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 Frye. This is part two of our latest installment of Unearthed, talking about things literally and figuratively discovered or unearthed over the last few months. As always, there's a little hodgepodge of stuff at the beginning that didn't quite fit into a category. I like to try to categorize things so that it's more understandable for all of you listening at home. But there's always a few things, so I'm like, this is cool and it doesn't fit in a group.

Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. This is part two of our latest installment of Unearthed, talking about things literally and figuratively discovered or unearthed over the last few months. As always, there's a little hodgepodge of stuff at the beginning that didn't quite fit into a category. I like to try to categorize things so that it's more understandable for all of you listening at home. But there's always a few things, so I'm like, this is cool and it doesn't fit in a group.

So starting with the hodgepodge, A jar found in eighteen fifty three at West Lodge, England, has long been believed to be a cremation vessel. It contained cremated remains, so that did not seem like much of a stretch. Its exterior is decorated with scenes of a gladiatorial battle, including an inscription saying that depicted were Memnon and Valentinis. According to the inscription, it commemorated Memnon's ninth victory and Valentinus was from the Roman army, so.

So starting with the hodgepodge, A jar found in eighteen fifty three at West Lodge, England, has long been believed to be a cremation vessel. It contained cremated remains, so that did not seem like much of a stretch. Its exterior is decorated with scenes of a gladiatorial battle, including an inscription saying that depicted were Memnon and Valentinis. According to the inscription, it commemorated Memnon's ninth victory and Valentinus was from the Roman army, so.

For a long time, people thought that the base piece with its depiction of these gladiators, was a mass produced piece, and that that inscription was added later on. So somebody had taken like a mass produced piece of jar work and had inscribed it to be more specific later. But more recent study has revealed that the inscription was actually put on there before the vessel was fired, so when it was made, the names were an intentional part of the design, not something that somebody else added on afterward. It's also a pretty high quality piece, so it's possible that somebody intentionally commissioned it and that it wasn't sort of like a mass produced almost souvenir. Researchers also believe that this piece might depict an actual gladiatorial match that happened in Britain, which if so, would make it an extremely rare piece of evidence that there were gladiatorial bouts taking place in Britain during that time. The connection between the vessel and the remains of the person inside is not entirely clear. There's some speculation that it was someone who was connected to one or both of the gladiators in some way, or maybe just somebody who really liked gladiator fights. I mean, I can imagine so many scenarios. Yeah, even down to just we needed something to put the remains in.

For a long time, people thought that the base piece with its depiction of these gladiators, was a mass produced piece, and that that inscription was added later on. So somebody had taken like a mass produced piece of jar work and had inscribed it to be more specific later. But more recent study has revealed that the inscription was actually put on there before the vessel was fired, so when it was made, the names were an intentional part of the design, not something that somebody else added on afterward. It's also a pretty high quality piece, so it's possible that somebody intentionally commissioned it and that it wasn't sort of like a mass produced almost souvenir. Researchers also believe that this piece might depict an actual gladiatorial match that happened in Britain, which if so, would make it an extremely rare piece of evidence that there were gladiatorial bouts taking place in Britain during that time. The connection between the vessel and the remains of the person inside is not entirely clear. There's some speculation that it was someone who was connected to one or both of the gladiators in some way, or maybe just somebody who really liked gladiator fights. I mean, I can imagine so many scenarios. Yeah, even down to just we needed something to put the remains in.

I mean I have the thing of like that would be a great peturn, right, just suing them after gladiators.

I mean I have the thing of like that would be a great peturn, right, just suing them after gladiators.

But and I don't know offhand whether they conclusively know that these are human cremated remains. I didn't look into that, But now we will move on nextsts the Max Plank Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology have figured out how to extract DNA from objects, not from the object themselves, but from evidence that was left behind by people who used or wore the objects, so kind of like in modern forensic science getting contact DNA off of surfaces during a criminal investigation. In this case, though, this is a twenty thousand year old pendant made from an elk's tooth that was found in Siberia's Denisova Cave. Based on this DNA analysis, the last person to handle this pendant was a woman who was closely related to a group of hunter gatherers who lived near Lake by Kal, more than a thousand miles to the east of the cave. So if all that is correct, we don't really know how or whether the pendant or the person who handled it last traveled that whole distance. And we also really don't know if this is the DNA of the person who made the pendant or someone who wore it, or both. This research was only possible because of how this pendant had been collected and handled. Archaeologists who first excavated it had been wearing coveralls, masks, and gloves, and then the research was carried out in a clean room environment so researchers would not contaminate the piece with their own DNA. The DNA extraction also involves submerging the object in a sodium phosphate solution and then slowly heating it to about one hundred and ninety four degrees fahrenheit, So this can only be done on objects that would not be harmed by this kind of intense process. Yeah, it sounded to me as though the solution is pretty mild, but it's still like the heat part is different. Yeah, And lastly, we have a couple of fines that are being described as the stone hinge of whatever place. First, a four thousand year old religious site in the Netherlands includes multiple burial mounds, and one of those mounds incorporated passages that the sun would shine through on the longest and shortest days of the year. Work at that site, nicknamed the Stonehenge of the Netherlands, started in twenty seventeen. And then there is the Arabian Stonehenge being studied in Oman. This site dates back to about two thousand years ago and it includes clusters of triliths that are made each of three standing stones. Stonehenge is really not the most apt comparison for either of these, though. While both Stonehenge and the burial mounds in the Netherlands have elements that line up with astronomical events, there's no mention of standing stones at the site in the Netherlands. The only structures known to have been there were made of wood and those no longer survive. And while the triliths in Oman are standing, the stones are described as being fifty to eighty centimeters tall, or between one point six and two point six feet. That is much smaller than the stones used as Stonehenge. Yeah. I get that people want to make discoveries sort of approachable to people, but as I was reading this, I was like, neither of these are really they're their own thing. They we don't need to compare them to Stonehenge. I feel like stone Hinge becomes the shorthand for a lot of folks of like it's a big structured layout of some stuff that may have meaning and is very old, which is pretty vague in general in terms of like a thing to compare stuff to. So moving on to more concrete categories next, we have some things that are related to medicine. Research published in the journal Antiquity in April details the results of archaeological work out of sixteenth century medical waste jump. Most of the reporting is describing this dump as being in the Forum of Caesar in the Roman Forum. Okay, that's all true, but it is not from ancient Rome. It is from much later, when the Baker's Guild was operating a hospital in this same space. This excavation took place in twenty twenty one and the team found a lot of ordinary items that would have been used in medical care and for patients dated day needs at the hospital. Like it appears that each patient was given their own jug, drinking glass and bowl when they were admitted, so that people were not eating and drinking after one another. That makes all the sense on earth. Yeah, More than half of the glass vessels that were recovered from this dump, though, were urine flasks, not just for patients to relieve their bladders, but for doctors to study their urine as a diagnostic tool in other contacts. These flasks can actually be pretty difficult to identify because they are shaped very similarly to oil lamps, but their purpose becomes a lot clearer when there are this many of them and a place that we know was a hospital. Other items that were found in the dump also included clamped cisterns that would have been used to burn items from homes where somebody had contracted plague. Moving on, archaeologists in central Hungary have found the gravesite of a man who was buried along with a set of high quality surgical tools that date back to the first century. These were Roman surgical instruments, including things like forceps, needles, tweezers, and scalpels, which were packed together in two wooden chests and buried at the man's feet. There was also a grinding stone, possibly used for preparing medicines, and that was placed at the man's knees, so this appears to be a complete surgical kit. Very finely made with silver inlay on some of the handles. It's rare to find a full kit like this at all, but this one's particularly unusual because of how far this was from. Like the central areas of the Roman Empire, it's actually not totally clear whether this area was under Roman control by the first century. It's possible that this belonged to somebody who had traveled from a more central part of the empire to treat a prominent person, or maybe had been accompanying a military unit. There are some plans for future research into this grave site and the person's remains that might reveal more about this person, where they were from. And In our last medical find, divers in Dry Tortuga's National Park, which is about seventy miles off the coast of Key West, Florida, have found a nineteenth century quarantine hospital on a now submerged island. This hospital was used to house and treat people who contracted yellow fever. The team also found one grave marker from Fort Jefferson Post Cemetery, which was mainly used for soldiers and prisoners at Fort Jefferson, but was also home to sums civilian burials. Although only one marker was found in this survey. Dozens of people are known to have been interred there. So this quarantine hospital was established by the US Marine Hospital Service in eighteen ninety and it operated until nineteen hundred. Before that point, there had been a lot of other smaller, sometimes temporary quarantine facilities for yellow fever patients as well as people who contracted other diseases on islands all around the Keys. That Island in Key West is one of several in the area that are now submerged due to sea level rise, erosion, and the effects of major storms. So we're following that with a few.

