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Speaker 1: Hello, it's Richard maclin Smith here, not the impostor you've

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Speaker 1: been listening to on the podcasts, the real one. Join

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Speaker 1: me for Unexplained TV at YouTube dot com Forward Slash

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Speaker 1: Unexplained pod. Early in the noughties, a strange story crop

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Speaker 1: dark in Russian online forums, Originating from a remote region

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Speaker 1: of Siberia during the time of the Soviet Union. The

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Speaker 1: tale begins one September day in nineteen sixty nine near

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Speaker 1: the village of Arzavchik in the Tisol District of Kimarovo,

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Speaker 1: a region of southwestern Siberia. It is a place of

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Speaker 1: wild splendor, birch forests and bears, but our story takes

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Speaker 1: place deep underground, seventy meters to be precise. Local miners

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Speaker 1: are hard at work, hammering away at the coal seam.

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Speaker 1: It glistens darkly under their head lamps. This day is

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Speaker 1: just like any other down in the dank crime as

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Speaker 1: the soot covered miners swing their pickaxes heartily until that is.

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Speaker 1: One miner takes an especially heavy swing at the coal face,

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Speaker 1: only for it to suddenly crumble away right in front

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Speaker 1: of him. When the air finally clears of dust, the

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Speaker 1: men direct their torches to the face to find it

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Speaker 1: has been replaced by a small hollow about five meters deep,

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Speaker 1: and in the middle of it lies what appears for

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Speaker 1: all the world to be a sarcophagus. It has a strange,

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Speaker 1: unearthly appearance, long and narrow, and seemingly made of marble.

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Speaker 1: It is covered in intricate carvings. The stunned men tentatively

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Speaker 1: examine the peculiar object. They wonder if they should try

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Speaker 1: to open it, but decide in the end to first

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Speaker 1: inform their superiors about it. In its office above ground,

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Speaker 1: head of the local geology team, Alexander Mussalagin, orders the

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Speaker 1: men to bring the suppulchral artifact to the surface for

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Speaker 1: closer inspection. The miners are reluctant, however, worried that when

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Speaker 1: news of the find reaches government authorities, it will be

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Speaker 1: taken from them, scovering any chance of claiming a reward

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Speaker 1: for the extraordinary discovery. Perhaps the stone case is buried

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Speaker 1: with gold or precious stones. They wander in the end,

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Speaker 1: not wanting to risk a serious reprimand the men have

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Speaker 1: little choice but to bring the artifact to Massalagin, and

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Speaker 1: so it is, with some difficulty the men pull the

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Speaker 1: vast hunk of carved marble onto a mining cart and

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Speaker 1: head up to the surface. When they emerge into the

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Speaker 1: sunlight sometime later, they are greeted by Missalagan, whose eyes

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Speaker 1: light up on seeing the peculiar item. He watches as

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Speaker 1: the men chip away at the marble casing and some

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Speaker 1: kind of ancient sealant that surrounds it. When they finally

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Speaker 1: manage to open the lid insight, they find yet another casket,

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Speaker 1: this time made of metal, about two meters long and

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Speaker 1: one meter wide, with no visible seams or joints. Some

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Speaker 1: say it was shining with a strange, eerie light, but

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Speaker 1: the best was yet to come. You're listening to Unexplained

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Speaker 1: and I'm Richard McLean Smith. With no discernible seam or

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Speaker 1: rivets to attack, the miners have little choice but to

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Speaker 1: bust the case open with brute force. Being as careful

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Speaker 1: as they can, the men hack away at the top

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Speaker 1: like a tin can, until eventually they are able to

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Speaker 1: pry it open. Alexander Mussalagan does the honors as he

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Speaker 1: lifts off the top. The rest of the men stand

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Speaker 1: back and gasp. Inside the casket lies the body of

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Speaker 1: a young woman in an uncanny state of preservation, as

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Speaker 1: if she had only fallen asleep the previous day. Apparent

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Speaker 1: eyewitness accounts described the woman as having a refined beauty,

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Speaker 1: about twenty five to thirty years old and around one

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Speaker 1: hundred and seventy centimeters tall. Her skin was said to

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Speaker 1: be incredibly white, while her hair was described as cascading

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Speaker 1: down over her shoulders to her waist. Some claim it

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Speaker 1: was jet black, others that it was blonde. Her eyes

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Speaker 1: which are open or a dazzling azure in color, her

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Speaker 1: hands soft and pale, with neatly cropped nails, and she

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Speaker 1: is clad in a white knee length robe made from

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Speaker 1: a fine unknown fabric, delicately embroidered with flowers, and completely

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Speaker 1: surrounding it all is a curious, pink, viscous liquid. For

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Speaker 1: a moment, the men just stand around aghast, trying to

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Speaker 1: fathom what an earth they have found. Then one of

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Speaker 1: the miners, and Atollicus nets Off, steps forward with the

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Speaker 1: sudden urge to dip his finger into the strange liquid.

