Speaker 1: Hey, everybody. Before we get into this episode today, it
Speaker 1: includes some discussion of a recision package which when we
Speaker 1: recorded it had not been voted on by the US
Speaker 1: House of Representatives. As of now, it has and it
Speaker 1: has passed and has been sent to the President for signature.
Speaker 1: That signature has not happened as of this moment, but
Speaker 1: by the time this episode comes out, it most likely
Speaker 1: will have so by the time you're hearing it, most
Speaker 1: likely that recision package will be law. Just to update everything.
Speaker 1: And now we will get on to the episode. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Frye. It's time for our quarterly installment of Unearthed.
Speaker 1: If you are brand new to the show over the
Speaker 1: last few months, this is when a few times a
Speaker 1: year we talk about things that have been literally and
Speaker 1: figuratively unearthed. This time it's once again two part episode.
Speaker 1: Today we have updates. We have so many updates that
Speaker 1: it is two thirds of this episode being updates. We
Speaker 1: also have art finds in this episode, and we have
Speaker 1: a little bit at the end that I'm calling adult content.
Speaker 1: The last part of this episode has some archaeological finds
Speaker 1: and whatnot that are related to things like drug use
Speaker 1: and sex. It's a little more mature than often what
Speaker 1: we talk about on the show. And I just put
Speaker 1: that at the end of this one so that if
Speaker 1: you're listening with maybe little kids or in a classroom
Speaker 1: or whatever, and you need to just end the episode there,
Speaker 1: it will be easy to do it. So smart. So
Speaker 1: Tracy started out our last installment of Unearthed by talking
Speaker 1: about actions that were being taken to the federal level
Speaker 1: here in the US and how those actions were impacting
Speaker 1: her work on the show and how they might affect
Speaker 1: the show in the future. And this includes budget cuts
Speaker 1: and grant freezes affecting academics, researchers, and institutions that we
Speaker 1: rely on for our research. A lot of that is
Speaker 1: still ongoing and still in flux, as universities and other
Speaker 1: institutions reckon with new financial constraints and with federal hostility
Speaker 1: to the idea of DEI. There are still some legal
Speaker 1: cases related to all of this that are still working
Speaker 1: their way through the courts. Some of those cuts have
Speaker 1: already had an effect on a show, For example, as
Speaker 1: of July fet I no longer have access to a
Speaker 1: long list of databases, several of which I have been
Speaker 1: using for many, many years, which were being funded through
Speaker 1: the Institute of Museum and Library Services Grants to States program.
Speaker 1: As we talked about last time, the IMLS was targeted
Speaker 1: by an executive of order. Its entire staff was placed
Speaker 1: on leave. But the Congress also passed a budget and
Speaker 1: spending bill that was signed into law on July fourth,
Speaker 1: that's of course connected to all of this. Since we
Speaker 1: are recording this just a couple of weeks after I
Speaker 1: lost access to those databases, Like, I'm not really sure
Speaker 1: what the next step is with it, and the President
Speaker 1: has also asked for a recision package in addition to
Speaker 1: that budget that was already passed that would cancel additional
Speaker 1: funds that were already previously allocated. This precision package that's
Speaker 1: still in the works, it is expected to target foreign
Speaker 1: aid and public media. The foreign aid cuts aren't really
Speaker 1: directly related to our podcast, which is what we've been
Speaker 1: kind of sticking with with these updates, but given the scope,
Speaker 1: it just seems weird to me to not mention them
Speaker 1: at all. Research that was published in the Lancet at
Speaker 1: the end of June concludes that cuts just to the
Speaker 1: United States Agency for International Development will lead to the
Speaker 1: deaths of fourteen million people around the world who otherwise
Speaker 1: would have lived by the year twenty thirty. In terms
Speaker 1: of this recision package and what does directly apply to
Speaker 1: our show, we really cannot count the number of times
Speaker 1: we have cited reporting and documentaries and other work from
Speaker 1: NPR and PBS. I just went into the file where
Speaker 1: I have all of our old outlines and I put
Speaker 1: the words NPR and PBS in there to see how
Speaker 1: often they showed up in source lists. It again was
Speaker 1: too many to count, so hundred. The idea of losing
Speaker 1: funding for those is something else likely to affect the show.
Speaker 1: Also still in the works our federal departments taking steps
Speaker 1: to align with the executive orders that we talked about
Speaker 1: last time, one of those being the one that's called
Speaker 1: Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History. I had a
Speaker 1: stomach ache just saying that executive orders are basically memos
Speaker 1: from the President to the federal government about how to operate,
Speaker 1: and then it is up to the relevant departments to
Speaker 1: figure out how to implement those instructions. To that end.