But and I don't know offhand whether they conclusively know that these are human cremated remains. I didn't look into that, But now we will move on nextsts the Max Plank Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology have figured out how to extract DNA from objects, not from the object themselves, but from evidence that was left behind by people who used or wore the objects, so kind of like in modern forensic science getting contact DNA off of surfaces during a criminal investigation. In this case, though, this is a twenty thousand year old pendant made from an elk's tooth that was found in Siberia's Denisova Cave. Based on this DNA analysis, the last person to handle this pendant was a woman who was closely related to a group of hunter gatherers who lived near Lake by Kal, more than a thousand miles to the east of the cave. So if all that is correct, we don't really know how or whether the pendant or the person who handled it last traveled that whole distance. And we also really don't know if this is the DNA of the person who made the pendant or someone who wore it, or both. This research was only possible because of how this pendant had been collected and handled. Archaeologists who first excavated it had been wearing coveralls, masks, and gloves, and then the research was carried out in a clean room environment so researchers would not contaminate the piece with their own DNA. The DNA extraction also involves submerging the object in a sodium phosphate solution and then slowly heating it to about one hundred and ninety four degrees fahrenheit, So this can only be done on objects that would not be harmed by this kind of intense process. Yeah, it sounded to me as though the solution is pretty mild, but it's still like the heat part is different. Yeah, And lastly, we have a couple of fines that are being described as the stone hinge of whatever place. First, a four thousand year old religious site in the Netherlands includes multiple burial mounds, and one of those mounds incorporated passages that the sun would shine through on the longest and shortest days of the year. Work at that site, nicknamed the Stonehenge of the Netherlands, started in twenty seventeen. And then there is the Arabian Stonehenge being studied in Oman. This site dates back to about two thousand years ago and it includes clusters of triliths that are made each of three standing stones. Stonehenge is really not the most apt comparison for either of these, though. While both Stonehenge and the burial mounds in the Netherlands have elements that line up with astronomical events, there's no mention of standing stones at the site in the Netherlands. The only structures known to have been there were made of wood and those no longer survive. And while the triliths in Oman are standing, the stones are described as being fifty to eighty centimeters tall, or between one point six and two point six feet. That is much smaller than the stones used as Stonehenge. Yeah. I get that people want to make discoveries sort of approachable to people, but as I was reading this, I was like, neither of these are really they're their own thing. They we don't need to compare them to Stonehenge. I feel like stone Hinge becomes the shorthand for a lot of folks of like it's a big structured layout of some stuff that may have meaning and is very old, which is pretty vague in general in terms of like a thing to compare stuff to. So moving on to more concrete categories next, we have some things that are related to medicine. Research published in the journal Antiquity in April details the results of archaeological work out of sixteenth century medical waste jump. Most of the reporting is describing this dump as being in the Forum of Caesar in the Roman Forum. Okay, that's all true, but it is not from ancient Rome. It is from much later, when the Baker's Guild was operating a hospital in this same space. This excavation took place in twenty twenty one and the team found a lot of ordinary items that would have been used in medical care and for patients dated day needs at the hospital. Like it appears that each patient was given their own jug, drinking glass and bowl when they were admitted, so that people were not eating and drinking after one another. That makes all the sense on earth. Yeah, More than half of the glass vessels that were recovered from this dump, though, were urine flasks, not just for patients to relieve their bladders, but for doctors to study their urine as a diagnostic tool in other contacts. These flasks can actually be pretty difficult to identify because they are shaped very similarly to oil lamps, but their purpose becomes a lot clearer when there are this many of them and a place that we know was a hospital. Other items that were found in the dump also included clamped cisterns that would have been used to burn items from homes where somebody had contracted plague. Moving on, archaeologists in central Hungary have found the gravesite of a man who was buried along with a set of high quality surgical tools that date back to the first century. These were Roman surgical instruments, including things like forceps, needles, tweezers, and scalpels, which were packed together in two wooden chests and buried at the man's feet. There was also a grinding stone, possibly used for preparing medicines, and that was placed at the man's knees, so this appears to be a complete surgical kit. Very finely made with silver inlay on some of the handles. It's rare to find a full kit like this at all, but this one's particularly unusual because of how far this was from. Like the central areas of the Roman Empire, it's actually not totally clear whether this area was under Roman control by the first century. It's possible that this belonged to somebody who had traveled from a more central part of the empire to treat a prominent person, or maybe had been accompanying a military unit. There are some plans for future research into this grave site and the person's remains that might reveal more about this person, where they were from. And In our last medical find, divers in Dry Tortuga's National Park, which is about seventy miles off the coast of Key West, Florida, have found a nineteenth century quarantine hospital on a now submerged island. This hospital was used to house and treat people who contracted yellow fever. The team also found one grave marker from Fort Jefferson Post Cemetery, which was mainly used for soldiers and prisoners at Fort Jefferson, but was also home to sums civilian burials. Although only one marker was found in this survey. Dozens of people are known to have been interred there. So this quarantine hospital was established by the US Marine Hospital Service in eighteen ninety and it operated until nineteen hundred. Before that point, there had been a lot of other smaller, sometimes temporary quarantine facilities for yellow fever patients as well as people who contracted other diseases on islands all around the Keys. That Island in Key West is one of several in the area that are now submerged due to sea level rise, erosion, and the effects of major storms. So we're following that with a few.

