Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy be Wilson
Speaker 2: and I'm Holly Frye. This is part two of our
Speaker 2: latest installment of Unearthed, where we talk about things that
Speaker 2: have been literally and figuratively unearthed over the last few months.
Speaker 2: In this part two, we have animals, artwork, edibles and potables, shipwrecks,
Speaker 2: and then, as always kicking it off with some random
Speaker 2: stuff that I call popery because jeopardy.
Speaker 1: A six month long excavation in England, about ten miles
Speaker 1: south of Hadrian's Wall has unearthed at least eight hundred
Speaker 1: wet stones dating back about two thousand years to the
Speaker 1: Roman era. There are probably hundreds more still to be
Speaker 1: discovered at the site. Before this find, only about two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty wetstones had been found in the entirety
Speaker 1: of Britain and Ireland.
Speaker 2: This was probably a whetstone factory in an industrial area,
Speaker 2: and the stone to make the whetstones may have been
Speaker 2: quarried from the northern bank of the river near where
Speaker 2: all of this was found. The surviving whetstones at this
Speaker 2: site all seem to have been broken or incorrectly cut,
Speaker 2: which means that these are the cast offs, and it's
Speaker 2: likely that many many more intact whetstones were transported out
Speaker 2: of this area to the coast and then from there
Speaker 2: to other parts of the Roman Empire. Now I kind
Speaker 2: of want other research tracing the origins of the stone
Speaker 2: in other whetstones found elsewhere in what had been Roman territory.
Speaker 2: Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Speaker 2: Sciences has looked at the genetic legacy of the Mongol Empire,
Speaker 2: especially rulingly from the group known as the Golden Horde
Speaker 2: in Central Eurasia. The Golden Horde was founded by Genghis
Speaker 2: Khan's eldest son Joshi and his descendants. Local law in
Speaker 2: Kazakhstan has suggested that one of the four Golden Horde
Speaker 2: tombs that was analyzed in the study was that of
Speaker 2: Djoshi and his family. According to this research, these elites
Speaker 2: descended primarily from ancient Northeast Asians, with some ancestry from
Speaker 2: ancient North Eurasian and Scythian populations. Genetic research on the
Speaker 2: remains from the four tombs suggests that the males had
Speaker 2: y chromosomes, from a particular ancestral branch that originated on
Speaker 2: the Mongolian Plateau. Many people living in Central Eurasia today
Speaker 2: have this cluster of DNA as part of their genome.
Speaker 1: However, this research also raises some questions about the popularly
Speaker 1: held ie idea that one out of every two hundred
Speaker 1: men is related to Ginghis Khan. Researchers also ran comparisons
Speaker 1: to modern DNA and didn't find this why chromosome cluster
Speaker 1: as frequently in modern populations as it is in the
Speaker 1: men buried in these tombs. Researchers also noted that we
Speaker 1: don't have Ginghis Khan's DNA to go on. While Joshi
Speaker 1: and his father would certainly have had some similarities in
Speaker 1: their genomes, we don't know whether that would include this
Speaker 1: specific cluster. And Lastly, researchers in Hungary have been studying
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty five skeletons from two Neolithic cemeteries,
Speaker 1: looking at patterns and how these people were buried and
Speaker 1: what that can tell us about gender roles and among
Speaker 1: these people. These remains date back about seven thousand years,
Speaker 1: so they examined the bones themselves, looking for evidence of
Speaker 1: wear that could tell us about these peoples, maybe a
Speaker 1: little about what kind of work they might have done,
Speaker 1: and they also looked at the positions the people were
Speaker 1: buried in and what kinds of grave goods they were
Speaker 1: buried with. At one of the cemeteries, there wasn't a
Speaker 1: lot of variation in how people were buried. In general,
Speaker 1: the people buried at this cemetery seemed to have done
Speaker 1: harder physical work, but those patterns didn't vary by sex either.
