings of human and animal tracks in rock art in the Doro Nawis Mountains, and they found that these engravings of these tracks were just incredibly precise and detailed. They analyzed five hundred and thirteen engravings and the indigenous experts said they could identify a specific species, a sex, and an age group for more than ninety percent of the engraved prints. So these seem like very detailed, actual engravings of prints that people would see, not as like geometric patterns, which is how they had sort of been classified previously. So with all of that information, some clear patterns of our ed prints of adult animals were more common than juveniles, and prints of male animals were more common than female. But researchers don't know for sure what was driving any of these preferences.

This was one of four possible cover designs for the cover of Helen Hunt Jackson's novel Ramona. That novel came out in eighteen eighty four, and that painting and that frame were bought at Savers for four dollars, but the painting, once it was recognized, sold at auction in September for one hundred and ninety one thousand dollars. Next, excavations at the ancient city of Maastris on the Black Sea have found an almost complete life size statue of a water nymph, assuming that water nymphs are the same size as people, dating back to about the second century. The only things that are missing are the left side of her nose and her right hand. This is a really beautiful statue. This missing right hand would have been holding the handle of what looks like a pitcher. Her left hand is holding fabric that sort of draped around her lower hips. This statue is going through a conservation process and there are plans to place it in a museum. Back in twenty twenty, we talked about a van go painting that had been stolen from a museum on van Go's birthday while the museum was closed due to the COVID nineteen pandemic. We later had an update that art detective arsur Brand had received proof of life photos of the painting, and now the painting, which was Van Goes's the parsonage garden at noonan in spring has been returned. An anonymous tipster dropped it off at Brand's apartment, wrapped in bubble wrap and carried in an Ikea bag. This was not the person who had originally stolen it. That perpetrator was identified through DNA evidence left behind at the scene and was fined and imprisoned. Next, we have a few things that are related to ancient art. Researchers from Spain and France have been studying ochre from a cave in Ethiopia where people processed it for at least forty five hundred years, starting about forty thousand years ago. Ochre is a name for mineral pigments, usually in tones of red and yellow, and historically it's been used for a lot of different purposes, including making art and bodily adornment. This research has documented how people processing ochre in the cave gradually modified their tools and techniques. During the earlier period that the cave was in use, people seemed to have sought out the highest quality raw materials that they could find, but over time transitioned to lower quality materials that were more readily available in their local environment, and then adjusted their techniques to compensate for that difference. This is the only site discovered so far that has preserved such a long time span of continuous ochre production, so it's the first time researchers have really been able to study this kind of progression. Next, a cave in Spain known as Covidonus, which was already well known to locals and hikers, has been discovered to contain more than one hundred ancient paintings and engravings. The first discovery of artwork in this cave was actually made in twenty twenty one, but the findings weren't announced until this year. This artwork is at least twenty four thousand years old, with at least nineteen different types of animals depicted. Researchers have described this find as particularly significant due to the number of images, the variety of techniques used to make them, and the fact that many of them were made using clay rather than ocre or another mineral pigment. People basically got red clay off the cave floor and used it to paint with their hands and fingers, and there are not many surviving examples of Paleolithic artwork that was made this way, and in our last art find, Researchers in Namibia have worked with indigenous tracking experts to examine engravings of human and animal tracks in rock art in the Doro Nawis Mountains, and they found that these engravings of these tracks were just incredibly precise and detailed. They analyzed five hundred and thirteen engravings and the indigenous experts said they could identify a specific species, a sex, and an age group for more than ninety percent of the engraved prints. So these seem like very detailed, actual engravings of prints that people would see, not as like geometric patterns, which is how they had sort of been classified previously. So with all of that information, some clear patterns of our ed prints of adult animals were more common than juveniles, and prints of male animals were more common than female. But researchers don't know for sure what was driving any of these preferences.

That we can speculate, but it's speculation. Uh.

That we can speculate, but it's speculation. Uh.