Other finds that are related to climate and climate change. First, we've covered research involving tree rings on various episodes, including studies of trees themselves and of items made from wood, including timber frames and shipholes. This time the research is on wooden labels that were affixed to mummies when Egypt was under the control of the Roman Empire. So these wooden labels were a way to prevent mix ups with people's remains, since the remains were no longer identifiable by things like what a person looked like once they had been embalmed and wrapped. The labels would include a person's name, the names of their parents, sometimes some other writing, like maybe a religious message. There are thousands of these labels and museums around the world, made from the wood of different types of trees, and taken together, they can provide an account of how the climate fluctuated during the period that they were used. This study looked at three hundred labels, finding places where the tree rings overlapped on two different labels. The trees used to make these labels were from the Mediterranean modern day Lebanon and the region around the mouth of the Nile River, and there is so much information that can be gleaned from them, including about long distance trading networks, shifts in the climate, and the people whose remains bore these labels. For example, in some cases two labels were made from the same piece of wood, and in some cases both of them seem to have been made at the same time for people who were part of the same family. This suggests that multiple people from that family died at the same time. The Three Starts was actually published in the International Journal of Wood Culture in January, but more general publications didn't really start reporting on it until the spring. Next, research on a thousand year old earthen wall in northwestern Peru suggests that it was built as protection from flooding due to the recurring climate pattern known as El Nino. This wall is about six miles or ten kilometers long and eight feet or two point five meters high. It's known as Maria la Cumbre, and before this point many researchers had concluded that it was built by the Chimu people as a defense against invasions by the Inca, But new research has found that there are layers and layers of flood sediment only on one side of the wall, leaving the canals and farmlands on the other side unaffected by flooding. This wall also crosses two dry riverbeds that regularly flood during that Alnino cycle. And lastly, archaeologists and other researchers in Iraq are reporting that archaeological sites there are being buried and otherwise damaged by sandstorms, which are becoming larger, more frequent, and more destructive due to global warming. This includes the reburial of sites that had previously been excavated, including Sumerian ruins of um Al al Karibe. In addition, to the reburial of archaeological sites. Sandstorms are essentially sand blasting exposed surfaces. The effects of climate change in a rack are also compounded by a number of other factors, including the dam of rivers both within and outside of a rock, and the abandonment of farms as irrigation becomes unsustainable. This is all, of course, very complicated. The irrigation practices themselves are often wasteful, but without the crops being grown, there isn't enough plant life to help keep the soil in place.

Other finds that are related to climate and climate change. First, we've covered research involving tree rings on various episodes, including studies of trees themselves and of items made from wood, including timber frames and shipholes. This time the research is on wooden labels that were affixed to mummies when Egypt was under the control of the Roman Empire. So these wooden labels were a way to prevent mix ups with people's remains, since the remains were no longer identifiable by things like what a person looked like once they had been embalmed and wrapped. The labels would include a person's name, the names of their parents, sometimes some other writing, like maybe a religious message. There are thousands of these labels and museums around the world, made from the wood of different types of trees, and taken together, they can provide an account of how the climate fluctuated during the period that they were used. This study looked at three hundred labels, finding places where the tree rings overlapped on two different labels. The trees used to make these labels were from the Mediterranean modern day Lebanon and the region around the mouth of the Nile River, and there is so much information that can be gleaned from them, including about long distance trading networks, shifts in the climate, and the people whose remains bore these labels. For example, in some cases two labels were made from the same piece of wood, and in some cases both of them seem to have been made at the same time for people who were part of the same family. This suggests that multiple people from that family died at the same time. The Three Starts was actually published in the International Journal of Wood Culture in January, but more general publications didn't really start reporting on it until the spring. Next, research on a thousand year old earthen wall in northwestern Peru suggests that it was built as protection from flooding due to the recurring climate pattern known as El Nino. This wall is about six miles or ten kilometers long and eight feet or two point five meters high. It's known as Maria la Cumbre, and before this point many researchers had concluded that it was built by the Chimu people as a defense against invasions by the Inca, But new research has found that there are layers and layers of flood sediment only on one side of the wall, leaving the canals and farmlands on the other side unaffected by flooding. This wall also crosses two dry riverbeds that regularly flood during that Alnino cycle. And lastly, archaeologists and other researchers in Iraq are reporting that archaeological sites there are being buried and otherwise damaged by sandstorms, which are becoming larger, more frequent, and more destructive due to global warming. This includes the reburial of sites that had previously been excavated, including Sumerian ruins of um Al al Karibe. In addition, to the reburial of archaeological sites. Sandstorms are essentially sand blasting exposed surfaces. The effects of climate change in a rack are also compounded by a number of other factors, including the dam of rivers both within and outside of a rock, and the abandonment of farms as irrigation becomes unsustainable. This is all, of course, very complicated. The irrigation practices themselves are often wasteful, but without the crops being grown, there isn't enough plant life to help keep the soil in place.

Yeah, the roots help stabilize the soil, and when they're not there anymore, even though keeping them watered was often like not efficient in terms of water use. Like without their roots, the soils starts to erode and turn into sandstorms. Of course, the Rock is not the only nation to be facing these kinds of issues. There are a lot of other, you know, global issues at play, but according to the United Nations, it's one of the five countries most impacted by some of the effects of climate change, including drought. We are going to cover repatriations in just a moment, but first we will hear from the sponsors that keep stuff you missed in history class going as Holly mentioned, now we are going to talk about some repatriations. In July of twenty twenty two, we talked about an ancient Roman bust that Laura Young, proprietor of Temple of Vintage, founded a goodwill in Austin, Texas. This bust has been on display at the San Antonio Museum of Art for about a year, but now it is being returned not to Italy but to the replica Pompeiian Villa, built by King Lidvig, the First of Bavaria in the eighteen forties. That replica is known as the Pompianum. I think I'm saying that right. The Pompianum was the last known home of this bust. It was part of the collection of King Lidvig the First. The plan is to either have it displayed there or to place it in the collection of the Glyptotech, which is the museum in Munich that holds the rest of King Ledwig's the First's collection.

Yeah, the roots help stabilize the soil, and when they're not there anymore, even though keeping them watered was often like not efficient in terms of water use. Like without their roots, the soils starts to erode and turn into sandstorms. Of course, the Rock is not the only nation to be facing these kinds of issues. There are a lot of other, you know, global issues at play, but according to the United Nations, it's one of the five countries most impacted by some of the effects of climate change, including drought. We are going to cover repatriations in just a moment, but first we will hear from the sponsors that keep stuff you missed in history class going as Holly mentioned, now we are going to talk about some repatriations. In July of twenty twenty two, we talked about an ancient Roman bust that Laura Young, proprietor of Temple of Vintage, founded a goodwill in Austin, Texas. This bust has been on display at the San Antonio Museum of Art for about a year, but now it is being returned not to Italy but to the replica Pompeiian Villa, built by King Lidvig, the First of Bavaria in the eighteen forties. That replica is known as the Pompianum. I think I'm saying that right. The Pompianum was the last known home of this bust. It was part of the collection of King Lidvig the First. The plan is to either have it displayed there or to place it in the collection of the Glyptotech, which is the museum in Munich that holds the rest of King Ledwig's the First's collection.