Speaker 1: At the other site, though, things seemed to be structured
Speaker 1: along clearer lines of gender roles. Most of the female
Speaker 1: skeletons were buried on their left side with shell beads,
Speaker 1: and then most of the male skeletons were buried on
Speaker 1: their right side and they had stone tools. There were
Speaker 1: also two male skeletons and five female skeletons that departed
Speaker 1: from this pattern. In one case, there was a female
Speaker 1: skeleton buried with stone tools, and the wear on her
Speaker 1: towbone showed that she did a lot of kneeling. That
Speaker 1: was something that was more common among the male skeletons.
Speaker 1: There was not anything to suggest that this person had
Speaker 1: some kind of unique social position, but these findings do
Speaker 1: suggest that there were people living in this community thousands
Speaker 1: of years ago who weren't aligned with the typical pattern
Speaker 1: of gender and gender roles in their area. This paper
Speaker 1: was titled Fixed and Fluid the Two Faces of Gender Roles,
Speaker 1: A combined study of activity patterns and burial practices in
Speaker 1: the European Neolithic.
Speaker 2: Now we are going to move on to some animal finds.
Speaker 2: A bone found at a site in Cordoba, Spain in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty may be the first direct evidence of war
Speaker 2: elephants from the Punic War period. There are historical depictions
Speaker 2: of elephants being used in the Punic Wars, and there
Speaker 2: are depictions on things like coins. They have most often
Speaker 2: been associated with Carthaginian general Hannibal, but until this point
Speaker 2: there has not been physical evidence of actual war elephants.
Speaker 1: This small bone was compared to the bones of mammoths
Speaker 1: and modern elephants, and radiocarbon dating placed it in the
Speaker 1: fourth or third centuries BCE, which is when the Punic
Speaker 1: Wars took place. There were also several military related objects
Speaker 1: found at the site, like artillery projectiles, as well as
Speaker 1: coins and ceramics.
Speaker 2: Reading through this research, it does not seem like this
Speaker 2: identification is one hundred percent certain they did compare it
Speaker 2: to mammoths and elephant bones, but the bones condition is
Speaker 2: too poor for DNA to be extracted from it, and
Speaker 2: it's also possible that it was brought to the area
Speaker 2: as a trade good rather than in the body of
Speaker 2: a living war elephant moving on. A burial site in
Speaker 2: northern Norway has been found to contain the body of
Speaker 2: a Viking age woman who was buried along with her dog.
Speaker 2: This discovery was made by a couple of people who
Speaker 2: were searching the area with metal detectors and contacted authorities
Speaker 2: about what they found. The woman and the dog were
Speaker 2: buried together in a boat, along with tools, a weaving sword,
Speaker 2: a wetstone, and a sickle. Next, there is a traditional
Speaker 2: Irish breed of goat that is known as the Old
Speaker 2: Irish goat, which just delights me such a simple, straightforward name.
Speaker 2: This goat is bred for both meat and milk. According
Speaker 2: to research published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, today's
Speaker 2: Old Irish goats have a continuous lineage stretching back to
Speaker 2: at least the Late Bronze Age roughly eleven hundred to
Speaker 2: nine hundred BCE. This conclusion came from analysis of goat
Speaker 2: remains at an iron Age Hill Fort. These are the
Speaker 2: oldest goat remains found in Ireland.
Speaker 1: The old Irish goat is a rare breed today and
Speaker 1: there are small faral herds of them in parts of Ireland.
Speaker 1: Wild goats play a part in Irish folklore, so these
Speaker 1: goats have an ongoing connection to Irish culture and history
Speaker 1: and animal domestication and husbandry in Ireland.