Speaker 1: In May, the Secretary of the Interior issued Order thirty
Speaker 1: four to thirty one, also titled Restoring Truth Insanity to
Speaker 1: American History, and this order reiterated the administration's policy to
Speaker 1: quote restore federal sites dedicated to history to Solomon uplifting
Speaker 1: public monuments that remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage, consistent
Speaker 1: progress toward becoming a more perfect union, and unmatched record
Speaker 1: of advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing. The Secretary's order
Speaker 1: then gave directions to the heads of the government's land
Speaker 1: management bureaus, including the National Park Service, on the concrete
Speaker 1: steps to take to implement the executive order. These steps
Speaker 1: include reviewing and reporting on changes to quote any public monuments, memorials, statues, markers,
Speaker 1: or similar properties that had happened since January first of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, as well as reviewing those properties for quote
Speaker 1: inappropriate content and removing content that is inconsistent with the
Speaker 1: purposes of that executive order. The Secretary's order also instructed
Speaker 1: the Land Management bureaus to post signs throughout each property
Speaker 1: with QR code that links visitors to a form they
Speaker 1: can fill out at a government website. The signs read
Speaker 1: quote name of property belongs to the American people and
Speaker 1: name of land Management Bureau. Wants your feedback. Please let
Speaker 1: us know if you have identified one any areas of
Speaker 1: the park area, et cetera, as appropriate that need repair,
Speaker 1: to any services that need improvement. Three any signs or
Speaker 1: other information that are negative about either past or living Americans,
Speaker 1: or that fail to emphasize the beauty and abundance of
Speaker 1: landscapes and other natural features. Just to spell this out
Speaker 1: as just one example, there are now signs at places
Speaker 1: like Man's in our National Historic Site, which was the
Speaker 1: site of a concentration camp where the United States imprisoned
Speaker 1: Japanese immigrants and their US citizen children during World War Two,
Speaker 1: and those signs instruct visitors to report negative signage they
Speaker 1: see at the park. We talked about these concentration camps
Speaker 1: in our two part episode on Executive Order ninety sixty
Speaker 1: six on February twelfth and fourteenth of twenty seventeen. Also,
Speaker 1: there are so many people who work in interpretive roles
Speaker 1: at parks and historic sites who have talked really publicly
Speaker 1: about visitors finding things like any mention of slavery whatsoever.
Speaker 1: At a site as cause for outrage. We have seen
Speaker 1: this over the years. In our own email. On June
Speaker 1: eighteenth of this year, the Organization of American Historians, which
Speaker 1: is a professional society for the teaching and studying of
Speaker 1: US history, issued a statement in response to this order,
Speaker 1: saying that it quote represents a clear and troubling intrusion
Speaker 1: into the integrity of historical presentation within the National Park Service.
Speaker 1: That statement went on to say, quote, the directive demands
Speaker 1: that the NPS revised educational materials, exhibits, and programs to
Speaker 1: avoid what it calls ideological bias, language that in practice
Speaker 1: seeks to sanitize complex histories of race, environment, gender and sexuality, immigration, indigeneity, labor,
Speaker 1: and religion. The directive further undermines the NPS's long standing
Speaker 1: mission to present inclusive, evidence based, and publicly accessible history.
Speaker 1: The Organization of American Historians statement also responded directly to
Speaker 1: that signage we just mentioned quote. National Parks have been
Speaker 1: and remain enormously popular with Americans, and visitors to NPS
Speaker 1: sites have always been free to voice their opinions about
Speaker 1: programming and their experiences through the NPS website, comment cards,
Speaker 1: and other mechanisms. This new directive is a manufactured crisis.
Speaker 1: It evokes tactics of authoritarian regimes, not principles of a
Speaker 1: democratic society. The oh also recommended its members make use
Speaker 1: of those same forms to recommend improvements that will quote
Speaker 1: make the histories told at NPS sites accurate, more inclusive,
Speaker 1: and more democratic. The American Historical Association, which is a
Speaker 1: professional association for historians, endorsed this statement. The OAH and
Speaker 1: the AHA had also issued a joint statement in March
Speaker 1: about the executive orders and policies that we talked about
Speaker 1: last time, which was signed by nearly thirty professional and
Speaker 1: academic associations connected to the field of history, including the
Speaker 1: National Council on Public History and the World History Association.
Speaker 1: Moving on to other updates, we have an episode on
Speaker 1: Hatshepsuit that we ran as a Saturday Classic on April
Speaker 1: twenty sixth. One of the things that we talked about
Speaker 1: in that episode is that after Hatshepsuit's death, her successor,
Speaker 1: Tutmosa the third whose name we have also heard pronounced
Speaker 1: just Tutmos, had her name removed from the official list
Speaker 1: of kings and ordered the destruction of statues and other
Speaker 1: depictions of her. When her mortuary temple was rediscovered in
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, archaeologists didn't initially know who she was,
Speaker 1: and once they started piecing that together, they concluded that
Speaker 1: she must have been some kind of stereotypical wicked stepmother figure,
Speaker 1: and that Tutmosa must have ordered this destruction out of
Speaker 1: anger or vengeance. Historians and archaeologists started revising that view
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties after egyptologist Charles nimbs pinpointed this
Speaker 1: destruction as starting twenty years after hat Shepsu's death or
Speaker 1: possibly even later, making it unlikely something that was motivated
Speaker 1: out of fury. We gave some other possible reasons for
Speaker 1: this destruction, including that there might have been concerns about
Speaker 1: the strength of the claims of Tutmoses's successor, a Menhotep,
Speaker 1: the second to the throne, or that it was connected
Speaker 1: to greater concerns about the appropriateness of a woman acting
Speaker 1: as king. Research published in the journal Antiquity in June
Speaker 1: casts further doubt on the idea that hostility was a
Speaker 1: factor in the statue destruction, noting that a lot of
Speaker 1: statues of Hatshepsuit are in relatively good condition, and many
Speaker 1: of those that were broken were broken across the waist,
Speaker 1: the neck, and the knees, and that's something that was
Speaker 1: also done to the statues of other Egyptian kings, possibly
Speaker 1: as part of a ritual deactivation of the statue and
Speaker 1: the power associated with it. At the same time, the
Speaker 1: paper's author, juny Wong of the University of Toronto gave
Speaker 1: a statement to Live Science that included this quote, there
Speaker 1: is no doubt that hat Chepsu did suffer a campaign
Speaker 1: of persecution at many monuments throughout Egypt. Her images and
Speaker 1: names have been systematically hacked out. We know that this
Speaker 1: campaign of persecution was initiated by tutmost of the third
Speaker 1: but we are not exactly sure why uh as is
Speaker 1: so often the case on Unearthed. There was a lot
Speaker 1: of reporting around this paper, and a lot of that
Speaker 1: reporting frames it as conclusively resolving a long standing mystery.