The Manhattan Antiquities Trafficking Unit is returning an Olmec sculpture to Mexico. This piece represents an earth monster with a very large open mouth to grant access to the Underworld. It likely dates back to some time between eight hundred and four hundred BCE. It is not clear when or how this piece was removed from Mexico, but it was documented as being in the United States by nineteen sixty eight. Yeah, I'm not sure if monster is absolutely the best word for what this being was, but that is how it has been translated from every Spanish language source that I found. Next, a number of repatriation announcements that came out this spring were all connected to the collection of Shelby White, who's the trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. White and her late husband, Leon Levy amassed a just huge collection of art and antiquity and then donated some of that collection or loaned it to museums. But this collection has come under a lot of scrutiny in more recent years because of a lot of the items in it didn't have a clear providence, and investigators have concluded that a number of them had been looted or stolen. The Manhattan District Attorney's Office issued search warrants in this matter in twenty twenty one, and then over the course of an investigation, authorities seized eighty nine items from ten different countries, estimated to be worth roughly sixty nine million dollars. Several items were returned to their countries of origin this spring, including two alabaster figures and a silver vessel that were returned to Yemen, two seven century stone carvings that were returned to China, a Sumerian alabaster bull that was returned to a rock and other items that were included along with others not connected to white that were returned to Turkya.

The Manhattan Antiquities Trafficking Unit is returning an Olmec sculpture to Mexico. This piece represents an earth monster with a very large open mouth to grant access to the Underworld. It likely dates back to some time between eight hundred and four hundred BCE. It is not clear when or how this piece was removed from Mexico, but it was documented as being in the United States by nineteen sixty eight. Yeah, I'm not sure if monster is absolutely the best word for what this being was, but that is how it has been translated from every Spanish language source that I found. Next, a number of repatriation announcements that came out this spring were all connected to the collection of Shelby White, who's the trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. White and her late husband, Leon Levy amassed a just huge collection of art and antiquity and then donated some of that collection or loaned it to museums. But this collection has come under a lot of scrutiny in more recent years because of a lot of the items in it didn't have a clear providence, and investigators have concluded that a number of them had been looted or stolen. The Manhattan District Attorney's Office issued search warrants in this matter in twenty twenty one, and then over the course of an investigation, authorities seized eighty nine items from ten different countries, estimated to be worth roughly sixty nine million dollars. Several items were returned to their countries of origin this spring, including two alabaster figures and a silver vessel that were returned to Yemen, two seven century stone carvings that were returned to China, a Sumerian alabaster bull that was returned to a rock and other items that were included along with others not connected to white that were returned to Turkya.

The Kunstastoris Museum in Austria has announced plans to return two small pieces that are part of the Parthenon marbles to Greece. I have some questions about this particular announcement because reports quote Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Shallenberg is saying that the museum was in discussion for quote mutual loans with the Acropolis Museum in Greece. But Greek authorities have reportedly rejected previously proposed loans from other institutions because in their view, these items already belonged to Greece, so whoever outside of Greece is proposing to loan them back to Greece like doesn't actually have the authority to do so. These pieces are two pretty small fragments. They're the only items from the Parthenon that are currently in this museum's collection. Authorities in Italy have returned a second century Feuderary stelay known as Bride of the Desert to Turkya. The stele had illegally excavated and it was sold in France before making its way to a private home in Italy. Next, the painting Madonna and Child by Italian Baroque painter Alessandro Turci was slated to be sold at auction in Tokyo, but the auction was canceled when Polish officials reported that this piece had been looted by the Nazis during World War II. The painting seller, who remained anonymous, agreed to return it to Poland at no cost.

The Kunstastoris Museum in Austria has announced plans to return two small pieces that are part of the Parthenon marbles to Greece. I have some questions about this particular announcement because reports quote Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Shallenberg is saying that the museum was in discussion for quote mutual loans with the Acropolis Museum in Greece. But Greek authorities have reportedly rejected previously proposed loans from other institutions because in their view, these items already belonged to Greece, so whoever outside of Greece is proposing to loan them back to Greece like doesn't actually have the authority to do so. These pieces are two pretty small fragments. They're the only items from the Parthenon that are currently in this museum's collection. Authorities in Italy have returned a second century Feuderary stelay known as Bride of the Desert to Turkya. The stele had illegally excavated and it was sold in France before making its way to a private home in Italy. Next, the painting Madonna and Child by Italian Baroque painter Alessandro Turci was slated to be sold at auction in Tokyo, but the auction was canceled when Polish officials reported that this piece had been looted by the Nazis during World War II. The painting seller, who remained anonymous, agreed to return it to Poland at no cost.

This painting was handed over to Polish officials at the Polish Embassy in Tokyo in May. This is the first work to have been looted by the Nazis during World War II that was returned to Poland from Japan. It's planned for the painting to be placed in a public museum next.

This painting was handed over to Polish officials at the Polish Embassy in Tokyo in May. This is the first work to have been looted by the Nazis during World War II that was returned to Poland from Japan. It's planned for the painting to be placed in a public museum next.

Authorities in Germany have returned two sacred masks to the indigenous Kogi people in Colombia. These masks had been part of a collection in the Berlin Ethnologi Museum. While these have been returned, the museum also routinely treated the masks with insecticides while they were in their collection to try to prevent insect infestation, and these insecticides could be toxic to people as well. There are concerns about whether they can actually be handled safely or used for the religious purposes that they were made for back in the fifteenth century. And it was the intent of the people being returned to that they would be restored to their original ceremonial use.

Authorities in Germany have returned two sacred masks to the indigenous Kogi people in Colombia. These masks had been part of a collection in the Berlin Ethnologi Museum. While these have been returned, the museum also routinely treated the masks with insecticides while they were in their collection to try to prevent insect infestation, and these insecticides could be toxic to people as well. There are concerns about whether they can actually be handled safely or used for the religious purposes that they were made for back in the fifteenth century. And it was the intent of the people being returned to that they would be restored to their original ceremonial use.

And lastly, the National Museum of Denmark is donating a truly beautiful feather cape to the National Museum of Brazil. You might recall that the National Museum of Brazil burned in twenty eighteen and lost almost its entire collection. The museum is currently working to rebuild that collection and collaboration with the indigenous peoples of Brazil as well as foreign museums.

And lastly, the National Museum of Denmark is donating a truly beautiful feather cape to the National Museum of Brazil. You might recall that the National Museum of Brazil burned in twenty eighteen and lost almost its entire collection. The museum is currently working to rebuild that collection and collaboration with the indigenous peoples of Brazil as well as foreign museums.

So this cape is at least three hundred years old and it was made by that Tupanaba people. It's one of only eleven known pieces like this to still exist, and before this donation, all of them were in European museums, nearly half of them in museums in Denmark. This specific cape, which again it's just it's gorgeous, it has generally agreed to be the best preserved of all of these. It was originally used for religious and ceremonial purposes, and in a statement Tupanaba Babao, who is the tribe's chief, described the return as the returning of an ancestor.

So this cape is at least three hundred years old and it was made by that Tupanaba people. It's one of only eleven known pieces like this to still exist, and before this donation, all of them were in European museums, nearly half of them in museums in Denmark. This specific cape, which again it's just it's gorgeous, it has generally agreed to be the best preserved of all of these. It was originally used for religious and ceremonial purposes, and in a statement Tupanaba Babao, who is the tribe's chief, described the return as the returning of an ancestor.

