Speaker 1: Hello, it's Richard maclin Smith here, not the impostor you've
Speaker 1: been listening to on the podcasts, the real one. Join
Speaker 1: me for Unexplained TV at YouTube dot com Forward Slash
Speaker 1: Unexplained pod. Early in the noughties, a strange story crop
Speaker 1: dark in Russian online forums, Originating from a remote region
Speaker 1: of Siberia during the time of the Soviet Union. The
Speaker 1: tale begins one September day in nineteen sixty nine near
Speaker 1: the village of Arzavchik in the Tisol District of Kimarovo,
Speaker 1: a region of southwestern Siberia. It is a place of
Speaker 1: wild splendor, birch forests and bears, but our story takes
Speaker 1: place deep underground, seventy meters to be precise. Local miners
Speaker 1: are hard at work, hammering away at the coal seam.
Speaker 1: It glistens darkly under their head lamps. This day is
Speaker 1: just like any other down in the dank crime as
Speaker 1: the soot covered miners swing their pickaxes heartily until that is.
Speaker 1: One miner takes an especially heavy swing at the coal face,
Speaker 1: only for it to suddenly crumble away right in front
Speaker 1: of him. When the air finally clears of dust, the
Speaker 1: men direct their torches to the face to find it
Speaker 1: has been replaced by a small hollow about five meters deep,
Speaker 1: and in the middle of it lies what appears for
Speaker 1: all the world to be a sarcophagus. It has a strange,
Speaker 1: unearthly appearance, long and narrow, and seemingly made of marble.
Speaker 1: It is covered in intricate carvings. The stunned men tentatively
Speaker 1: examine the peculiar object. They wonder if they should try
Speaker 1: to open it, but decide in the end to first
Speaker 1: inform their superiors about it. In its office above ground,
Speaker 1: head of the local geology team, Alexander Mussalagin, orders the
Speaker 1: men to bring the suppulchral artifact to the surface for
Speaker 1: closer inspection. The miners are reluctant, however, worried that when
Speaker 1: news of the find reaches government authorities, it will be
Speaker 1: taken from them, scovering any chance of claiming a reward
Speaker 1: for the extraordinary discovery. Perhaps the stone case is buried
Speaker 1: with gold or precious stones. They wander in the end,
Speaker 1: not wanting to risk a serious reprimand the men have
Speaker 1: little choice but to bring the artifact to Massalagin, and
Speaker 1: so it is, with some difficulty the men pull the
Speaker 1: vast hunk of carved marble onto a mining cart and
Speaker 1: head up to the surface. When they emerge into the
Speaker 1: sunlight sometime later, they are greeted by Missalagan, whose eyes
Speaker 1: light up on seeing the peculiar item. He watches as
Speaker 1: the men chip away at the marble casing and some
Speaker 1: kind of ancient sealant that surrounds it. When they finally
Speaker 1: manage to open the lid insight, they find yet another casket,
Speaker 1: this time made of metal, about two meters long and
Speaker 1: one meter wide, with no visible seams or joints. Some
Speaker 1: say it was shining with a strange, eerie light, but
Speaker 1: the best was yet to come. You're listening to Unexplained
Speaker 1: and I'm Richard McLean Smith. With no discernible seam or
Speaker 1: rivets to attack, the miners have little choice but to
Speaker 1: bust the case open with brute force. Being as careful
Speaker 1: as they can, the men hack away at the top
Speaker 1: like a tin can, until eventually they are able to
Speaker 1: pry it open. Alexander Mussalagan does the honors as he
Speaker 1: lifts off the top. The rest of the men stand
Speaker 1: back and gasp. Inside the casket lies the body of
Speaker 1: a young woman in an uncanny state of preservation, as
Speaker 1: if she had only fallen asleep the previous day. Apparent
Speaker 1: eyewitness accounts described the woman as having a refined beauty,
Speaker 1: about twenty five to thirty years old and around one
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy centimeters tall. Her skin was said to
Speaker 1: be incredibly white, while her hair was described as cascading
Speaker 1: down over her shoulders to her waist. Some claim it
Speaker 1: was jet black, others that it was blonde. Her eyes
Speaker 1: which are open or a dazzling azure in color, her
Speaker 1: hands soft and pale, with neatly cropped nails, and she
Speaker 1: is clad in a white knee length robe made from
Speaker 1: a fine unknown fabric, delicately embroidered with flowers, and completely
Speaker 1: surrounding it all is a curious, pink, viscous liquid. For
Speaker 1: a moment, the men just stand around aghast, trying to
Speaker 1: fathom what an earth they have found. Then one of
Speaker 1: the miners, and Atollicus nets Off, steps forward with the
Speaker 1: sudden urge to dip his finger into the strange liquid.