Speaker 1: But aside from the idea of ritually deactivating Egyptian statues,
Speaker 1: a lot of what's in this paper is not actually
Speaker 1: that different from what we talked about in the episode. Also, again,
Speaker 1: this paper is only about the destruction of the statues,
Speaker 1: not the other elements of it. That the paper describes
Speaker 1: as quote the wider campaign of persecution enacted following her death.
Speaker 1: We have more updates coming up, but first let's take
Speaker 1: a quick sponsor break. Pompeii was covered on the show
Speaker 1: in October of two thousand and nine, and we've had
Speaker 1: a lot of updates about it on Unearthed. Most recently,
Speaker 1: archaeologists excavating a tomb at the Portasarno Necropolis m Pompeii
Speaker 1: found two nearly life sized relief sculptures next to each
Speaker 1: other in a niche in a wall. One of these
Speaker 1: sculptures depicts a woman wearing a tunic and a cloak,
Speaker 1: along with earrings, rings, bracelets, and a pendant that shaped
Speaker 1: like a crescent moon. She's holding what looks like a
Speaker 1: laurel branch and a roll of papyrus, and then all
Speaker 1: of this together means that the woman being depicted might
Speaker 1: have been a priestess of series. The other statue next
Speaker 1: to her is of a man wearing a toga, and
Speaker 1: other than the fact that the toga suggests that he
Speaker 1: was a Roman citizen, less has been speculated about him.
Speaker 1: The depiction just as not as detailed or elaborate. It's
Speaker 1: possible that these two were a married couple, but we
Speaker 1: don't really know. This was unearthed last year, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't reported on until this spring. In other Pompeii news,
Speaker 1: archaeologists at Pompeii Archaeological Park have released a statement about
Speaker 1: work at the House of Hele and Phrixus, named for
Speaker 1: a fresco in the dining room of the home. Excavations
Speaker 1: at the home suggest that during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius,
Speaker 1: four people in the home attempted to take refuge in
Speaker 1: a small room, which they barricaded with a bed frame
Speaker 1: to keep out volcanic debris. At some point it probably
Speaker 1: became obvious that they would have to flee if they
Speaker 1: hope to survive, but by that point they were not
Speaker 1: able to get out of the house. We do not
Speaker 1: actually know who these people were, though they may have
Speaker 1: been the owners of the home, or they could have
Speaker 1: been people who tried to take shelter there after the
Speaker 1: inhabitants had already fled. Something else that has made frequent
Speaker 1: appearances on Unearthed does the Roman fort Vendolanda, south of
Speaker 1: Hadrian's Wall in northern England. Volunteer diggers working there have
Speaker 1: uncovered a sandstone relief carving that's believed to be the
Speaker 1: Goddess Victory, which might have been part of a much
Speaker 1: larger carving adorning one of the fort's barracks. Most likely
Speaker 1: when it was created, this carving was very brightly painted,
Speaker 1: and there's some research underway to see if there are
Speaker 1: any traces of paint still there. Not really any traces
Speaker 1: visible to the naked eye, but they might be at
Speaker 1: the microscopic level. This carving is also planned to be
Speaker 1: on display at Vendalanda in twenty twenty sees. A new
Speaker 1: dig just started there earlier this month, so we may
Speaker 1: have some more finds from this fort next time. Anthony Gaudi,
Speaker 1: who we covered in a two part episode in January
Speaker 1: of twenty fifteen, was declared venerable by the late Pope
Speaker 1: Francis in April before Francis passed. This is the second
Speaker 1: of four steps that are part of his potentially being
Speaker 1: recognized as a saint. Gaudi's most famous architectural work, the
Speaker 1: Basilica de la Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, is still under construction.
Speaker 1: Construction started in eighteen eighty two, and the most recent
Speaker 1: estimates suggest that it might be finished within a decade.
Speaker 1: One major issue that still persists at this point is
Speaker 1: that finishing a planned stairway will require evicting about three
Speaker 1: thousand people from their homes in the areas adjacent to
Speaker 1: the basilica and demolishing those residences. Prior hosts of the
Speaker 1: show talked about the Vasa in their episode More Ship
Speaker 1: Rate Stories Battleships in twenty eleven. The Vasa was a
Speaker 1: Swedish warship that sank shortly after setting sail on its
Speaker 1: very first voyage in sixteen twenty eight, but then it
Speaker 1: was raised and preserved and is now housed at the
Speaker 1: Vasa Museum in Stockholm. So we've talked about this ship
Speaker 1: and several previous installments of Unearthed, including in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: three when we talked about the vessel urgently needing a
Speaker 1: new support structure. The museum opened in nineteen ninety, but
Speaker 1: the support structure for the vessel was built in the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties and by now it was starting to sag.