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Speaker 1: Then he proceeds to taste it. Another miner, even Karnikov,

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Speaker 1: dashes off to grab a camera from his back. When

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Speaker 1: he later tries to take a picture of the body,

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Speaker 1: he has a fainting fit and collapses. Having seen absolutely

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Speaker 1: nothing like it before, Geologist Alexander Musalagan returns to his

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Speaker 1: office to report the puzzling fine to the authorities. Is

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Speaker 1: ordered immediately to stop the miners from working and to

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Speaker 1: make sure they all keep quiet about the discovery. Within

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Speaker 1: twenty four hours, it's said that government officials in Moscow

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Speaker 1: sent a helicopter to retrieve the coffin. When the crew arrive,

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Speaker 1: wearing gray protective suits, they find that the coffin is

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Speaker 1: too heavy for the helicopter to lift. To make the

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Speaker 1: casket lighter, they decide to drain the pink fluid from it.

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Speaker 1: Moments later, they can only stare in horror as the

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Speaker 1: corpse in sight suddenly begins to blacken, Its skin grows

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Speaker 1: tough and wisened. The liquid is ordered to be poured

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Speaker 1: back in, at which point the corpse immediately regains its

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Speaker 1: perverse vitality. A larger helicopter is sent, which Julie airlifts

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Speaker 1: the coffin to a secret location. Soon afterwards, it is

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Speaker 1: said that a team of KGP agents arrived to quarantine

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Speaker 1: the site. Any witnesses to the event are promptly round

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Speaker 1: up and kept in isolation for several days. They are

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Speaker 1: warned never to speak about what they'd seen, or else

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Speaker 1: they be charged with sedition, a crime punishable by death,

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Speaker 1: or even worse, banishment to a Siberian gulac. Some accounts

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Speaker 1: of that apparent discovery in Teesul on that weird September

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Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty nine include the additional bizarre details such

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Speaker 1: as the woman had a star shaped tattoo on her chest,

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Speaker 1: six fingers on each hand, and even a third on

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Speaker 1: her forehead. But the one consistent part of the story

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Speaker 1: is that everyone who saw her agreed that she looked

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Speaker 1: like a princess, or at least a person of some importance,

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Speaker 1: and so she became known as the Teesaw Princess after

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Speaker 1: the region she was found in. Despite the KGB's warnings,

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Speaker 1: inevitably the incredible story got out and was soon spreading

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Speaker 1: rapidly among local towns and villages. Some claimed that the

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Speaker 1: so called princess was a sacred person who came from

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Speaker 1: a distant past or another world to protect them, but

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Speaker 1: then a series of unfortunate incidents was said to have

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Speaker 1: befalled some of the villagers. Even Karnikov, who had apparently

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Speaker 1: taken a picture of the body and collapsed, was alleged

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Speaker 1: to have later died in a motorcycle accident. The miner's leader,

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Speaker 1: Yur Smyirrnoff, was reportedly drowned in a flood just a

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Speaker 1: month after the discovery, and Anatoly kus Netsov, the man

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Speaker 1: who tasted the mysterious pink fluid, is said to have

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Speaker 1: experienced a mental breakdown only weeks later after being admitted

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Speaker 1: to a psychiatric hospital. He later escaped in a delusional

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Speaker 1: state and died of hypothermia on his own doorstep, rendered

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Speaker 1: unable to recognize his own home or even remember how

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Speaker 1: to enter it. Another villager, who began a campaign to

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Speaker 1: let the details of the find be known to the public,

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Speaker 1: was also said to have died in mysterious circumstances after

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Speaker 1: he wrote letters to some members of the government's Central Committee.

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Speaker 1: His official cause of death was reported as heart failure.