Speaker 1: Then he proceeds to taste it. Another miner, even Karnikov,
Speaker 1: dashes off to grab a camera from his back. When
Speaker 1: he later tries to take a picture of the body,
Speaker 1: he has a fainting fit and collapses. Having seen absolutely
Speaker 1: nothing like it before, Geologist Alexander Musalagan returns to his
Speaker 1: office to report the puzzling fine to the authorities. Is
Speaker 1: ordered immediately to stop the miners from working and to
Speaker 1: make sure they all keep quiet about the discovery. Within
Speaker 1: twenty four hours, it's said that government officials in Moscow
Speaker 1: sent a helicopter to retrieve the coffin. When the crew arrive,
Speaker 1: wearing gray protective suits, they find that the coffin is
Speaker 1: too heavy for the helicopter to lift. To make the
Speaker 1: casket lighter, they decide to drain the pink fluid from it.
Speaker 1: Moments later, they can only stare in horror as the
Speaker 1: corpse in sight suddenly begins to blacken, Its skin grows
Speaker 1: tough and wisened. The liquid is ordered to be poured
Speaker 1: back in, at which point the corpse immediately regains its
Speaker 1: perverse vitality. A larger helicopter is sent, which Julie airlifts
Speaker 1: the coffin to a secret location. Soon afterwards, it is
Speaker 1: said that a team of KGP agents arrived to quarantine
Speaker 1: the site. Any witnesses to the event are promptly round
Speaker 1: up and kept in isolation for several days. They are
Speaker 1: warned never to speak about what they'd seen, or else
Speaker 1: they be charged with sedition, a crime punishable by death,
Speaker 1: or even worse, banishment to a Siberian gulac. Some accounts
Speaker 1: of that apparent discovery in Teesul on that weird September
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty nine include the additional bizarre details such
Speaker 1: as the woman had a star shaped tattoo on her chest,
Speaker 1: six fingers on each hand, and even a third on
Speaker 1: her forehead. But the one consistent part of the story
Speaker 1: is that everyone who saw her agreed that she looked
Speaker 1: like a princess, or at least a person of some importance,
Speaker 1: and so she became known as the Teesaw Princess after
Speaker 1: the region she was found in. Despite the KGB's warnings,
Speaker 1: inevitably the incredible story got out and was soon spreading
Speaker 1: rapidly among local towns and villages. Some claimed that the
Speaker 1: so called princess was a sacred person who came from
Speaker 1: a distant past or another world to protect them, but
Speaker 1: then a series of unfortunate incidents was said to have
Speaker 1: befalled some of the villagers. Even Karnikov, who had apparently
Speaker 1: taken a picture of the body and collapsed, was alleged
Speaker 1: to have later died in a motorcycle accident. The miner's leader,
Speaker 1: Yur Smyirrnoff, was reportedly drowned in a flood just a
Speaker 1: month after the discovery, and Anatoly kus Netsov, the man
Speaker 1: who tasted the mysterious pink fluid, is said to have
Speaker 1: experienced a mental breakdown only weeks later after being admitted
Speaker 1: to a psychiatric hospital. He later escaped in a delusional
Speaker 1: state and died of hypothermia on his own doorstep, rendered
Speaker 1: unable to recognize his own home or even remember how
Speaker 1: to enter it. Another villager, who began a campaign to
Speaker 1: let the details of the find be known to the public,
Speaker 1: was also said to have died in mysterious circumstances after
Speaker 1: he wrote letters to some members of the government's Central Committee.