Speaker 1: Work on that has now begun as part of a
Speaker 1: four year restoration project. The ship's new support will be
Speaker 1: both lighter and stronger than the earlier one, as well
Speaker 1: as more resistant to corrosion, and it will also put
Speaker 1: less pressure on the ship itself. This is a multi
Speaker 1: phase project involving the installation of exterior support cradles and
Speaker 1: then an internal skeleton to reinforce the ship. The restoration
Speaker 1: project is expected to be complete in time for the
Speaker 1: four hundredth anniversary of the ship sinking that will take
Speaker 1: place in twenty twenty eight. Next, the six Triple eight
Speaker 1: Central Postal Directory Battalion was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal
Speaker 1: in April. Congress voted to make this award back in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, but due to some logistical delays, the
Speaker 1: actual ceremony did not take place until April twenty ninth
Speaker 1: of this year. We alluded to this ceremony in a
Speaker 1: listener mail that I read earlier this year, but I
Speaker 1: did not get into the specifics of what we were
Speaker 1: talking about, because it just wasn't clear to me at
Speaker 1: that point whether the ceremony, which had not happened yet,
Speaker 1: whether that was supposed to be public knowledge yet. The
Speaker 1: medal was presented to descendants of Lieutenant Colonel Charity Adams Early,
Speaker 1: who was the battalion's commanding officer, and there were more
Speaker 1: than three hundred descendants of members of the Six Triple
Speaker 1: Eight at the ceremony. Our episode on the Six Triple
Speaker 1: Eight ran as a Saturday Classic on March twenty six,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. Researchers in Australia have examined a set
Speaker 1: of swords from the West African kingdom of Dahome. We
Speaker 1: talked about this kingdom in our episodes on the Palaces
Speaker 1: of a Beaume and the all female fighting Force colloquially
Speaker 1: known as the Amazons on July twenty second and August
Speaker 1: fifth of twenty fifteen. These swords are associated with the Amazons,
Speaker 1: but they also have some design elements that are found
Speaker 1: in swords from other parts of the world, including Europe,
Speaker 1: North Africa, and the Middle East, so it hasn't been
Speaker 1: clear whether these swords were locally made or whether they
Speaker 1: might be imports. This team used an assortment of non
Speaker 1: invasive testing methods including neutron tomography, powdered diffraction, full pattern analysis,
Speaker 1: and diffraction residual stress measurements. Based on all of this work,
Speaker 1: they concluded that these swords were locally made, possibly from
Speaker 1: locally smelted ey iron, but that they did have some
Speaker 1: influences or inspiration that came from European imports. This research
Speaker 1: also suggests that the forging techniques that were used for
Speaker 1: some of these swords was unique to the Kingdom. In
Speaker 1: our Unearthed installment in the fall of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: we talked about a burial site that had been discovered
Speaker 1: in southern Germany. A child had been entombed at this site,
Speaker 1: which was sealed so well that sediments were not able
Speaker 1: to penetrate it and form layers around the contents inside,
Speaker 1: so that meant that the site was well preserved, but
Speaker 1: also extremely delicate. Archaeologists flash froze the entire interior of
Speaker 1: the tomb with liquid nitrogen so they could remove the
Speaker 1: entire block and transport it elsewhere without jostling or damaging
Speaker 1: its contents, leading this child to be nicknamed the Ice Prints.
Speaker 1: Research into this burial site has now been carried out. First,
Speaker 1: the block had to be thawed in an environment that
Speaker 1: was very carefully controlled for temperature and humidity. Researchers confirmed
Speaker 1: that this child died toward the end of the seventh
Speaker 1: century and was only about eighteen months old when that happened.
Speaker 1: Based on the analysis of the remains. This child likely
Speaker 1: died of sepsis following an ear infection, but the family
Speaker 1: was probably wealthy and prominent. This child was dressed in
Speaker 1: linen trimmed with silk, along with having leather shoes on,
Speaker 1: and was laid to rest on furs. Silver and gold
Speaker 1: accessories and jewelry were found in the gravesite as well.
Speaker 1: There was also a short sword, a bronze basin, a comb,
Speaker 1: a wooden bowl, a cup, and some food offerings. There
Speaker 1: were also some animal bones in this grave site which
Speaker 1: were initially thought to be from a dog, but it
Speaker 1: turns out they were really from a piglet. Our episode
Speaker 1: on the Nasca Lines in Peru ran as a Saturday
Speaker 1: Classic in February of twenty twenty one. These etchings of animals, plants,
Speaker 1: and geometric figures were created roughly two thousand years ago,
Speaker 1: and they were named as a UNESCO World Heritage Site
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety four. In May, Peru's Ministry of Culture
Speaker 1: announced a plan to cut the amount of protected land
Speaker 1: around the Nascal Lines by about forty percent, as something
Speaker 1: that led to concern and criticism due to fears that
Speaker 1: it would leave the site more vulnerable to illegal mining operations,
Speaker 1: which are already a known issue in the area. The
Speaker 1: areas affected are not within the part that's been inscribed
Speaker 1: by UNESCO, but experts who work with the Nascal lines
Speaker 1: said that the areas that were being removed from the
Speaker 1: protections contained some of the oldest and most delicate etchings.
Speaker 1: Then in June, the government of Peru announced that it
Speaker 1: was dropping that plan and leaving the protected area unchanged.