Moving on to some books and letters. While working on a new biography of Martin Luther King, Junior, Jonathan Eig found evidence that a widely repeated quote from King about Malcolm X may have been partially fabricated. The quote came from an interview conducted by Alex Haley for the January nineteen sixty five edition of Playboy magazine as print. When asked to comment on Malcolm X, King said, in part quote and in his litany of articulating the despair of the Negro without offering any positive creative alternative, I feel that Malcolm has done himself and our people a great disservice. Fiery, demagogic oratory in the black ghettos. Urging negroes to arm themselves and prepare to engage in violence as he has done, can reap nothing but grief. But there is a typed transcript of the recording of this interview, which was prepared by a secretariat, appears at the recording itself doesn't exist anymore. In that type transcript, King's response is nothing like that printed quote. He does still criticize Malcolm X, but the criticisms.

Moving on to some books and letters. While working on a new biography of Martin Luther King, Junior, Jonathan Eig found evidence that a widely repeated quote from King about Malcolm X may have been partially fabricated. The quote came from an interview conducted by Alex Haley for the January nineteen sixty five edition of Playboy magazine as print. When asked to comment on Malcolm X, King said, in part quote and in his litany of articulating the despair of the Negro without offering any positive creative alternative, I feel that Malcolm has done himself and our people a great disservice. Fiery, demagogic oratory in the black ghettos. Urging negroes to arm themselves and prepare to engage in violence as he has done, can reap nothing but grief. But there is a typed transcript of the recording of this interview, which was prepared by a secretariat, appears at the recording itself doesn't exist anymore. In that type transcript, King's response is nothing like that printed quote. He does still criticize Malcolm X, but the criticisms.

Are a lot more moderate. The quote from the transcript ends quote, but I know that I have so often felt that I wished that he would talk less of violence, because I don't think that violence can solve our problem. And in his life litany of expressing the despair of the negro without offering a positive creative approach, I think that he falls into a rut.

Are a lot more moderate. The quote from the transcript ends quote, but I know that I have so often felt that I wished that he would talk less of violence, because I don't think that violence can solve our problem. And in his life litany of expressing the despair of the negro without offering a positive creative approach, I think that he falls into a rut.

Sometimes some of that printed interview seems like a mish mash of things King did say, But in other parts of the interview, in response to other questions that didn't directly reference Malcolm X, other parts of that published quote don't align with anything that appears in the transcript at all. So, of course, Alex Haley is best known for his books Roots and the Autobiography of Malcolm X, as Told to Alex Haley. Roots was a best seller, and it won the Pulitzer Prize was adapted into a widely known mini series. But then Haley also faced allegations of both plagiarism and historical inaccuracy. He settled a plagiarism lawsuit in nineteen seventy eight. And so this discovery has led to calls for like a closer examination of the Autobiography of Malcolm X and questions about whether everything that's in it was reported accurately. Moving On. A manuscript known as the Codex Sassoon is one of the oldest most complete copies of the Hebrew Bible in existence, dating back to some time between the years eight eighty and nine sixty. It was named for David Solomon Sassoon, who purchased it in nineteen twenty nine. In May, this manuscript was sold at auction at Sotheby's for thirty eight million dollars. The buyer was Alfred H. Moses On, behalf of the American Friends of Anu, who then donated the codex to the A and U Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv. It had been on exhibit there prior to this auction.

Sometimes some of that printed interview seems like a mish mash of things King did say, But in other parts of the interview, in response to other questions that didn't directly reference Malcolm X, other parts of that published quote don't align with anything that appears in the transcript at all. So, of course, Alex Haley is best known for his books Roots and the Autobiography of Malcolm X, as Told to Alex Haley. Roots was a best seller, and it won the Pulitzer Prize was adapted into a widely known mini series. But then Haley also faced allegations of both plagiarism and historical inaccuracy. He settled a plagiarism lawsuit in nineteen seventy eight. And so this discovery has led to calls for like a closer examination of the Autobiography of Malcolm X and questions about whether everything that's in it was reported accurately. Moving On. A manuscript known as the Codex Sassoon is one of the oldest most complete copies of the Hebrew Bible in existence, dating back to some time between the years eight eighty and nine sixty. It was named for David Solomon Sassoon, who purchased it in nineteen twenty nine. In May, this manuscript was sold at auction at Sotheby's for thirty eight million dollars. The buyer was Alfred H. Moses On, behalf of the American Friends of Anu, who then donated the codex to the A and U Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv. It had been on exhibit there prior to this auction.

Next, research into a fifteenth century manuscript suggests that it was the work of a traveling menstrul basically writing out his songs and his jokes for an act, probably a man don't actually really know, though. This work is a copy. According to a note that is written inside of it, this copy of made by Richard Heey because he was at a feast that he didn't have a drink, which I find hilarious. He was a tutor, not a performer, so this was definitely not his own work. This manuscript has been studied previously, but most of that earlier research was looking at how the booklet was made, not at the actual contents of it. It includes a lot of nonsense. First, there's a mock sermon. There's also a burlesque romance called the Hunting of the Hair, in which there is a bloodthirsty rabbit, which is actually kind of a common theme in literature of this era, but a lot of people have compared it to Monty Python.

Next, research into a fifteenth century manuscript suggests that it was the work of a traveling menstrul basically writing out his songs and his jokes for an act, probably a man don't actually really know, though. This work is a copy. According to a note that is written inside of it, this copy of made by Richard Heey because he was at a feast that he didn't have a drink, which I find hilarious. He was a tutor, not a performer, so this was definitely not his own work. This manuscript has been studied previously, but most of that earlier research was looking at how the booklet was made, not at the actual contents of it. It includes a lot of nonsense. First, there's a mock sermon. There's also a burlesque romance called the Hunting of the Hair, in which there is a bloodthirsty rabbit, which is actually kind of a common theme in literature of this era, but a lot of people have compared it to Monty Python.

I was gonna say, bugs Bunny, that sure certainly top of mind. The scholar who looked at all of this, doctor James Wade, thinks that the original work was something a performer wrote out because they were creating their own original material but not really using a lot of the tricks. It would make it easier to remember during a live performance, like repeated lines or verses. As far as we know, that original work is lost, but this copy provides a glimpse of what comedy was like in the time and on our last books and letters find. A team of experts has confirmed that a book of hours or a prayer book in the collection of Wren Library at Trinity College, Cambridge belonged to Henry the Eights minister Thomas Cromwell, not just that it's specifically a prayer book shown in a portrait of Cromwell that was made by court painter Hans Holbein. Alison Palmer, curator at Heaver Castle, and Kate McCaffrey, assistant curator, were both involved in this find. Heaver Castle was Anne Boleyn's childhood home and its collection included a book of Hours that belonged to her, which was probably printed in fifteen twenty seven by French printer Germain Hadua. In twenty twenty one, McCaffrey had realized that there was another copy of this fifteen twenty seven book in the collection of the Morgan Library, that one belonging to Throne of Aragon. An inscription in the book names it as Catherine, so that part was already known. What McCaffrey realized was that it and Anne Boleyn's book were two different copies of the same book of ours. So after realizing that there was a third possible copy of this same book in the collection at Trinity College, McCaffrey arranged a visit and Palmer recognized the books ornate binding as the same that was as what's shown in this portrait of Thomas Cromwell. The team then traced the book's provenance, which at that point wasn't that well documented, and they traced it back to Cromwell. The book is temporarily on display at Heaver Castle, which is believed to be the first time that it's been loaned from the Trinity College library since it was donated to the college in sixteen sixty.