Speaker 1: His official cause of death was reported as heart failure.
Speaker 1: The outbreak of an unspecified disease and crop failures were
Speaker 1: also said to have occurred, leading villagers to wonder if
Speaker 1: the Teesel Princess had in fact brought a curse upon them.
Speaker 1: In some reports, an army of specialists and workers were
Speaker 1: sent to search for more artifacts, and the part of
Speaker 1: the mine where the princess had apparently been discovered was
Speaker 1: cordoned off. Military personnel as said to have been posted
Speaker 1: there to keep the press and curious locals away. One night,
Speaker 1: a few of the soldiers as said to have visited
Speaker 1: a local pub, where one of them revealed that, in fact,
Speaker 1: three more sarcophagi were found close to the first one. Strangely,
Speaker 1: the incident was unknown until the early two thousands, when
Speaker 1: reports started to appear in the Russian bloggersphere. Some reports
Speaker 1: claimed that scientists in the former USSR had examined the
Speaker 1: find but were unable to identify the pink and balming
Speaker 1: fluid with the miraculous restorative properties. Scientists who who apparently
Speaker 1: analyzed the fabric at the princess's dress were also said
Speaker 1: to be unable to determine its nature and its age.
Speaker 1: Some speculated that the fabric had been manufactured with an
Speaker 1: unknown advanced technology. By twenty seventeen, online speculation about the
Speaker 1: supposed Princess Teesol story was becoming even more elaborate. Among
Speaker 1: the most startling were claims that the Teesyl Princess had
Speaker 1: been examined by an unidentified elderly professor from Nova Sibirsk.
Speaker 1: The professor had apparently concluded that the kodava and the
Speaker 1: casket were older than the coal deposit in which they'd
Speaker 1: been found, stating that the discovery would revolutionize our understanding
Speaker 1: of Earth's history. He allegedly concluded that the Tiesol Princess
Speaker 1: and her coffin were an improbable eight hundred million years old.
Speaker 1: This was at the end of a period in Earth's
Speaker 1: history called the Neoproterozoic, when the available evidence suggests that
Speaker 1: the Earth underwent an ice age so cold that ice
Speaker 1: sheets not only capped the polar latitudes, but may have
Speaker 1: extended almost to the equator. The most outlandish stories that
Speaker 1: swirled around the Teesyl Princess have proposed that the woman
Speaker 1: was a member of a technologically advanced civilization predating our own,
Speaker 1: or even that she was a visitor from another planet,
Speaker 1: preserved in a state of suspended animation and possessed of
Speaker 1: paranormal abilities, including telepathy, telekinesis, and precognition. Her discovery was
Speaker 1: also said to have been accompanied by sightings of UFOs
Speaker 1: and other paranormal activities in the region. The most ardent
Speaker 1: conspiracy theorists have said that those in power at the
Speaker 1: time of the discovery rushed to cover up the entire
Speaker 1: incident out of a fear that the story would have
Speaker 1: threatened their control over historical narratives that they wished to maintain.
Speaker 1: More eagle eyed commentators have spotted the odd similarity between
Speaker 1: this story and that of the well known fairy tale
Speaker 1: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The dwarfs who discover
Speaker 1: the sleeping snow White in her magical casket were also miners.