Speaker 1: It did not abandon the idea of changing the borders
Speaker 1: of the protected area, though. The Peruvian Ministry of Culture
Speaker 1: also said that a panel was being convened including archaeologists, academics,
Speaker 1: and members of international organisations including UNESCO, to evaluate future
Speaker 1: plans for zoning and land use in the area. And
Speaker 1: our last update, we covered Greenwood, Oklahoma, known as Blackwall
Speaker 1: Street and its nineteen twenty one destruction by a white
Speaker 1: mob in an episode that we ran as a Saturday
Speaker 1: Classic on November ninth, twenty nineteen. We have also talked
Speaker 1: about the search for the grave sites of victims of
Speaker 1: this massacre on multiple installments of Unearthed. Now, the city
Speaker 1: of Tulsa has announced a one hundred five million dollar
Speaker 1: reparations plan called Road to Repair It was announced by
Speaker 1: Monroe Nichols, Tulsa's first black mayor, during the city's first
Speaker 1: Tulsa Race Massacre Observance Day. During his address, Nichols noted
Speaker 1: that the economic harms caused by the massacre were compounded
Speaker 1: by other issues, including the building of a highway and
Speaker 1: the practice of redlining, which is something else we have
Speaker 1: talked about on the show in a two parter in
Speaker 1: October of twenty fifteen. As of June twelfth, when the
Speaker 1: last reporting on this happened, there were two known survivors
Speaker 1: of the massacres still living, both of them more than
Speaker 1: one hundred and ten years old. They had previously sought
Speaker 1: compensation under Oklahoma laws, but those efforts were ultimately dismissed
Speaker 1: by the state Supreme Court last year. This repatriation plan
Speaker 1: does not involve direct cash payments to either of them. Instead,
Speaker 1: it is focused on creating a private charitable trust to
Speaker 1: address the impacts of the attack on Tulsa's black communities,
Speaker 1: which are still present today. It's proposed to include a
Speaker 1: twenty four million dollar fund for housing and housing assistants
Speaker 1: meant to counteract the generational impact of the loss of
Speaker 1: all of those lives and homes and businesses. There's also
Speaker 1: a sixty million dollar historic preservation fund and twenty one
Speaker 1: million dollar fund for things like scholarships, small business grants,
Speaker 1: and land acquisition and development. It's all planned to be
Speaker 1: part of this That last part of the funding will
Speaker 1: also be used to pay for the ongoing efforts to
Speaker 1: find and identify victims of the massacre. Funds have to
Speaker 1: be raised for this trust and it is hoped for
Speaker 1: that to be completed over the next year. Art is
Speaker 1: on the horizon, but first we're gonna pause for a
Speaker 1: sponsor break. Now we've got a number of art related fines. First,
Speaker 1: work on a bedroom at a hunting lodge called the
Speaker 1: Ashes in Inglewood Forest in Cumbria, England has revealed Tudor
Speaker 1: arrow wall paintings under some old plaster. These are black
Speaker 1: and white paintings. They depict strange animals and kind of
Speaker 1: weird foliage. This was pretty common for wall paintings at
Speaker 1: the time. One description of the wall paintings of this
Speaker 1: air calls them quote an unnatural or unorderly composition for
Speaker 1: delight's sake, which I love. Even with that unnatural, unorderly
Speaker 1: composition in mind, though, experts have described the combination of
Speaker 1: motifs in these particular paintings as unusual. Based on when
Speaker 1: the house was built, it's likely that these paintings were
Speaker 1: created during the reign of Queen Elizabeth the First. While
Speaker 1: these specific wallpaintings are a new find, it's not entirely
Speaker 1: surprising that they were there. Similar paintings have been found
Speaker 1: in other parts of the lodge during earlier work going
Speaker 1: back to the nineteen seventies. At the same time, though
Speaker 1: not many Tutor era wallpaintings survive at this point, particularly
Speaker 1: in this part of England, the UK Department for Culture,
Speaker 1: Media and Sport has granted additional protections to the lodge
Speaker 1: and its surrounding buildings. In other wall painting news, digs
Speaker 1: out a Roman villa on the Mediterranean coast of Spain
Speaker 1: have unearthed a wall painting dating back to the second
Speaker 1: century CE, but this wall has collapsed, so archaeologists have
Speaker 1: found this painting in about four thousand pieces. While conservators
Speaker 1: are trying to reassemble this painting, it is a painstaking process.
Speaker 1: One of the panels that they've separated the pieces out
Speaker 1: for has eight hundred and sixty six pieces and as
Speaker 1: of the news reporting on this in late April. Only
Speaker 1: twenty two of those pieces had been put back together
Speaker 1: into one thing, and they formed a floral garland with
Speaker 1: birds and a painted molding along the top. In twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, a park supervisor on a climbing trip in
Speaker 1: Itachiaya National Park in Brazil spotted some previously unknown cave art,
Speaker 1: and the find was just announced to the public earlier
Speaker 1: this year. It is still very very early in the
Speaker 1: process of studying this art. It is believed to be
Speaker 1: between two thousand or three thousand years old, but experts
Speaker 1: are not sure about that yet. There's also an ongoing
Speaker 1: search to try to find other cave art in the area,
Speaker 1: since in this part of the world caves and rock
Speaker 1: shelters with artwork are not usually found in isolation, so
Speaker 1: that is very early in the process as well. Hopefully
Speaker 1: it will come up again on a future on Earth. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I just I like that a park supervisor just happened
Speaker 1: to be doing non work things and was like, oh,
Speaker 1: rock art here. Uh, I should tell somebody issue that
Speaker 1: everybody know. Next, renovation work on the plaster facade of
Speaker 1: a building near the Rialto Bridge in Venice has uncovered
Speaker 1: a previously unknown mural that dates back to the sixteenth century.