Speaker 2: According to research published in the journal Nature Communications, there
Speaker 2: was a sophisticated long distance trading network for parrots in
Speaker 2: the Andes Mountains in coastal Peru that predated the establishment
Speaker 2: of the Inca Empire. This conclusion came from analysis on
Speaker 2: parrot feathers from Pachacomic, which was a religious center that
Speaker 2: was well outside the bird's native range. Researchers used DNA sequencing,
Speaker 2: isotope chemistry, and computational landscape modeling to determine where the
Speaker 2: birds came from and where they were taken. In the
Speaker 2: words of doctor George Ollah from the Australian National University
Speaker 2: A and You, who is the paper's lead author, quote
Speaker 2: our ancient habitat modeling confirmed that the western side of
Speaker 2: the Andes was just as inhospitable to these species one
Speaker 2: thousand years ago as it is today. These parrots are
Speaker 2: strictly rainforest dwellers, with a natural home range of around
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty kilometers. The fact that they ended
Speaker 2: up more than five hundred kilometers away on the other
Speaker 2: side of South America's highest mountain range proves human intervention.
Speaker 2: They do not naturally fly over the Andes. Researchers from
Speaker 2: the University of Liverpool have published work on the development
Speaker 2: and spread of early domesticated dogs. This includes work from
Speaker 2: a rock shelter in Anatolia where people and dogs stayed
Speaker 2: together roughly fifteen thousand, eight hundred years ago. These people
Speaker 2: buried their dead, and they also buried their dogs in
Speaker 2: a way that was very similar to human burials.
Speaker 1: Professor Doug Baird of the University of Liverpool was quoted
Speaker 1: as saying the archaeology makes clear that these dogs were
Speaker 1: close companions of humans. Isotope analysis showing the dogs ate fish,
Speaker 1: a major element of the human diet, and like humans,
Speaker 1: were carefully buried in the rock shelter near human burial,
Speaker 1: thereby receiving ritualized treatment analogous to the humans. These people
Speaker 1: hunted animals like wild sheep and dangerous wild cattle, so
Speaker 1: it seems likely that these animals were hunting, but also
Speaker 1: possibly guard dogs, given the presence of large predators like
Speaker 1: wolves and leopards in Central Anatolia at that time. And lastly,
Speaker 1: we have a depiction of an animal. A hiker on
Speaker 1: the island of Majorca in Spain found a tiny bronze
Speaker 1: bull's head. It is roughly three thousand years old. This
Speaker 1: is one of only four more such skull representations ever
Speaker 1: found on the island, and it is little. It's a
Speaker 1: little more than an inch long. This hiker delivered the
Speaker 1: fine two authorities and the plan is for it to
Speaker 1: be placed in a museum. It is time to take
Speaker 1: a little sponsor break and then we'll be back to
Speaker 1: talk about art.
Speaker 2: Okay, now for some art. A professor who specializes in
Speaker 2: rock art research has partnered with traditional owners in Australia
Speaker 2: to study fourteen newly documented images of the extinct Tasmanian
Speaker 2: tiger or thyloside. These images are from two different locations
Speaker 2: in Northern Territory. There are also pictures of Tasmanian devils. Today,
Speaker 2: Tasmanian devils live only on Tasmania, but they used to
Speaker 2: live on the Australian mainland as well.
Speaker 1: They look nothing like that cartoon.
Speaker 2: They really don't as and Tasmanian tigers don't look that
Speaker 2: much like tigers either. Some of these artworks are believed
Speaker 2: to be less than a thousand years old, and the
Speaker 2: Tasmanian devil is believed to have been extinct on the
Speaker 2: mainland three thousand years ago. This has raised some questions
Speaker 2: about whether the paintings were made by someone who had
Speaker 2: seen a living Tasmanian devil, meaning that they survived longer
Speaker 2: on the mainland than was previously thought. The paper on
Speaker 2: this find, which was published in the journal Archaeology in Oceania,
Speaker 2: also includes information from Aboriginal oral histories about these animals
Speaker 2: and their cultural importance. In other rock art news, researchers
Speaker 2: in France have used carbon fourteen dating to directly estimate
Speaker 2: the age of several pieces of.