I was gonna say, bugs Bunny, that sure certainly top of mind. The scholar who looked at all of this, doctor James Wade, thinks that the original work was something a performer wrote out because they were creating their own original material but not really using a lot of the tricks. It would make it easier to remember during a live performance, like repeated lines or verses. As far as we know, that original work is lost, but this copy provides a glimpse of what comedy was like in the time and on our last books and letters find. A team of experts has confirmed that a book of hours or a prayer book in the collection of Wren Library at Trinity College, Cambridge belonged to Henry the Eights minister Thomas Cromwell, not just that it's specifically a prayer book shown in a portrait of Cromwell that was made by court painter Hans Holbein. Alison Palmer, curator at Heaver Castle, and Kate McCaffrey, assistant curator, were both involved in this find. Heaver Castle was Anne Boleyn's childhood home and its collection included a book of Hours that belonged to her, which was probably printed in fifteen twenty seven by French printer Germain Hadua. In twenty twenty one, McCaffrey had realized that there was another copy of this fifteen twenty seven book in the collection of the Morgan Library, that one belonging to Throne of Aragon. An inscription in the book names it as Catherine, so that part was already known. What McCaffrey realized was that it and Anne Boleyn's book were two different copies of the same book of ours. So after realizing that there was a third possible copy of this same book in the collection at Trinity College, McCaffrey arranged a visit and Palmer recognized the books ornate binding as the same that was as what's shown in this portrait of Thomas Cromwell. The team then traced the book's provenance, which at that point wasn't that well documented, and they traced it back to Cromwell. The book is temporarily on display at Heaver Castle, which is believed to be the first time that it's been loaned from the Trinity College library since it was donated to the college in sixteen sixty.

I love that little detail. We'll take a little sponsor break, and then we have a few more things before we close out. Next we have a few works of religious artwork. Archaeologists in Mexico doing rescue work ahead of a new train route have found a stone statue of the Maya god Kuwil. This is the first known sculpture representing this deity found in Mexico, although there are three other sculptures in Guatemala. There are more like two dimensional representations, but sculptures are actually pretty rare. This train route has come up on unearthed previously. It's become known as the Maya Train, and it's going to connect multiple sites on the Yucatan Peninsula. This is a controversial project, one that may bring tourists and researchers from coastal areas to historic and cultural sites farther inland, but which also has serious environmental and archaeological impacts. There are plans to establish a museum to house artifacts that have been unearth during its construction, but there are also concerns that the construction is just too destructive for any museum to possibly offset. Currently, the train is scheduled to begin running in September next Archaeologists in Sudan found an opening in the floor of a home of Old Dongola, which is a town that was built starting in the fourth century. It was known as Tungul in old Nubian. This is town is abandoned now. It was largely abandoned in the nineteenth century after its population moved to what's now known as just Dongola. This opening led to a small chamber, and in that chamber, the walls were covered in Nubian art, including one artwork depicting a Nubian king in the company of Jesus Christ and the archangel Michael.

I love that little detail. We'll take a little sponsor break, and then we have a few more things before we close out. Next we have a few works of religious artwork. Archaeologists in Mexico doing rescue work ahead of a new train route have found a stone statue of the Maya god Kuwil. This is the first known sculpture representing this deity found in Mexico, although there are three other sculptures in Guatemala. There are more like two dimensional representations, but sculptures are actually pretty rare. This train route has come up on unearthed previously. It's become known as the Maya Train, and it's going to connect multiple sites on the Yucatan Peninsula. This is a controversial project, one that may bring tourists and researchers from coastal areas to historic and cultural sites farther inland, but which also has serious environmental and archaeological impacts. There are plans to establish a museum to house artifacts that have been unearth during its construction, but there are also concerns that the construction is just too destructive for any museum to possibly offset. Currently, the train is scheduled to begin running in September next Archaeologists in Sudan found an opening in the floor of a home of Old Dongola, which is a town that was built starting in the fourth century. It was known as Tungul in old Nubian. This is town is abandoned now. It was largely abandoned in the nineteenth century after its population moved to what's now known as just Dongola. This opening led to a small chamber, and in that chamber, the walls were covered in Nubian art, including one artwork depicting a Nubian king in the company of Jesus Christ and the archangel Michael.

There is a lot that's not yet known about this discovery. Archaeologists working on the project have described this painting as not typical of how Nubian rulers were normally depicted, and there are also questions about the chamber where this artwork was found, part of a complex of very small spaces that are almost like crypt but would have been at ground level.

There is a lot that's not yet known about this discovery. Archaeologists working on the project have described this painting as not typical of how Nubian rulers were normally depicted, and there are also questions about the chamber where this artwork was found, part of a complex of very small spaces that are almost like crypt but would have been at ground level.

Next, an elephant statue unearthed in India is being described as one of the oldest of its kind. It is a Buddhist statue. It probably dates back to the third century BCE. At that point, the population of the area where it was found was predominantly Buddhist. It's about three feet or a meter tall, and other finds in the area also include parts of a Buddhist temple Elephants are a common motif in Buddhist art, linked to a story that the Buddhists mother had a dream of a white elephant that entered her side when she conceived him. And our last find of religious artwork shows how globally connected the ancient world could be. Thousands of years ago.

Next, an elephant statue unearthed in India is being described as one of the oldest of its kind. It is a Buddhist statue. It probably dates back to the third century BCE. At that point, the population of the area where it was found was predominantly Buddhist. It's about three feet or a meter tall, and other finds in the area also include parts of a Buddhist temple Elephants are a common motif in Buddhist art, linked to a story that the Buddhists mother had a dream of a white elephant that entered her side when she conceived him. And our last find of religious artwork shows how globally connected the ancient world could be. Thousands of years ago.

Archaeologists have found a statue of the Buddha that dates back to between the years ninety and one. It was found in the ancient Egyptian port city of Baroniki on the Red Sea. Archaeologists believed that it belonged to someone from South Asia, but that it may have been made locally in Baroniki rather than brought with that person. An inscription in Sanskrit has been found in Baroniki as well.

Archaeologists have found a statue of the Buddha that dates back to between the years ninety and one. It was found in the ancient Egyptian port city of Baroniki on the Red Sea. Archaeologists believed that it belonged to someone from South Asia, but that it may have been made locally in Baroniki rather than brought with that person. An inscription in Sanskrit has been found in Baroniki as well.