Speaker 1: These kinds of murals on the exteriors of buildings were
Speaker 1: very common in Venice around this time, but very few
Speaker 1: of them have survived until today because of Venice's high
Speaker 1: humanity levels and very salty air, as well as you know,
Speaker 1: the passage of time other construction and renovation projects that
Speaker 1: destroyed many of them. This mural depicts three allegorical figures
Speaker 1: whose meaning has not been deciphered yet. It's been described
Speaker 1: as an example of lost heritage, but it was also
Speaker 1: in very poor condition when it was found, including fading
Speaker 1: of the colors and pitting of the surface. Conservation work
Speaker 1: has been ongoing, with experts working to identify and recreate
Speaker 1: its original colors and elements. Next, the Bronte Parsonage Museum
Speaker 1: has acquired a painting by Emily Bronte, who was of
Speaker 1: course better known for her novel Weathering Heights. She created
Speaker 1: the painting called The North Wind in eighteen forty two
Speaker 1: while she was studying at a boarding school in Brussels.
Speaker 1: It's based on an engraving from Finden's illustration of the
Speaker 1: Life and Works of Lord Byron. This is a portrait
Speaker 1: depicting a woman with curly brown hair, and that hair
Speaker 1: seems to be flowing in the wind. She similarly has
Speaker 1: a wind blown blue caper on her shoulders. While Emily
Speaker 1: Bronte is known to have taken art lessons while living
Speaker 1: in Brussels, there are many pieces by her surviving today.
Speaker 1: After a bidding war, the museum bought the painting at
Speaker 1: auction for thirty two thousand pounds, thus roughly forty two
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, which was more than ten thousand pounds above
Speaker 1: the pre auction estimates. The painting is going to be
Speaker 1: conserved and then placed on display at the museum. While
Speaker 1: we're on the subject of the Brontes, the birthplace of
Speaker 1: Anne Branwell, Charlotte and Emily in Bradford, England, before the
Speaker 1: family moved to the parsonage, has been restored and opened
Speaker 1: as a public museum, and there is also a plan
Speaker 1: for people to be able to stay there in the
Speaker 1: bedrooms as overnight guests. Are you booking your trip, Well,
Speaker 1: I wanted to, but when I tried to get information
Speaker 1: about when that will actually be possible, I did not
Speaker 1: find a concrete explanation. You just plan ahead it'll be great.
Speaker 1: According to research published in the Journal of Astronomical History
Speaker 1: and Heritage, the Milky Way may be depicted in an
Speaker 1: ancient Egyptian artwork and it may have had some kind
Speaker 1: of connection to the sky goddess Nout. This research examined
Speaker 1: depictions of Newt found on ancient Egyptian coffins. Newt is
Speaker 1: often depicted as a nude woman adorned with stars or
Speaker 1: solar discs arched over the earth god who is her
Speaker 1: brother whose name is either Geb or Jeb. I'm not
Speaker 1: one hundred percent sure, but on one of the coffins,
Speaker 1: Nut's body has an undulating black curve adorned with stars.
Speaker 1: This paper interprets this dark star studded curve as possibly
Speaker 1: representing the Milky Way and the dark band of dust
Speaker 1: around it. And lastly, work done by a London based
Speaker 1: dentist has added a new layer to the interpretation of
Speaker 1: Leonardo da Vinci's famous Vitruvian man. That's the one of
Speaker 1: a nude male figure superimposed with his arms and legs
Speaker 1: in two different positions, situated within a circle and a square.
Speaker 1: This is a representation of idealized body proportions, but Leonardo
Speaker 1: da Vinci didn't explain the ratios behind what he depicted.
Speaker 1: In a paper published in the Journal of Mathematics in
Speaker 1: the Arts, Rory mac sweeney notes that there's an equilateral
Speaker 1: triangle formed by the figure's legs, something that Leonardo also
Speaker 1: referenced in his text. Sweeney connects that triangle to Bonwell's triangle,
Speaker 1: which is a concept from dental and facial anatomy. That's
Speaker 1: an equilateral triangle formed by the mandibular condiles at the
Speaker 1: point where the middle bottom teeth meet. Incorporating this triangle
Speaker 1: into the calculations helped produce a ratio of one point
Speaker 1: sixty four to one point sixty five between the side
Speaker 1: of the square and the radius of the circle. That
Speaker 1: is very close to the number one point sixty three three,
Speaker 1: which is often found in nature, especially in very efficient
Speaker 1: structures like hexagonal close packed crystals. It's also close to
Speaker 1: ratios that are part of the human cranium. Bonwell's triangle
Speaker 1: was described by William Gibson Arlington Bonwell in eighteen sixty four,
Speaker 1: more than three hundred and fifty years after the creation
Speaker 1: of the Vitruvian man. So if there really is a
Speaker 1: connection here, this triangle may be something that Leonardo da
Speaker 1: Vinci observed hundreds of years before it was described by dentists.
Speaker 1: All right, it's time for adult content. So we're closing
Speaker 1: out part one of Unearthed with what Tracy is calling
Speaker 1: adult content, meaning a little more risque than the beer
Speaker 1: and wine finds that we often talk about on on Earth.