Last, we're going to close out this autumn installment of Unearthed with a few things that seem thematically appropriate for October when we often are talking about things that are a little more eerie or macabre. First, researchers studying Roman era artifacts in a cave in Israel believe that these may have been used to try to speak with the dead or to worship underworld deities. This site is home to more than one hundred oil lamps, as well as vessels and coins, and three human skulls. Many of these items were in really hard to reach crevices in the cave. The cave itself also has a really deep shaft at one end, which may have been seen as an entrance to the underworld. In last year's autumn installment of On Earth, we talked about the discovery of a burial site in Poland that was being described as a vampire burial. A woman had been buried with a padlock on her big toe and her neck pinned under a sickle. Another burial from the same cemetery made headlines in August. This time it's the body of a child, buried face down, also with a padlock on his foot. This child's grave was only about five feet from the one that we talked about last year, and in both cases these were probably precautions that were taken to try to prevent the deceased from returning from the land of the dead. As we talked about last time. Discoveries like this always get a lot of vampire burial headlines. It's very likely that these were just people whose community was regarding with distrust for some reason. It's possible that both of them were just being mistrue ostracized, and recent work at this specific burial site suggests that other people buried there may have had similar stories. One headline went so far as to call this the grave of the damned. So far, more than thirty burials have been discovered at this site, and a lot of them are unusual in one way or another. For example, the bones of three other children were found in an area not far from this one, and they were all kind of scattered, suggesting that their bodies may have been desecrated. Researchers also found part of a jawbone with green staining on it that suggests that a person may have been buried with a coin in their mouth. Another similar burial made news in August as well. This one onearthed during the National Highway A fourteen Cambridge to Huntington improvement scheme. Excavations for this project took place between twenty sixteen and twenty eighteen. The examination of the findings has been ongoing. So this body, in particular was a teenager, probably a girl of about fifteen, who was buried face down and may have had her ankles bound together. Analysis of her skeletons suggests that she was malnourished in her childhood and also had a spinal joint disease that was exacerbated by the manual labor she had to do to survive from a very young age. So her being buried face down, possibly with her feet bound together, similarly suggests that she was seen as suspicious or somehow different from the rest of the community, but she also seems to have been buried as a symbolic act. The pit where she was buried had previously held a post for the entry gate of the early medieval community of Connington, but this settlement was eventually abandoned, and as people moved away, they dismantled and removed that gait. It's possible that this pit that was left behind was used as a burial site for the sake of convenience, since it had already been dug, but it's also possible that she was buried there as sort of a symbolic end to the community. Regardless her burial seems to have been one of the last things that the community did before abandoning the settlement. And finally, an article published in the journal Analytical Chemistry in August is titled Count Dracula Resurrected Proteomic Analysis of Lad the Third the Impaler's Documents by EVA technology and mass spectrometry. This article discusses the use of both ethylene vinyl acetate and mass spectrometry to study the peptides in proteins on three letters Vlad the Third wrote on rag paper between fourteen fifty seven and fourteen seventy five. The researchers include a pretty big caveat here, which is that other people probably handled these letters and it is not entirely part possible to separate any proteins they may have left behind from Vlad the Thirds. So they found various peptides and proteins related to environmental factors in Wilakia, where Vlad lived. That includes peptides from various fungi, bacteria, viruses, insects, and plants. But some of the proteins were definitely of human origin, and those proteins suggested that Vlad experience some inflammation of his respiratory tract or his skin. All three of the letters also had peptides associated with blood, and the letter from fourteen seventy five also had proteins associated with tears, which, according to these researchers, suggested that he may have experienced hemilacria. In other words, that the stories about Vlad the Impaler crying tears of blood may actually have been true. Bump, bump, bum, that's the best October finish I can imagine. Yeah, that's uh uh. I have a little piece of email listener mail to take us out of this unearthed.