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Speaker 1: The outbreak of an unspecified disease and crop failures were

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Speaker 1: also said to have occurred, leading villagers to wonder if

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Speaker 1: the Teesel Princess had in fact brought a curse upon them.

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Speaker 1: In some reports, an army of specialists and workers were

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Speaker 1: sent to search for more artifacts, and the part of

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Speaker 1: the mine where the princess had apparently been discovered was

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Speaker 1: cordoned off. Military personnel as said to have been posted

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Speaker 1: there to keep the press and curious locals away. One night,

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Speaker 1: a few of the soldiers as said to have visited

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Speaker 1: a local pub, where one of them revealed that, in fact,

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Speaker 1: three more sarcophagi were found close to the first one. Strangely,

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Speaker 1: the incident was unknown until the early two thousands, when

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Speaker 1: reports started to appear in the Russian bloggersphere. Some reports

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Speaker 1: claimed that scientists in the former USSR had examined the

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Speaker 1: find but were unable to identify the pink and balming

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Speaker 1: fluid with the miraculous restorative properties. Scientists who who apparently

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Speaker 1: analyzed the fabric at the princess's dress were also said

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Speaker 1: to be unable to determine its nature and its age.

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Speaker 1: Some speculated that the fabric had been manufactured with an

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Speaker 1: unknown advanced technology. By twenty seventeen, online speculation about the

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Speaker 1: supposed Princess Teesol story was becoming even more elaborate. Among

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Speaker 1: the most startling were claims that the Teesyl Princess had

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Speaker 1: been examined by an unidentified elderly professor from Nova Sibirsk.

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Speaker 1: The professor had apparently concluded that the kodava and the

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Speaker 1: casket were older than the coal deposit in which they'd

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Speaker 1: been found, stating that the discovery would revolutionize our understanding

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Speaker 1: of Earth's history. He allegedly concluded that the Tiesol Princess

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Speaker 1: and her coffin were an improbable eight hundred million years old.

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Speaker 1: This was at the end of a period in Earth's

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Speaker 1: history called the Neoproterozoic, when the available evidence suggests that

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Speaker 1: the Earth underwent an ice age so cold that ice

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Speaker 1: sheets not only capped the polar latitudes, but may have

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Speaker 1: extended almost to the equator. The most outlandish stories that

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Speaker 1: swirled around the Teesyl Princess have proposed that the woman

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Speaker 1: was a member of a technologically advanced civilization predating our own,

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Speaker 1: or even that she was a visitor from another planet,

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Speaker 1: preserved in a state of suspended animation and possessed of

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Speaker 1: paranormal abilities, including telepathy, telekinesis, and precognition. Her discovery was

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Speaker 1: also said to have been accompanied by sightings of UFOs

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Speaker 1: and other paranormal activities in the region. The most ardent

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Speaker 1: conspiracy theorists have said that those in power at the

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Speaker 1: time of the discovery rushed to cover up the entire

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Speaker 1: incident out of a fear that the story would have

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Speaker 1: threatened their control over historical narratives that they wished to maintain.

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Speaker 1: More eagle eyed commentators have spotted the odd similarity between

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Speaker 1: this story and that of the well known fairy tale

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Speaker 1: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The dwarfs who discover

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Speaker 1: the sleeping snow White in her magical casket were also miners.

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Speaker 1: Whatever you believe, If indeed it was all simply made up,

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Speaker 1: you might be surprised to learn that there are some parts,

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Speaker 1: at least of the Teesil Princess story that were sourced

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Speaker 1: from a very real and equally mysterious find heralding from

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Speaker 1: the steps of the Ukarck Plateau, also located in southwestern Siberia,

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Speaker 1: the plateau sits among the Altai Mountains, close to Russia's

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Speaker 1: borders with China, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia. It was there in

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three that, as some have declared it, one

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Speaker 1: of the most significant archaeological finds of the twentieth century

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Speaker 1: was made. In the summer of nineteen ninety three, Russian

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Speaker 1: archaeologist Natalia Polosmak, a senior research fellow at the Russian

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Speaker 1: Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography in the Vosibirsk, arrived with

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Speaker 1: a field team on the steps of the Yukonk Plateau.