At this point when this was likely made, Egypt was under control of the Roman Empire, and we already knew that Egypt was trading with the Indian subcontinent. But these finds suggest that there may have been an established community of people from South Asia, possibly merchants, living in Egypt during this period, in addition to the merchants who were passing through the area. Now we're going to move on to some weapons and tool finds. Archaeologists in Germany have unearthed an incredibly well preserved Bronze age sword, one described as being in such exceptional condition that it almost shines. The sword was balanced in a way that would have made it usable as a weapon, but it doesn't show any evidence of having been used that way. There is some disagreement about whether bronze swords in general would have been used as weapons, since bronze is a pretty soft material. This sword was found alongside the remains of three people who seem to have been buried at about the same time, but it isn't clear how they're connected to one another, or how any of them might be connected to the sword. Next, an eight year old student in Norway found a neolithic dagger tucked in between some stones on a playground. She took this to her teacher. Teacher recognized it as something that had been maybe intentionally made it wasn't just a random cool rock, and contacted authorities to report a possible prehistoric find. The dagger is about three thousand, seven hundred years old, and it's made from flint, which is not a material that's naturally present in Norway, so it was likely imported from somewhere else, possibly Denmark. It's now being studied at the University Museum of Bergen. This is a really rare find and further archaeological work at the playground didn't find anything significant. Yeah, I'm not sure how it came to be there. Speaking of flint though, we've talked about flint tools on several installments of Unearthed, but something we've never really touched on, is that the process of making these tools, known as flint napping, could lead to serious injuries. Flint napping involves striking pieces of flint with tools to flake off pieces of it until it gets to the desired shape and sharpness. There are a lot of opportunities in this process for people to injure themselves. Research published in the journal American Antiquity surveyed one hundred and seventy three modern flint nappers about their injuries and found that a lot of those injuries could be quite serious. Those one hundred seventy three flint nappers reported almost six high hundred and ninety injuries among them, with about sixty percent of those injuries happening to their fingers or hands, but respondents also described eye injuries and injuries to just about every other part of their bodies, including cuts that went all the way to the bone. So if ancient flint knappers saw similar rates of injury, that meant that making these tools came with the significant risk not just through the injuries themselves, but through the risk of infection. We're talking about a time when antibiotics were not as they are today in terms of treating and preventing infections. A paper in the Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology has offered a possible explanation for the use of some unusual prehistoric objects that were unearthed in France. They're shaped roughly like the Greek letter omega, They're made of antler or bone, and they're about the size that a person's finger could fit through the center. The hypothesis is that these are finger loops meant for use with spear throwers or dart throwers. To test this hypothesis, anthropologist Justin Garnett made replica loops from antler, bone and three D printed plastic, and then fitted these loops to reconstructed throwers, using them to launch darts. This is not the first time on the show that we have talked about testing hypothesis about these kinds of things by just making one and trying it out. This did seem to work, which may mean that this is correct, that these were for you somethings like spear throwers, and then that would mean that people have been using those kinds of items in Europe starting way earlier than was previously thought.

At this point when this was likely made, Egypt was under control of the Roman Empire, and we already knew that Egypt was trading with the Indian subcontinent. But these finds suggest that there may have been an established community of people from South Asia, possibly merchants, living in Egypt during this period, in addition to the merchants who were passing through the area. Now we're going to move on to some weapons and tool finds. Archaeologists in Germany have unearthed an incredibly well preserved Bronze age sword, one described as being in such exceptional condition that it almost shines. The sword was balanced in a way that would have made it usable as a weapon, but it doesn't show any evidence of having been used that way. There is some disagreement about whether bronze swords in general would have been used as weapons, since bronze is a pretty soft material. This sword was found alongside the remains of three people who seem to have been buried at about the same time, but it isn't clear how they're connected to one another, or how any of them might be connected to the sword. Next, an eight year old student in Norway found a neolithic dagger tucked in between some stones on a playground. She took this to her teacher. Teacher recognized it as something that had been maybe intentionally made it wasn't just a random cool rock, and contacted authorities to report a possible prehistoric find. The dagger is about three thousand, seven hundred years old, and it's made from flint, which is not a material that's naturally present in Norway, so it was likely imported from somewhere else, possibly Denmark. It's now being studied at the University Museum of Bergen. This is a really rare find and further archaeological work at the playground didn't find anything significant. Yeah, I'm not sure how it came to be there. Speaking of flint though, we've talked about flint tools on several installments of Unearthed, but something we've never really touched on, is that the process of making these tools, known as flint napping, could lead to serious injuries. Flint napping involves striking pieces of flint with tools to flake off pieces of it until it gets to the desired shape and sharpness. There are a lot of opportunities in this process for people to injure themselves. Research published in the journal American Antiquity surveyed one hundred and seventy three modern flint nappers about their injuries and found that a lot of those injuries could be quite serious. Those one hundred seventy three flint nappers reported almost six high hundred and ninety injuries among them, with about sixty percent of those injuries happening to their fingers or hands, but respondents also described eye injuries and injuries to just about every other part of their bodies, including cuts that went all the way to the bone. So if ancient flint knappers saw similar rates of injury, that meant that making these tools came with the significant risk not just through the injuries themselves, but through the risk of infection. We're talking about a time when antibiotics were not as they are today in terms of treating and preventing infections. A paper in the Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology has offered a possible explanation for the use of some unusual prehistoric objects that were unearthed in France. They're shaped roughly like the Greek letter omega, They're made of antler or bone, and they're about the size that a person's finger could fit through the center. The hypothesis is that these are finger loops meant for use with spear throwers or dart throwers. To test this hypothesis, anthropologist Justin Garnett made replica loops from antler, bone and three D printed plastic, and then fitted these loops to reconstructed throwers, using them to launch darts. This is not the first time on the show that we have talked about testing hypothesis about these kinds of things by just making one and trying it out. This did seem to work, which may mean that this is correct, that these were for you somethings like spear throwers, and then that would mean that people have been using those kinds of items in Europe starting way earlier than was previously thought.

And lastly for this section, archaeologists in eastern China have unearthed the four thousand year old ritual axe head, decorated on both sides with engravings of clouds, birds and tigers. Although other similar axes have previously been found with bird and cloud decorations, this is the first who have been found that was decorated with tigers. Speaking of birds, we will close out this installment of an Earth with a couple of fines just about birds. Researchers at an archaeological site on the eastern Mediterranean coast of the Levant found a collection of seven flutes that are roughly twelve thousand years old. The site where these were found had already been studied pretty extensively, but these flutes were made from bird bones and they were mixed in with a lot of other bird bones that had not been carved into anything. And these flutes are very small. The only one that's totally intact is only about two point six inches or sixty five millimeters long. Replicas of some of the flutes produced very high pitched sounds, and the researchers concluded that the Natufians who lived in the region at the time may have made these flutes to imitate bird calls. It's not no why, though ideas span from hunting to try to communicate with the birds for religious reasons.

And lastly for this section, archaeologists in eastern China have unearthed the four thousand year old ritual axe head, decorated on both sides with engravings of clouds, birds and tigers. Although other similar axes have previously been found with bird and cloud decorations, this is the first who have been found that was decorated with tigers. Speaking of birds, we will close out this installment of an Earth with a couple of fines just about birds. Researchers at an archaeological site on the eastern Mediterranean coast of the Levant found a collection of seven flutes that are roughly twelve thousand years old. The site where these were found had already been studied pretty extensively, but these flutes were made from bird bones and they were mixed in with a lot of other bird bones that had not been carved into anything. And these flutes are very small. The only one that's totally intact is only about two point six inches or sixty five millimeters long. Replicas of some of the flutes produced very high pitched sounds, and the researchers concluded that the Natufians who lived in the region at the time may have made these flutes to imitate bird calls. It's not no why, though ideas span from hunting to try to communicate with the birds for religious reasons.