Speaker 1: So if you listen with younger folks, this might be
Speaker 1: something to prescreen. And as Tracy mentioned at the top,
Speaker 1: going at the end of the episodes, so you could
Speaker 1: just stop it right here if you want. First. Researchers
Speaker 1: from the University of Florida have published work in the
Speaker 1: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that suggest that
Speaker 1: an ancient civilization in the Andes Mountains in Peru, dating
Speaker 1: back about two thousand years before the Inca Empire, used
Speaker 1: hallucinogens to help maintain the social order. This conclusion came
Speaker 1: from the study of tubes that were made from hollow
Speaker 1: bones and were found at a prehistoric ceremonial site. Analysis
Speaker 1: of the interiors of these tubes found traces of nicotine,
Speaker 1: which of course would have come from a wild relative
Speaker 1: of tobacco and vilcabine. Residue, which is a source of
Speaker 1: the hallucinogen DMT. These tubes were found in private rooms
Speaker 1: that would have held only a few people at a time.
Speaker 1: In the words of study co author Daniel Contreras, quote,
Speaker 1: taking psychoactives was not just about seeing visions. It was
Speaker 1: part of a tightly controlled rich uu, likely reserved for
Speaker 1: a select few, reinforcing the social hierarchy. Next, researchers working
Speaker 1: with the Bayu tapestry have been trying to determine whether
Speaker 1: there is a greater meaning behind the penises depicted on
Speaker 1: the embroidery. According to George Garnett, a professor of medieval
Speaker 1: history at Oxford University, there are ninety three penises on
Speaker 1: the embroidery, and eighty eight of them belong to horses
Speaker 1: and five to human men. Three of the horse penises
Speaker 1: are larger than all the rest, one belonging to the
Speaker 1: horse of Duke William aka William the Conqueror, which is
Speaker 1: the biggest. The horse of Harold Godwinson, the Anglo Saxon
Speaker 1: king of England, has the next largest penis, and then
Speaker 1: the horse of Odo of Bayu, William's half brother, is
Speaker 1: the third largest. The condition is that the size of
Speaker 1: the penises of these horses is an indicator of these
Speaker 1: three men's relative importance. The human genitilia is shown in
Speaker 1: figures along the embroidery's border, and all of them are
Speaker 1: on men who are engaged in sexual activity, and it's
Speaker 1: all activity that would have been seen as shameful or taboo.
Speaker 1: Garnett has connected these depictions to stories and fables that
Speaker 1: are all about deceit, betrayal, and shame. His conclusion is
Speaker 1: that there's something of a code meant to suggest that
Speaker 1: the historical events being illustrated in the rest of the
Speaker 1: tapestry are suspect. That means the tapestry likely wasn't commissioned
Speaker 1: by Odo of Bayeux, often cited as the most likely
Speaker 1: person to have commissioned the embroidery, because Odo would not
Speaker 1: have wanted those elements of shame and deceit to be
Speaker 1: a part of it. Past hosts put on an episode
Speaker 1: on this tapestry, which again is really an embroidery, on
Speaker 1: July twenty seventh, twenty eleven, and it has made several
Speaker 1: appearances on Unearthed. I think this is the first time
Speaker 1: we have talked about any penises on there. I feel
Speaker 1: like it's name checked a lot in historical talk, and
Speaker 1: there is not very frequently a mention of any of
Speaker 1: the the more adult parts of it. Yeah. This, I
Speaker 1: don't remember if it was the paper or if it
Speaker 1: was like interviews related to the paper, but it was
Speaker 1: pointed out that most of the discussion has been more
Speaker 1: about how later people working with this textile like tried
Speaker 1: to minimize the size of them to be a little
Speaker 1: more discreet. I love it. Moving on. Back in the
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, excavations ahead of a construction project unearthed a
Speaker 1: fourteenth century brothel in Belgium. During this work, a burial
Speaker 1: site was also uncovered, one of a baby about three
Speaker 1: months old. This raised questions of whether this baby might
Speaker 1: have been the victim of infanticide, but recent analysis of
Speaker 1: this has come to a different conclusion that the baby
Speaker 1: had been well nourished and well care for during its
Speaker 1: short life, including probably being breastfed, and that it likely
Speaker 1: died of a disease. Researchers did not find evidence of
Speaker 1: a number of bacterial illnesses, so it's possible that the
Speaker 1: cause of death was viral. It's not entirely clear why
Speaker 1: this baby wasn't buried in a cemetery, but there is
Speaker 1: some speculation that his mother just wanted him nearby, so
Speaker 1: she buried him near the hearth where he would be
Speaker 1: warm and safe. This also suggests that at least some
Speaker 1: women doing sex work were able to keep their own
Speaker 1: children nearby and to care for them in their infancy.
Speaker 1: And lastly, for today's episode, in November of last year,
Speaker 1: curators at the Reichs Museum acquired a nineteenth century condom,
Speaker 1: likely made from a sheep's appendix and decorated with a
Speaker 1: very body image that some people would also interpret as
Speaker 1: sacrilegious since it involves a nun and male clergy in
Speaker 1: a sexual situation. Condom might have been a souvenir condom
Speaker 1: from a brothel. This was the first condom to ever
Speaker 1: become part of the Reichs Museum collection. There was actually
Speaker 1: no way to catalog a condom into the collection before this,
Speaker 1: and it became part of an exhibit on nineteenth century
Speaker 1: sex work called Safe Sex, which started earlier this year.