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Speaker 1: It's a place characterized by a harshly arid climate and

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Speaker 1: bitterly cold winters in what is now the Autonomous Republic

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Speaker 1: of Altai. It was the fourth year in a row

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Speaker 1: that the archaeologists had traveled there to carry out field research.

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Speaker 1: Polosmac specialized in the study of Bronze Age Eurasian nomads,

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Speaker 1: especially those known as the Basuric peoples, a culture which

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Speaker 1: had thrived in the region between the sixth and second

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Speaker 1: centuries BCE. She and her team were on the hunt

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Speaker 1: for evidence of how this ancient people had once lived

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Speaker 1: and died. Polosmac was taken by her guide to investigate

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Speaker 1: a series of Kurgans, ancient burial mounds that can be

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Speaker 1: found throughout the area. Filled with sediment and covered with

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Speaker 1: piles of rocks, they typically mark the site of a

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Speaker 1: chambered tomb. The Kurgans Polosmac was taken to were located

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Speaker 1: in a narrow strip of disputed territory on the Chinese

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Speaker 1: Russian border, and as such had remained untouched for millennia.

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Speaker 1: On arrival at the site, Polosmac felt a Russia adrenaline

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Speaker 1: as she looked out over the small handful of burial mounts,

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Speaker 1: thrilled at the prospect of what they might discover, but

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Speaker 1: it was tough going just below the surface, the tundra

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Speaker 1: like step was still frozen. The team hadn't been working

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Speaker 1: for long before they hit their first burial chamber. It

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Speaker 1: housed a coffin fashioned from stone and wood, containing a

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Speaker 1: human skeleton. Beside it laid the remains of three horses,

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Speaker 1: but very little in the way of grave goods. When

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Speaker 1: they discovered a shaft leading into the chamber, they guessed

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Speaker 1: that it had likely already been raided by grave robbers

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Speaker 1: thousands of years before. But as the team continued to excavate,

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Speaker 1: they began to uncover another, even more ancient burial chamber

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Speaker 1: below one the grave robbers seemed not to have found. Instead,

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Speaker 1: the shaft they'd dug to rob the grave had allowed

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Speaker 1: water from a nearby spring to seep into the deeper

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Speaker 1: chamber below. Over time, the water had frozen, forming a

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Speaker 1: solid block of ice around the chamber's contents. As such,

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Speaker 1: they'd remained unthawed in the permafrost of the step over

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Speaker 1: thousands of years. What they found in sight was nothing

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Speaker 1: short of remarkable. There was a strangely elongated coffin about

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Speaker 1: eight feet in length, made of a solid larch tree trunk,

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Speaker 1: decorated with leather applicates depicting deer figures. Alongside it were

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Speaker 1: two small wood tables on which had been placed a

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Speaker 1: kind of last supper for the departed to take with

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Speaker 1: them on their journey into the world of the dead.

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Speaker 1: From the style of the burial and the grave goods,

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Speaker 1: archaeologist Natalia Plosmac had little doubt that she'd found the

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Speaker 1: remains of a member of the Berzuric people, but this

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Speaker 1: burial was like nothing she had ever come across before.

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Speaker 1: The coffin Palosmac and her team found was surrounded by

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Speaker 1: six horses, oriented with their heads towards the east. This

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Speaker 1: was a common practice in Berzuric burials, but usually with

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Speaker 1: just one or two horses. The number in this burial

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Speaker 1: indicated a person of extremely high status. Eventually it came

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Speaker 1: time to open the lid. Inside they found a solid,

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Speaker 1: milky block of ice through which a body could just

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Speaker 1: about be glimpsed. The team quickly set about painstakingly melting

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Speaker 1: the ice away little by little with cups of hot water,

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Speaker 1: until gradually the body began to emerge. It was a

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Speaker 1: female about twenty to thirty years old at the time

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Speaker 1: of her death, buried lying curled on her side as

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Speaker 1: if simply asleep, and thanks to the ice, it was

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Speaker 1: in an eerily pristine state of preservation. Although there was

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Speaker 1: very little skin remaining on her head, much of her

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00:19:24,640 --> 00:19:28,760
Speaker 1: hair and the rest of her skin was intact, but

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Speaker 1: around one hundred and seventy centimeters or five and a

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Speaker 1: half feet, she'd been unusually tall for the people of

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Speaker 1: that time. As her body thawed from the protective casing

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Speaker 1: of ice, a member of the team noticed something strange