These are the oldest instruments known to have been made to imitate bird calls, if indeed that's what they were for, and the oldest known sound instruments from the Near East specifically, and in our last find for this unearthed archaeologists in Japan have found evidence that domesticated chickens.

These are the oldest instruments known to have been made to imitate bird calls, if indeed that's what they were for, and the oldest known sound instruments from the Near East specifically, and in our last find for this unearthed archaeologists in Japan have found evidence that domesticated chickens.

Were being bred there as early as the fourth century BCE. One challenge with this research is that the bones of juvenile chickens really resemble the bones of other related animals, including wild pheasants, that were known to live in Japan at the time. The team used a technique called zoo archaeology by mass spectrometry or zooms to conclusively determine whether some bones of juvenile birds were from a pheasant or a chicken, and they were chicken bones. So before this point, the only bones from this peer period that were conclusively shown to be chicken bones were from adult male birds, and that does not really answer the question of whether they were being intentionally bred. Professor Masaki Ada of Hokkaido University Museum describes this discovery as clear evidence of breeding at the earliest time that chickens could have been introduced into the Japanese archipelago. Pump pump bum unearthed for this quarter.

Were being bred there as early as the fourth century BCE. One challenge with this research is that the bones of juvenile chickens really resemble the bones of other related animals, including wild pheasants, that were known to live in Japan at the time. The team used a technique called zoo archaeology by mass spectrometry or zooms to conclusively determine whether some bones of juvenile birds were from a pheasant or a chicken, and they were chicken bones. So before this point, the only bones from this peer period that were conclusively shown to be chicken bones were from adult male birds, and that does not really answer the question of whether they were being intentionally bred. Professor Masaki Ada of Hokkaido University Museum describes this discovery as clear evidence of breeding at the earliest time that chickens could have been introduced into the Japanese archipelago. Pump pump bum unearthed for this quarter.

Uh huh uh. I have a little listener mailbore we wrap up today. This is from Anna, and Anna's email is titled maps and Rabies, so of course that caught my attention. Hello, Holly and Tracy. My name is Anna and I'm a longtime listener of the podcast an occasional live show attender. I still chuckle at the small child during the Q and A session on emergency coffins, who asked, but why were the bodies moving around after they were dead in regards to corpse bloating. Anyways, I was inspired to write in after listening to some of the twenty twenty two episodes I missed Rabi's and Mercader like like y'all. I also grew up with the mercader projection on the pull down map in school, and this podcast episode brought back such a distinct memory of the year we added a new map to the geography class. I must have been about second grade at the time, and for some reason I understood the concept behind a different map projection having to sacrifice accuracy on certain things. But I cannot, for the life of me figure out why North wasn't always up ah kid logic. At my pop Pop's house growing up, we also had one of those maps with both the USSR and China all in red. By the time the Soviet Union dissolved, I was still a baby, but I have fond memories of staring that at that map with him as a young kid and asking questions about all the countries. Incidentally, this this was the same pop Pop who put the fear of gotten to me about rabies when once I remarked on a squirrel I saw eating a nut in the park. Thanks for bringing back those memories, uh, And I'm enclosing some pictures of Gemma White and Meg Brown, my two lovely dogs who I'm usually walking when I'm listening to your podcast. I guess that could also be Gemma. I don't actually know that's from Anna with such cute dogs poppers goodness, oh my goodness, I love it. There's there's recently been another round of people on social media suddenly becoming aware that rabies is uh, almost all the time fatal whoops. So it was a weird coincidence that this this email, this emails actually from a couple of weeks ago, but suddenly, all of a sudden, my various social feeds were people talking about rabies. Yes, rabies. If you are bitten by an animal that may have rabies, incredibly good idea to immediately seek some maybe not immediately like that exact, very promptly seek medical attention because once Raby's symptoms, I don't know, I would say immediately, yeah, I would do it immediately. But we talked about in the episode about rabies about how sometimes like the the emergency facility might not have the raby shots on hand, and if it's not that exact minute that it's probably still going to be okay. But yeah, once symptoms of rabies develop, the fatality rate is effectively one hundred percent the tiny number of people who have developed symptoms and survived. It's a tiny, tiny, tiny number, and the protocol that seems to have achieved that definitely does not work for everyone. So that's the rabies. PSA again, thank you so so much for sending this, this email and these great, great pictures.

Uh huh uh. I have a little listener mailbore we wrap up today. This is from Anna, and Anna's email is titled maps and Rabies, so of course that caught my attention. Hello, Holly and Tracy. My name is Anna and I'm a longtime listener of the podcast an occasional live show attender. I still chuckle at the small child during the Q and A session on emergency coffins, who asked, but why were the bodies moving around after they were dead in regards to corpse bloating. Anyways, I was inspired to write in after listening to some of the twenty twenty two episodes I missed Rabi's and Mercader like like y'all. I also grew up with the mercader projection on the pull down map in school, and this podcast episode brought back such a distinct memory of the year we added a new map to the geography class. I must have been about second grade at the time, and for some reason I understood the concept behind a different map projection having to sacrifice accuracy on certain things. But I cannot, for the life of me figure out why North wasn't always up ah kid logic. At my pop Pop's house growing up, we also had one of those maps with both the USSR and China all in red. By the time the Soviet Union dissolved, I was still a baby, but I have fond memories of staring that at that map with him as a young kid and asking questions about all the countries. Incidentally, this this was the same pop Pop who put the fear of gotten to me about rabies when once I remarked on a squirrel I saw eating a nut in the park. Thanks for bringing back those memories, uh, And I'm enclosing some pictures of Gemma White and Meg Brown, my two lovely dogs who I'm usually walking when I'm listening to your podcast. I guess that could also be Gemma. I don't actually know that's from Anna with such cute dogs poppers goodness, oh my goodness, I love it. There's there's recently been another round of people on social media suddenly becoming aware that rabies is uh, almost all the time fatal whoops. So it was a weird coincidence that this this email, this emails actually from a couple of weeks ago, but suddenly, all of a sudden, my various social feeds were people talking about rabies. Yes, rabies. If you are bitten by an animal that may have rabies, incredibly good idea to immediately seek some maybe not immediately like that exact, very promptly seek medical attention because once Raby's symptoms, I don't know, I would say immediately, yeah, I would do it immediately. But we talked about in the episode about rabies about how sometimes like the the emergency facility might not have the raby shots on hand, and if it's not that exact minute that it's probably still going to be okay. But yeah, once symptoms of rabies develop, the fatality rate is effectively one hundred percent the tiny number of people who have developed symptoms and survived. It's a tiny, tiny, tiny number, and the protocol that seems to have achieved that definitely does not work for everyone. So that's the rabies. PSA again, thank you so so much for sending this, this email and these great, great pictures.

Anna.

Anna.

If you would like to send us a note about this or any other podcasts, we're at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. We're all over social media. Ad missed in History. That's there. You'll find our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. You can subscribe to our show on the iHeartRadio app and anywhere 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.

If you would like to send us a note about this or any other podcasts, we're at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. We're all over social media. Ad missed in History. That's there. You'll find our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. You can subscribe to our show on the iHeartRadio app and anywhere 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.