Speaker 1: Black line art.
Speaker 2: This is the first time carbon fourteen dating has been
Speaker 2: used directly off art in this region because it was
Speaker 2: believed that all of the pigments that were used were
Speaker 2: made of metals that didn't contain any carbon, so there
Speaker 2: would have been no carbon fourteen to test.
Speaker 1: This team used non invasive methods to test the composition
Speaker 1: of the pigments used in two figures. They found traces
Speaker 1: of charcoal, and the distribution of the charcoal was consistent
Speaker 1: enough that it seemed like part of the pigment and
Speaker 1: not like contamination from some of their point in history.
Speaker 1: They extracted extremely small amounts of this pigment for testing
Speaker 1: and concluded that one of the figures dates to about
Speaker 1: thirteen thousand years before the present, while the other had
Speaker 1: pigment that seemed to come from two different time periods,
Speaker 1: the first about eighty five hundred years before the present
Speaker 1: and the other more likely fifteen thousand years before the present.
Speaker 1: It is possible that this was an older artwork that
Speaker 1: was retouched or altered thousands of years later. A painting
Speaker 1: by Italian Renaissance artist sophonisba Anguisola was thought to have
Speaker 1: been lost, but has now resurfaced. It turns out it
Speaker 1: was bought by a private collector in nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 1: The painting's current owners are relatives of the person who
Speaker 1: bought it, and they looked into the painting's history after
Speaker 1: seeing a lecture on the artist, which was presented by
Speaker 1: the National Gallery of Art in twenty twenty four. This
Speaker 1: painting was publicly displayed for the first time since then
Speaker 1: this past February. This portrait is called Portrait of a
Speaker 1: canon Regular and it depicts a clergyman whose identity is unknown.
Speaker 1: Sophonisba Anguisola was one of the few women artists to
Speaker 1: become really recognized during the Renaissance, and fewer than twenty
Speaker 1: signed paintings of hers have survived until today.
Speaker 2: Speaking of resurfaced Renaissance art, a previously unknown postcard sized
Speaker 2: drawing by German Renaissance artist Hans Baldengrin has been found
Speaker 2: among the possessions of the descendants of Susannah Fefinger, who
Speaker 2: sat for this portrait back in fifteen seventeen. The portrait
Speaker 2: was done in silver point on paper that was treated
Speaker 2: with bone powder, and it was part of a collection
Speaker 2: of artwork that the family had taken in for valuation.
Speaker 2: This is the only known silver point work from this
Speaker 2: artist that is still in a private collection. Back in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three, a mold was found at an archaeological
Speaker 2: site at a Slavic hillfort in Spandau, which is one
Speaker 2: of the burrows of Berlin today. This mold would have
Speaker 2: been used to cast a small devotional object in the
Speaker 2: shape of a wheel cross or a cross that's in
Speaker 2: a circle. In January, a find was announced from a
Speaker 2: site in Javelan, Germany, roughly seventy kilometers away, which is
Speaker 2: a bronze wheel cross that was made with the mold,
Speaker 2: which was found by a volunteer using a metal detector.
Speaker 2: These date back to the tenth or eleventh century and
Speaker 2: they're two of the oldest Christian artifacts in the region,
Speaker 2: dating back to when it was first being Christianized. Archaeologists
Speaker 2: have found fragments of decorated ostrich egg shells at sites
Speaker 2: in Namibia and South Africa. These shells were used as
Speaker 2: water vessels more than sixty thousand years ago, and people
Speaker 2: decorated them by engraving them. Researchers analyzed the engravings on
Speaker 2: one hundred and twelve fragments and found that eighty of
Speaker 2: them had what they described as coherent special regularities. That is,
Speaker 2: they had patterns of parallel lines or patterns of the
Speaker 2: same angle being used over and over. Some of them
Speaker 2: had repeating grids and diamond shaped motifs, which are the
Speaker 2: most complex designs patterns are very consistent. They showed an
Speaker 2: ability not only to repeat an etching consistently, but also
Speaker 2: to plan it out so that these patterns and lines
Speaker 2: would cover the desired space in a regular way over
Speaker 2: the curved surface of an ostrich egg So this is
Speaker 2: basically more advanced thinking than might have been expected from
Speaker 2: people who were living sixty thousand years ago. I don't
Speaker 2: think I could just plan out in my head a
Speaker 2: bunch of etchings on an ostrich eggshell and have it
Speaker 2: come out evenly.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I bet if you did it a bunch you could
Speaker 2: maybe eventually with a lot of practice.