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Speaker 1: on her left shoulder, a huge tattoo of a deer

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Speaker 1: with its antlers sprouting flowers. More tattoos were found on

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Speaker 1: her wrist and one of her thumbs. She was buried

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Speaker 1: in sumptuous clothing, a crimson and white striped woolen skirt

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Speaker 1: with a tassel belt, leggings trimmed with fur, and a

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Speaker 1: small mirror made from polished metal and wood carved with

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Speaker 1: deer figures. Of most interest was her blouse made of

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Speaker 1: yellow tussa, a wild silk characteristic of the forested regions

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Speaker 1: of India, indicating that the Bazuric likely had trade links

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Speaker 1: with the region. The woman's head had been shaven and

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Speaker 1: her skull filled with pine martin fur. Most striking of

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Speaker 1: oar was the three foot ornamental head dress that had

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Speaker 1: been placed on her head, which explained the unusually long

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Speaker 1: coffin covered with felt and embellished with eight carved catlike

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Speaker 1: figures which were covered in gold, all of which suggested

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Speaker 1: an individual who likely had an elevated status as a

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Speaker 1: priestess or shaman of her community. The woman was given

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Speaker 1: the name the Ice Maiden and was determined to have

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Speaker 1: lived around two and a half thousand years ago. Subsequent

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Speaker 1: detailed forensic examination of the body revealed tantalizing fragmentary glimpses

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Speaker 1: into an ultimately tragic life story. The young woman was

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Speaker 1: incredibly thin for her height, likely weighed just over one

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Speaker 1: hundred pounds when she died. The reason for this emerged

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Speaker 1: when strange growths were observed in various parts of her body,

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00:21:33,560 --> 00:21:44,240
Speaker 1: which turned out to be cancerous tumors. As well as

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Speaker 1: the tumans, the so called Ice Maiden was found to

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Speaker 1: have a dislocated hip and several bone fractures, as if

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Speaker 1: she had fallen from some height. She had traces of

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00:21:55,320 --> 00:21:59,639
Speaker 1: mercury and copper in her nostrils, perhaps for medicinal purposes

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00:22:00,280 --> 00:22:05,920
Speaker 1: or to induce an altered state of consciousness. The archaeologists

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Speaker 1: speculated that the young priestess had likely been taken by

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00:22:10,480 --> 00:22:14,679
Speaker 1: the tribe to their winter pasturing grounds despite her poor

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00:22:14,680 --> 00:22:18,480
Speaker 1: state of health. Had she fallen from her horse during

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00:22:18,520 --> 00:22:21,920
Speaker 1: the journey, or had she thrown herself from some high

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00:22:21,920 --> 00:22:26,080
Speaker 1: ground in an attempted suicide to relieve herself from the

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00:22:26,119 --> 00:22:30,880
Speaker 1: painful torment of the cancer. The Ice Maiden's remains were

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00:22:30,920 --> 00:22:34,879
Speaker 1: eventually taken to the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography in

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Speaker 1: de Vosibius for preservation. Then, in September twenty twelve, the

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Speaker 1: mummy was returned to the Altai, where she's been kept

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Speaker 1: on display ever since. At the Republican National Museum in

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Speaker 1: the region's capital, Gorno Altaysk. The Ice Maiden has become

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Speaker 1: a symbol of the Altai's ethnic identity. Many Altai people

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Speaker 1: say that to claim is to claimed their rights to

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Speaker 1: their land, which have long been in dispute with the

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Speaker 1: Russian government, But to some she has become much more

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Speaker 1: than just their nomadic progenitor. In twenty twenty, when the

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Speaker 1: coronavirus pandemic swept much of the world, it was slow

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Speaker 1: to reach the Altai region. Reports in some Russian news

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Speaker 1: media claimed that some among the Altai considered that the

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Speaker 1: ice Princess was acting as a lucky charm or talisman,

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00:23:30,640 --> 00:23:35,760
Speaker 1: protecting her people from the deadly virus. The State Museum

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00:23:35,920 --> 00:23:41,520
Speaker 1: in Gorno Altaysk boasts a wealth of archaeological material. Valuable

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00:23:41,600 --> 00:23:46,120
Speaker 1: artifacts are laid out filling countless display cabinets on the walls,

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00:23:46,840 --> 00:23:52,080
Speaker 1: stone tools dating back three hundred thousand years, Neanderthal's teeth,