Last, we're going to close out this autumn installment of Unearthed with a few things that seem thematically appropriate for October when we often are talking about things that are a little more eerie or macabre. First, researchers studying Roman era artifacts in a cave in Israel believe that these may have been used to try to speak with the dead or to worship underworld deities. This site is home to more than one hundred oil lamps, as well as vessels and coins, and three human skulls. Many of these items were in really hard to reach crevices in the cave. The cave itself also has a really deep shaft at one end, which may have been seen as an entrance to the underworld. In last year's autumn installment of On Earth, we talked about the discovery of a burial site in Poland that was being described as a vampire burial. A woman had been buried with a padlock on her big toe and her neck pinned under a sickle. Another burial from the same cemetery made headlines in August. This time it's the body of a child, buried face down, also with a padlock on his foot. This child's grave was only about five feet from the one that we talked about last year, and in both cases these were probably precautions that were taken to try to prevent the deceased from returning from the land of the dead. As we talked about last time. Discoveries like this always get a lot of vampire burial headlines. It's very likely that these were just people whose community was regarding with distrust for some reason. It's possible that both of them were just being mistrue ostracized, and recent work at this specific burial site suggests that other people buried there may have had similar stories. One headline went so far as to call this the grave of the damned. So far, more than thirty burials have been discovered at this site, and a lot of them are unusual in one way or another. For example, the bones of three other children were found in an area not far from this one, and they were all kind of scattered, suggesting that their bodies may have been desecrated. Researchers also found part of a jawbone with green staining on it that suggests that a person may have been buried with a coin in their mouth. Another similar burial made news in August as well. This one onearthed during the National Highway A fourteen Cambridge to Huntington improvement scheme. Excavations for this project took place between twenty sixteen and twenty eighteen. The examination of the findings has been ongoing. So this body, in particular was a teenager, probably a girl of about fifteen, who was buried face down and may have had her ankles bound together. Analysis of her skeletons suggests that she was malnourished in her childhood and also had a spinal joint disease that was exacerbated by the manual labor she had to do to survive from a very young age. So her being buried face down, possibly with her feet bound together, similarly suggests that she was seen as suspicious or somehow different from the rest of the community, but she also seems to have been buried as a symbolic act. The pit where she was buried had previously held a post for the entry gate of the early medieval community of Connington, but this settlement was eventually abandoned, and as people moved away, they dismantled and removed that gait. It's possible that this pit that was left behind was used as a burial site for the sake of convenience, since it had already been dug, but it's also possible that she was buried there as sort of a symbolic end to the community. Regardless her burial seems to have been one of the last things that the community did before abandoning the settlement. And finally, an article published in the journal Analytical Chemistry in August is titled Count Dracula Resurrected Proteomic Analysis of Lad the Third the Impaler's Documents by EVA technology and mass spectrometry. This article discusses the use of both ethylene vinyl acetate and mass spectrometry to study the peptides in proteins on three letters Vlad the Third wrote on rag paper between fourteen fifty seven and fourteen seventy five. The researchers include a pretty big caveat here, which is that other people probably handled these letters and it is not entirely part possible to separate any proteins they may have left behind from Vlad the Thirds. So they found various peptides and proteins related to environmental factors in Wilakia, where Vlad lived. That includes peptides from various fungi, bacteria, viruses, insects, and plants. But some of the proteins were definitely of human origin, and those proteins suggested that Vlad experience some inflammation of his respiratory tract or his skin. All three of the letters also had peptides associated with blood, and the letter from fourteen seventy five also had proteins associated with tears, which, according to these researchers, suggested that he may have experienced hemilacria. In other words, that the stories about Vlad the Impaler crying tears of blood may actually have been true. Bump, bump, bum, that's the best October finish I can imagine. Yeah, that's uh uh. I have a little piece of email listener mail to take us out of this unearthed.

This is one.

This is one.

It's from July and I just straight up overlooked it and I did not see it until this morning.

It's from July and I just straight up overlooked it and I did not see it until this morning.

Somehow.

Somehow.