Speaker 1: This led the Catholic foundation Civitas Christiana to protest outside
Speaker 1: the museum and to start a petition to have the
Speaker 1: condom removed. We will have more unearthed on Wednesday. Do
Speaker 1: you have listener mail today? I do, I have listener mail.
Speaker 1: I did not intentionally look for an episode about national
Speaker 1: parks after our conversation about national parks at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the episode, but that's kind of where we are
Speaker 1: in the catching up on listener email, and it's you know,
Speaker 1: makes it particularly relevant. So this is from Sarah. Sarah wrote,
Speaker 1: High Ladies, writing to U from the Big Meadows Lodge
Speaker 1: at Shenandoah National Park. While I've loved every podcasting release
Speaker 1: since I started listening ten plus years ago, your recent
Speaker 1: episode on Skyline Drive and Shenandoah was particularly timely, as
Speaker 1: my husband took me here for my grad school graduation
Speaker 1: present and we saved the episode for our drive in.
Speaker 1: Given the complicated history of the park's founding you shared,
Speaker 1: I was very interested to see how the park would
Speaker 1: tell its own story. I am pleased to report that
Speaker 1: the visitors center we frequented does not disappoint. There exhibits
Speaker 1: are transparent about eminent domain forcing people out of their homes,
Speaker 1: the racial segregation in the park's early years, and the
Speaker 1: current challenges to the local ecosystems wrought by pollution and
Speaker 1: climate change. I also spoke with a lovely ranger who
Speaker 1: told me about the one hundred plus cemeteries throughout Shenandoah,
Speaker 1: many of which are overgrown and inactive. Is that the
Speaker 1: right word dormant? Retired? But others still have family members
Speaker 1: and the valleys who visit frequently and even plans to
Speaker 1: be buried there themselves. Learning their stories and those of
Speaker 1: the indigenous peoples here has been a valuable reminder that
Speaker 1: these parks have their own histories for many people and
Speaker 1: cultures that are far deeper than my own little national
Speaker 1: park's passport stamp. Finally, the ranger told me how his
Speaker 1: own home in Alabama has been seized by eminent domain
Speaker 1: for a highway when he was a teenager, and he
Speaker 1: used his grandparents' address to be able to attend the
Speaker 1: final two years at the school heat attendant since he
Speaker 1: was a child. Ironically, his grandfather had participated in the
Speaker 1: Civilian Conservation Corps as a young man. I wonder if
Speaker 1: a history of Eminent domain might perhaps be one for
Speaker 1: the episode ideas list. Thank you for ali Do, and
Speaker 1: I especially appreciate how you have contextualized your episodes recently
Speaker 1: with current events, making each that much more relevant to
Speaker 1: our everyday lives. In lieu of my own sweet kitty
Speaker 1: as pet tax, pleasease enjoy the attached shot of some
Speaker 1: of the residents at Pittsburgh Squealers, a pig rescue and
Speaker 1: rehabilitation center near us in the Pittsburgh area. They enjoyed
Speaker 1: so many pets during our recent group visit, even as
Speaker 1: they mistook our fingers for carrots. Cheers, Sarah. PS. We
Speaker 1: also replayed your episode on John Brown's Raid on this
Speaker 1: trip as we stopped at Harper's Ferry on our drive
Speaker 1: to Shenandoah. Thank you for helping us appreciate the complexities
Speaker 1: of that site before we even got out of the car.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, Peace. Two pigs, A black pig and
Speaker 1: a white pig more like gray maybe. Uh boy, do
Speaker 1: they look excited to be greeting visitors. Pittsburgh Squealers. What
Speaker 1: a great name, Pig Rescue and Rehabilitation Center, What a
Speaker 1: great thing to have. These pigs look fairly small. If
Speaker 1: I had to guess, I would think that they might
Speaker 1: be that like pet pigs, not farm pigs that people
Speaker 1: maybe got and found that they could not adequately deal with.
Speaker 1: That is just my guess lois still maybe so they're
Speaker 1: littl they're relatively speaking, they're about knee high. I would
Speaker 1: like to see one eating a plate of spaghetti, maybe
Speaker 1: wearing a tiny hat. Thank you so much for this email, Sarah.
Speaker 1: Uh fortuitous that it happened to align with another discussion
Speaker 1: of the National Park Service at the top of this episode.
Speaker 1: That pair of episodes about Skyline Drive and Shenandoah and
Speaker 1: then the Blue Ridge Parkway were kind of a love
Speaker 1: letter to the National Park Service. I might have said
Speaker 1: that already while also trying to acknowledge the more complicated
Speaker 1: parts of their history. I don't know if we could
Speaker 1: do a history of eminent domain because I have not
Speaker 1: really thought about whether that would be like a local
Speaker 1: to the US episode or like a more global episode.
Speaker 1: I don't actually know how eminent domain works in other places,
Speaker 1: or if it does work in other places. I also, though,
Speaker 1: have had a family member who was part of an
Speaker 1: eminent domain dispute involving the widening of a road. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of things that exist in the United
Speaker 1: States because of eminent domain, including a lot a lot
Speaker 1: of parks and roads just as examples. So thank you again.
Speaker 1: Sarah for this email. I hope your trip was great, man.
Speaker 1: I hope you get to just love on these pigs
Speaker 1: as often as you want. If you'd like to send
Speaker 1: us some notes about this or any other podcasts for
Speaker 1: a history podcast at iHeartRadio dot com, and you can
Speaker 1: subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app and anywhere
Speaker 1: else you like to get your podcasts. Stuff you Missed
Speaker 1: in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.