Speaker 1: Whatever you believe, If indeed it was all simply made up,
Speaker 1: you might be surprised to learn that there are some parts,
Speaker 1: at least of the Teesil Princess story that were sourced
Speaker 1: from a very real and equally mysterious find heralding from
Speaker 1: the steps of the Ukarck Plateau, also located in southwestern Siberia,
Speaker 1: the plateau sits among the Altai Mountains, close to Russia's
Speaker 1: borders with China, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia. It was there in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three that, as some have declared it, one
Speaker 1: of the most significant archaeological finds of the twentieth century
Speaker 1: was made. In the summer of nineteen ninety three, Russian
Speaker 1: archaeologist Natalia Polosmak, a senior research fellow at the Russian
Speaker 1: Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography in the Vosibirsk, arrived with
Speaker 1: a field team on the steps of the Yukonk Plateau.
Speaker 1: It's a place characterized by a harshly arid climate and
Speaker 1: bitterly cold winters in what is now the Autonomous Republic
Speaker 1: of Altai. It was the fourth year in a row
Speaker 1: that the archaeologists had traveled there to carry out field research.
Speaker 1: Polosmac specialized in the study of Bronze Age Eurasian nomads,
Speaker 1: especially those known as the Basuric peoples, a culture which
Speaker 1: had thrived in the region between the sixth and second
Speaker 1: centuries BCE. She and her team were on the hunt
Speaker 1: for evidence of how this ancient people had once lived
Speaker 1: and died. Polosmac was taken by her guide to investigate
Speaker 1: a series of Kurgans, ancient burial mounds that can be
Speaker 1: found throughout the area. Filled with sediment and covered with
Speaker 1: piles of rocks, they typically mark the site of a
Speaker 1: chambered tomb. The Kurgans Polosmac was taken to were located
Speaker 1: in a narrow strip of disputed territory on the Chinese
Speaker 1: Russian border, and as such had remained untouched for millennia.
Speaker 1: On arrival at the site, Polosmac felt a Russia adrenaline
Speaker 1: as she looked out over the small handful of burial mounts,
Speaker 1: thrilled at the prospect of what they might discover, but
Speaker 1: it was tough going just below the surface, the tundra
Speaker 1: like step was still frozen. The team hadn't been working
Speaker 1: for long before they hit their first burial chamber. It
Speaker 1: housed a coffin fashioned from stone and wood, containing a
Speaker 1: human skeleton. Beside it laid the remains of three horses,
Speaker 1: but very little in the way of grave goods. When
Speaker 1: they discovered a shaft leading into the chamber, they guessed
Speaker 1: that it had likely already been raided by grave robbers
Speaker 1: thousands of years before. But as the team continued to excavate,
Speaker 1: they began to uncover another, even more ancient burial chamber
Speaker 1: below one the grave robbers seemed not to have found. Instead,
Speaker 1: the shaft they'd dug to rob the grave had allowed
Speaker 1: water from a nearby spring to seep into the deeper
Speaker 1: chamber below. Over time, the water had frozen, forming a
Speaker 1: solid block of ice around the chamber's contents. As such,
Speaker 1: they'd remained unthawed in the permafrost of the step over
Speaker 1: thousands of years. What they found in sight was nothing
Speaker 1: short of remarkable. There was a strangely elongated coffin about
Speaker 1: eight feet in length, made of a solid larch tree trunk,
Speaker 1: decorated with leather applicates depicting deer figures. Alongside it were
Speaker 1: two small wood tables on which had been placed a
Speaker 1: kind of last supper for the departed to take with
Speaker 1: them on their journey into the world of the dead.
Speaker 1: From the style of the burial and the grave goods,
Speaker 1: archaeologist Natalia Plosmac had little doubt that she'd found the
Speaker 1: remains of a member of the Berzuric people, but this
Speaker 1: burial was like nothing she had ever come across before.