Speaker 1: Right, it's mastery. We are going to wrap up our
Speaker 1: art talk with some art acquisitions that made headlines over
Speaker 1: the last few months. The Italian government paid almost thirty
Speaker 1: five million dollars for a Caravaggio portrait. The portrait of
Speaker 1: Monsignor Maffeo Barbrini, who would later become Pope Urban the
Speaker 1: eighth had been on loan to the Palazzo Barberini in Rome.
Speaker 1: Now it is.
Speaker 2: Part of the permanent collection at the Palazzo. The National
Speaker 2: Gallery of Arts in Washington, d C. Has acquired Mary
Speaker 2: Magdalen in Ecstasy by past podcast subject Artemisia Gentileski. This
Speaker 2: is the first Gentileeskie painting in the museum's collection and.
Speaker 1: A museum I love desperately. The Dali Museum in Saint Petersburg,
Speaker 1: Florida acquired Salvador Dali's largest painting at auction for two
Speaker 1: hundred ninety three thousand, two hundred forty dollars. This painting
Speaker 1: was a strange landscape created as a stage set for Bacchanal,
Speaker 1: which was a surrealist ballet that premiered at the Metropolitan
Speaker 1: Opera in New York in nineteen thirty nine. It is
Speaker 1: made of thirteen panels and four canvases and measures sixty
Speaker 1: five by one hundred feet. Dali also wrote a libretto
Speaker 1: and designed costumes for this production.
Speaker 2: Now we will get into the edibles and potables, which
Speaker 2: are always one of my favorites. The four corners potato
Speaker 2: is a small, nutritionally very dense potato that people in
Speaker 2: southwestern North America have been growing for millennia.
Speaker 1: Today it is.
Speaker 2: Still eaten and used for spiritual and medicinal purposes. Research
Speaker 2: published in the journal plus one has looked at its
Speaker 2: history and early domestication by both examining more than four
Speaker 2: hundred stone tools and by interviewing indigenous elders.
Speaker 1: Those tools came from fourteen archaeological sites beyond the Four
Speaker 1: Corners Potatoes natural range. The team looked at large slabs
Speaker 1: and handheld stones used for grinding and found microscopic potato
Speaker 1: starch granules on tools from nine of the fourteen sites.
Speaker 1: Four of the site showed consistent use of the potato
Speaker 1: stretching as far back as ten t thousand years ago.
Speaker 2: Hope and Denay elders who were interviewed nearly all had
Speaker 2: knowledge of this potato and Denay women, in particular, new
Speaker 2: techniques on how to process and prepare them to make
Speaker 2: them less bitter. Denay doctoral candidate Cynthia Wilson, who's a
Speaker 2: co author of this study, was quoted as saying, quote
Speaker 2: the mobility of indigenous food ways was driven by kinship
Speaker 2: based practices across the landscape. Indigenous knowledge holders, especially matrilineal women,
Speaker 2: held onto these seedlings and stories across generations to sustain
Speaker 2: ties to ancestral land and food ways. This research combines
Speaker 2: with other work to suggest the Indigenous people in the
Speaker 2: American Southwest domesticated the Four Corners potato. This contradicts earlier
Speaker 2: assumptions that the domesticated crops grown in the Southwest were
Speaker 2: not domesticated there, but were domesticated in America and then
Speaker 2: introduced from there. This new information also augments other research
Speaker 2: and suggests that now perhaps agave, barley, and amaranths were
Speaker 2: all cultivated in North America. Researchers working at sites in
Speaker 2: what's now Ukraine have used the preserved proteins and dental
Speaker 2: calculus to confirm that Iron age Scythians consumed milk from
Speaker 2: horses as well as from cattle, sheep, and goats. There
Speaker 2: are historical accounts describing Scythians as consuming mayre's milk, but
Speaker 2: this is the first physical evidence of that. Only one
Speaker 2: of the twenty eight individuals in the study showed evidence
Speaker 2: of consuming horse milk, so it doesn't seem like something
Speaker 2: that was common, at least among this particular group of people.