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Speaker 1: and ancient animals found freeze dried in the Gobi Desert

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00:23:56,520 --> 00:24:00,359
Speaker 1: in Mongolia. There is even a prehistoric painting on a

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Speaker 1: slab of rock. It depicts a strange, blood red man

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00:24:04,640 --> 00:24:08,720
Speaker 1: with what looked like antennae instead of years. A glass

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Speaker 1: case next to the Ice Maiden contains the equally well

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Speaker 1: preserved body of a man believed to have been a shepherd

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00:24:15,760 --> 00:24:19,400
Speaker 1: from the same era, also found on the plateau back

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Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety five, but the Ice Maiden takes pride

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Speaker 1: of place today. The so called Ice Maiden lies curled

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Speaker 1: on her side in a glass case, her body partly

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Speaker 1: covered demurely by a semi transparent white veil. Her yellowed

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Speaker 1: waxen skin is shiny, resembling smooth, well aged leather, and,

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Speaker 1: although somewhat faded, the intricate indigo tattoos depicting the fantastical

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Speaker 1: deer with flowers growing from their horns remain clearly visible

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Speaker 1: on her left arm and shoulder. A reconstruction of her

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00:25:06,200 --> 00:25:10,520
Speaker 1: face has been made using police pathology techniques, while a

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Speaker 1: replica of her head dress, along with the original silk

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00:25:14,440 --> 00:25:18,280
Speaker 1: shirt and woolen skirt in which she was buried, are

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Speaker 1: all exhibited next to her. Miraculously unspoilt. Altai herdsmen still

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Speaker 1: bring their sheep and horses to the plateau during winter,

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00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:33,280
Speaker 1: where fierce winds blow the snow off the grass, providing

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Speaker 1: grazing land for their animals. Even in the freezing temperatures,

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Speaker 1: and the Altai region remains a potentially rich hunting ground

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Speaker 1: for archaeologists. There are very likely more ancient people like

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Speaker 1: the Ice Maiden and the Shepherd lying under the frozen ground,

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Speaker 1: but at least for the time being, excavations have been

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Speaker 1: forbidden by the Autai people. Time to recover remaining mummified

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Speaker 1: corpses from the once permanently frozen ground is now running

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Speaker 1: out as climate change, whilst the permafrost around the remaining

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Speaker 1: Altai tombs, if they continue to be left unrecovered, any

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Speaker 1: bodies still buried may be lost altogether to decay as

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Speaker 1: the climate continues to warm. And perhaps that's just how

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Speaker 1: it should be. But who was this high status young woman, who,

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00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:35,080
Speaker 1: unlike the Teesoul princess, can be said to have genuinely

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Speaker 1: once lived and ridden her horses across the ancient steps

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Speaker 1: of Altai. How did her body become so cancer ridden

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Speaker 1: and broken? How much did she suffer before she died?

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Speaker 1: And what did her loss mean to the people who

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Speaker 1: consigned her with such loving care and dignity into the

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Speaker 1: icy embrace of the frozen ground. It seems that for now,

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Speaker 1: at least the answer to all these questions more likely

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Speaker 1: remain unexplained. This episode was written by Diane Hope and

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00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:20,159
Speaker 1: produced by me Richard mc lean smith. Diane is an

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00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:23,480
Speaker 1: audio producer and sound recordedst in her own right. You

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00:27:23,520 --> 00:27:26,560
Speaker 1: can find out more about her work at Dianehope dot

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00:27:26,560 --> 00:27:32,119
Speaker 1: com and on Instagram at in the sound Field. Unexplained

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00:27:32,160 --> 00:27:35,919
Speaker 1: is an Avy Club Productions podcast created by Richard mc

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00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:39,960
Speaker 1: lean smith. All other elements in the podcast, including the music,

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00:27:40,359 --> 00:27:44,879
Speaker 1: are also produced by me Richard mc lean smith. Unexplained.

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Speaker 1: The book and audiobook is now available to buy world wide.

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00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:52,800
Speaker 1: You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones, and

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Speaker 1: other bookstores. Please subscribe to and rate the show wherever

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Speaker 1: much with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've

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Speaker 1: heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of

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Speaker 1: your own you'd like to share. You can find out

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Speaker 1: more at Unexplained podcast dot com and reach us online

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