Speaker 1: The coffin Palosmac and her team found was surrounded by
Speaker 1: six horses, oriented with their heads towards the east. This
Speaker 1: was a common practice in Berzuric burials, but usually with
Speaker 1: just one or two horses. The number in this burial
Speaker 1: indicated a person of extremely high status. Eventually it came
Speaker 1: time to open the lid. Inside they found a solid,
Speaker 1: milky block of ice through which a body could just
Speaker 1: about be glimpsed. The team quickly set about painstakingly melting
Speaker 1: the ice away little by little with cups of hot water,
Speaker 1: until gradually the body began to emerge. It was a
Speaker 1: female about twenty to thirty years old at the time
Speaker 1: of her death, buried lying curled on her side as
Speaker 1: if simply asleep, and thanks to the ice, it was
Speaker 1: in an eerily pristine state of preservation. Although there was
Speaker 1: very little skin remaining on her head, much of her
Speaker 1: hair and the rest of her skin was intact, but
Speaker 1: around one hundred and seventy centimeters or five and a
Speaker 1: half feet, she'd been unusually tall for the people of
Speaker 1: that time. As her body thawed from the protective casing
Speaker 1: of ice, a member of the team noticed something strange
Speaker 1: on her left shoulder, a huge tattoo of a deer
Speaker 1: with its antlers sprouting flowers. More tattoos were found on
Speaker 1: her wrist and one of her thumbs. She was buried
Speaker 1: in sumptuous clothing, a crimson and white striped woolen skirt
Speaker 1: with a tassel belt, leggings trimmed with fur, and a
Speaker 1: small mirror made from polished metal and wood carved with
Speaker 1: deer figures. Of most interest was her blouse made of
Speaker 1: yellow tussa, a wild silk characteristic of the forested regions
Speaker 1: of India, indicating that the Bazuric likely had trade links
Speaker 1: with the region. The woman's head had been shaven and
Speaker 1: her skull filled with pine martin fur. Most striking of
Speaker 1: oar was the three foot ornamental head dress that had
Speaker 1: been placed on her head, which explained the unusually long
Speaker 1: coffin covered with felt and embellished with eight carved catlike
Speaker 1: figures which were covered in gold, all of which suggested
Speaker 1: an individual who likely had an elevated status as a
Speaker 1: priestess or shaman of her community. The woman was given
Speaker 1: the name the Ice Maiden and was determined to have
Speaker 1: lived around two and a half thousand years ago. Subsequent
Speaker 1: detailed forensic examination of the body revealed tantalizing fragmentary glimpses
Speaker 1: into an ultimately tragic life story. The young woman was
Speaker 1: incredibly thin for her height, likely weighed just over one
Speaker 1: hundred pounds when she died. The reason for this emerged
Speaker 1: when strange growths were observed in various parts of her body,
Speaker 1: which turned out to be cancerous tumors. As well as
Speaker 1: the tumans, the so called Ice Maiden was found to
Speaker 1: have a dislocated hip and several bone fractures, as if
Speaker 1: she had fallen from some height. She had traces of
Speaker 1: mercury and copper in her nostrils, perhaps for medicinal purposes
Speaker 1: or to induce an altered state of consciousness. The archaeologists
Speaker 1: speculated that the young priestess had likely been taken by
Speaker 1: the tribe to their winter pasturing grounds despite her poor
Speaker 1: state of health. Had she fallen from her horse during
Speaker 1: the journey, or had she thrown herself from some high
Speaker 1: ground in an attempted suicide to relieve herself from the
Speaker 1: painful torment of the cancer. The Ice Maiden's remains were
Speaker 1: eventually taken to the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography in
Speaker 1: de Vosibius for preservation. Then, in September twenty twelve, the
Speaker 1: mummy was returned to the Altai, where she's been kept
Speaker 1: on display ever since. At the Republican National Museum in
Speaker 1: the region's capital, Gorno Altaysk. The Ice Maiden has become
Speaker 1: a symbol of the Altai's ethnic identity. Many Altai people
Speaker 1: say that to claim is to claimed their rights to
Speaker 1: their land, which have long been in dispute with the
Speaker 1: Russian government, But to some she has become much more
Speaker 1: than just their nomadic progenitor. In twenty twenty, when the