Speaker 2: It is possible that the proteins in horse milk did
Speaker 2: not survive as well in the dental calculus as proteins.
Speaker 1: From the milk of other animals. Since the Scythians are
Speaker 1: becoming understood as a culturally and ethnically diverse group rather
Speaker 1: than more of a homogeneous culture. It is possible that
Speaker 1: there were also cultural differences involved, or there could have
Speaker 1: been cultural factors involved, and who was caring for the
Speaker 1: horses and thus who was consuming horse milk.
Speaker 2: Someone at an estate sale in Minnesota found a silver
Speaker 2: pap boat and recognized it as the work of nineteenth
Speaker 2: century silversmith Peter Benson, who was born in Saint Croix
Speaker 2: and later moved to Philadelphia. He was one of the
Speaker 2: first known silversmiths of African descent in the United States.
Speaker 2: Fewer than thirty pieces made by Benson are known to
Speaker 2: have survived until today, and they are identifiable through a
Speaker 2: hallmark which he used to see their pee Benson or
Speaker 2: as his initials. So a pap boat is a little
Speaker 2: like a gravy boat, but it was used to feed
Speaker 2: a thin porridge or pap to babies and too sick people.
Speaker 1: This pap boat was purchased at the estate sale for
Speaker 1: forty dollars and then it was sold at auction for
Speaker 1: twenty four thousand dollars. The buyer was reportedly a prominent
Speaker 1: American institution, but that institution has not been named.
Speaker 2: Research published in the journal plus one has used a
Speaker 2: combination of techniques to look at the residues left on
Speaker 2: pottery dating back to the third through the sixth millennium BCE.
Speaker 2: We talk about food residues on pottery fairly often on
Speaker 2: unearthed but often the focus is on fatty residues, and
Speaker 2: that largely limits the results to residues that came from animals.
Speaker 2: This research used a combination of techniques, including microscopic examination
Speaker 2: and chemical analysis to try to instead look for plant residues.
Speaker 2: This involved fifty eight pieces of pottery from thirteen archaeological
Speaker 2: sites across northern and eastern US. The team found tissue
Speaker 2: samples from an assortment of plants, including grasses, berries, leaves,
Speaker 2: and seeds. Often there were animal remains as well, most
Speaker 2: often fish or some other kind of seafood. The combination
Speaker 2: of ingredients seemed to vary, but suggested that people had
Speaker 2: already developed complex culinary traditions by this point.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think sometimes people imagine people from thousands and thousands
Speaker 2: of years ago just like spearing a fish on a
Speaker 2: stick and charring it over a fire. This was more
Speaker 2: nuanced than that.
Speaker 1: They were very picky about their plating.
Speaker 2: Grounds keeper working on a golf course in England noticed
Speaker 2: a sinkhole that had turned out to be a brick
Speaker 2: wine cellar that was abandoned more than one hundred years ago.