This is from Michael, and Michael said, hello, fellow history nerds. So I was listening to your two parter on the Dictionary Wars while flying back to Connecticut to visit family a couple of weeks ago, and loved the part where Noah Webster bought Benedict Arnold's old house because it was unsurprisingly affordable. A few days later, we met up with a friend who was the principal at a high school in New Haven.

This is from Michael, and Michael said, hello, fellow history nerds. So I was listening to your two parter on the Dictionary Wars while flying back to Connecticut to visit family a couple of weeks ago, and loved the part where Noah Webster bought Benedict Arnold's old house because it was unsurprisingly affordable. A few days later, we met up with a friend who was the principal at a high school in New Haven.

She let us park at the school.

She let us park at the school.

After hours while we walked around the city, and when we got there, she pointed over to a fenced off area in the parking lot. Quote, that's where they're excavating Noah Webster's house. It used to belong to Benedict Arnold too. I totally flipped out and told them all about the episode we just listened to. I present you now with a very uninteresting picture of the spot, taken at night. The tile floor was visible at the time, but the rest still look like a parking lot at a random high school. I know you all like pictures of furry creatures, but hopefully an adorable and stoic bearded dragon will do instead. It does indeed love a bearded dragon. Yes, thank you all for the entertainment. I never wanted to listen to nonfiction podcast before you all. You were my first GRATZI, So thank you so much Michael for this email. I so we've talked about a number of different houses associated with Noah Webster at this point. Some of them are still standing, some of them are not. I didn't actually realize that this was one that was no longer standing, and there is.

After hours while we walked around the city, and when we got there, she pointed over to a fenced off area in the parking lot. Quote, that's where they're excavating Noah Webster's house. It used to belong to Benedict Arnold too. I totally flipped out and told them all about the episode we just listened to. I present you now with a very uninteresting picture of the spot, taken at night. The tile floor was visible at the time, but the rest still look like a parking lot at a random high school. I know you all like pictures of furry creatures, but hopefully an adorable and stoic bearded dragon will do instead. It does indeed love a bearded dragon. Yes, thank you all for the entertainment. I never wanted to listen to nonfiction podcast before you all. You were my first GRATZI, So thank you so much Michael for this email. I so we've talked about a number of different houses associated with Noah Webster at this point. Some of them are still standing, some of them are not. I didn't actually realize that this was one that was no longer standing, and there is.

Indeed archaeological work going on there.

Indeed archaeological work going on there.

Just at this high school parking lot, which I was unaware of at all until getting this email. And then we have just beautiful, beautiful bearded dragon Saudie Pie, hanging out on some newspaper with what looks like a little bull of snacks behind. So thank you so much for sending this. I'm sorry that somehow I because I read all of those other emails, and I even read some of the other ones that were sort of arounded in the inbox, and stumbled across this one this morning and was like, I don't remember this at all. I somehow overlooked it. If you would like to send us a note about this or any other podcast, we're at history Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com. We're all over social media at Missing History. It is where you will find our Facebook, I keep saying Twitter, but it's not called that anymore, Pinterest, and Instagram. We still have not started accounts on the other ones yet. You can subscribe to our show on the iHeartRadio app or wherever else you'd like to get your podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Just at this high school parking lot, which I was unaware of at all until getting this email. And then we have just beautiful, beautiful bearded dragon Saudie Pie, hanging out on some newspaper with what looks like a little bull of snacks behind. So thank you so much for sending this. I'm sorry that somehow I because I read all of those other emails, and I even read some of the other ones that were sort of arounded in the inbox, and stumbled across this one this morning and was like, I don't remember this at all. I somehow overlooked it. If you would like to send us a note about this or any other podcast, we're at history Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com. We're all over social media at Missing History. It is where you will find our Facebook, I keep saying Twitter, but it's not called that anymore, Pinterest, and Instagram. We still have not started accounts on the other ones yet. You can subscribe to our show on the iHeartRadio app or wherever else you'd like to get your podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.