Speaker 1: coronavirus pandemic swept much of the world, it was slow
Speaker 1: to reach the Altai region. Reports in some Russian news
Speaker 1: media claimed that some among the Altai considered that the
Speaker 1: ice Princess was acting as a lucky charm or talisman,
Speaker 1: protecting her people from the deadly virus. The State Museum
Speaker 1: in Gorno Altaysk boasts a wealth of archaeological material. Valuable
Speaker 1: artifacts are laid out filling countless display cabinets on the walls,
Speaker 1: stone tools dating back three hundred thousand years, Neanderthal's teeth,
Speaker 1: and ancient animals found freeze dried in the Gobi Desert
Speaker 1: in Mongolia. There is even a prehistoric painting on a
Speaker 1: slab of rock. It depicts a strange, blood red man
Speaker 1: with what looked like antennae instead of years. A glass
Speaker 1: case next to the Ice Maiden contains the equally well
Speaker 1: preserved body of a man believed to have been a shepherd
Speaker 1: from the same era, also found on the plateau back
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety five, but the Ice Maiden takes pride
Speaker 1: of place today. The so called Ice Maiden lies curled
Speaker 1: on her side in a glass case, her body partly
Speaker 1: covered demurely by a semi transparent white veil. Her yellowed
Speaker 1: waxen skin is shiny, resembling smooth, well aged leather, and,
Speaker 1: although somewhat faded, the intricate indigo tattoos depicting the fantastical
Speaker 1: deer with flowers growing from their horns remain clearly visible
Speaker 1: on her left arm and shoulder. A reconstruction of her
Speaker 1: face has been made using police pathology techniques, while a
Speaker 1: replica of her head dress, along with the original silk
Speaker 1: shirt and woolen skirt in which she was buried, are
Speaker 1: all exhibited next to her. Miraculously unspoilt. Altai herdsmen still
Speaker 1: bring their sheep and horses to the plateau during winter,
Speaker 1: where fierce winds blow the snow off the grass, providing
Speaker 1: grazing land for their animals. Even in the freezing temperatures,
Speaker 1: and the Altai region remains a potentially rich hunting ground
Speaker 1: for archaeologists. There are very likely more ancient people like
Speaker 1: the Ice Maiden and the Shepherd lying under the frozen ground,
Speaker 1: but at least for the time being, excavations have been
Speaker 1: forbidden by the Autai people. Time to recover remaining mummified
Speaker 1: corpses from the once permanently frozen ground is now running
Speaker 1: out as climate change, whilst the permafrost around the remaining
Speaker 1: Altai tombs, if they continue to be left unrecovered, any
Speaker 1: bodies still buried may be lost altogether to decay as
Speaker 1: the climate continues to warm. And perhaps that's just how
Speaker 1: it should be. But who was this high status young woman, who,
Speaker 1: unlike the Teesoul princess, can be said to have genuinely
Speaker 1: once lived and ridden her horses across the ancient steps
Speaker 1: of Altai. How did her body become so cancer ridden
Speaker 1: and broken? How much did she suffer before she died?
Speaker 1: And what did her loss mean to the people who
Speaker 1: consigned her with such loving care and dignity into the
Speaker 1: icy embrace of the frozen ground. It seems that for now,
Speaker 1: at least the answer to all these questions more likely
Speaker 1: remain unexplained. This episode was written by Diane Hope and
Speaker 1: produced by me Richard mc lean smith. Diane is an
Speaker 1: audio producer and sound recordedst in her own right. You
Speaker 1: can find out more about her work at Dianehope dot
Speaker 1: com and on Instagram at in the sound Field. Unexplained
Speaker 1: is an Avy Club Productions podcast created by Richard mc
Speaker 1: lean smith. All other elements in the podcast, including the music,
Speaker 1: are also produced by me Richard mc lean smith. Unexplained.
Speaker 1: The book and audiobook is now available to buy world wide.
Speaker 1: You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones, and
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Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, and feel free to get into
Speaker 1: much with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've
Speaker 1: heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of
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