Speaker 2: This wine cellar probably belonged to a manner in the
Speaker 2: area that was torn down at the end of the
Speaker 2: nineteenth century. The cellar so was full of wine and
Speaker 2: port models which were now empty. I was unclear on
Speaker 2: whether they were empty when the wine cellar was abandoned,
Speaker 2: or whether their corks degraded at what was inside evaporated
Speaker 2: or spilled, or what exactly. For now, though, the cellar
Speaker 2: has been sealed up while the staff at the golf
Speaker 2: course figure out what they should do about it make.
Speaker 1: It a gaming room. Speaking of wine, research published in
Speaker 1: the journal Nature has looked at four thousand years of
Speaker 1: viticulture in France. This has involved extracting DNA from forty
Speaker 1: nine grape seeds found at various archaeological sites. The oldest
Speaker 1: came from wild grape vines, but what is being described
Speaker 1: as essentially identical to pino noir grapes that are grown today.
Speaker 1: That one came from a toilet at a fifteenth century
Speaker 1: hospital at Valenciennes in northern France. This suggests that people
Speaker 1: have been propagating grapes through cloning for more than five
Speaker 1: hundred years. Researchers have studied maize or corn samples in
Speaker 1: thirty five tombs from the Chincha Valley and they found
Speaker 1: that the samples had exceptionally high levels of nitrogen. There
Speaker 1: was a lot more nitrogen in them than could have
Speaker 1: just come from the soil in the area. So this
Speaker 1: suggests that the Chincha Kingdom, which lived in what's now
Speaker 1: Peru before the development of the Inca Empire, fertilized its crops,
Speaker 1: probably with seabird guatto that was harvested from the Chincha Islands.
Speaker 1: Researchers believe this use of fertilizer was a factor in
Speaker 1: how this kingdom became one of the wealthiest and most
Speaker 1: powerful societies in their era. Basically, they had crops that
Speaker 1: had a lot better yield than some of their neighbors
Speaker 1: as part of how they became wealthy. Hey, hey, it's
Speaker 1: almost time for everybody's favorite shipwrecks. The first going to
Speaker 1: pause and have a sponsor break.
Speaker 2: We will close out this installment of Unearthed with some shipwrecks.
Speaker 2: Divers have been exploring the site of a Roman shipwreck
Speaker 2: on the bottom of Lake Nukatel in Switzerland. This ship
Speaker 2: sank roughly two thousand years ago and the vessel itself
Speaker 2: has decayed, but the cargo it was carrying is mostly intact.
Speaker 2: This was a merchant vessel and it was carrying hundreds
Speaker 2: of pieces of ceramic tableware and m fora that were
Speaker 2: carrying Spanish olive oil. There were also wheels, harnesses and
Speaker 2: swords that may have been connected to the vessel, possibly
Speaker 2: having guards or a military escort on board. This wreck
Speaker 2: is being described as unique among inland shipwrecks, and its
Speaker 2: cargo is expected to be exhibited in a museum once
Speaker 2: it's recovered.
Speaker 1: Maritime archaeologists from the Viking Ship Museum in Denmark have
Speaker 1: announced the discovery of the world's largest cog in the
Speaker 1: Strait between Denmark and Sweden. The cog was a type
Speaker 1: of cargo ship that was developed in the late twelfth
Speaker 1: century and it really revolutionized maritime trade, allowing small crews
Speaker 1: of sailors to handle ships that had an enormous carrying
Speaker 1: capacity relatively speaking. This one was probably built around fourteen ten,
Speaker 1: based on the tree rings in its timbers, and it
Speaker 1: had a capacity of about three hundred tons. It was
Speaker 1: made from timber that came from what's now Poland and
Speaker 1: the Netherlands, with large timbers being shipped to the Netherlands
Speaker 1: where the vessel was built. This wreck has also provided
Speaker 1: direct evidence that some cogs had high castles at the
Speaker 1: bow and the stern. These had been documented through things
Speaker 1: like illustrations and written to descriptions of cogs, but this
Speaker 1: is the first time that these structures have survived in
Speaker 1: an actual wreck. Often because of the conditions in this
Speaker 1: part of the world, all that remains of the vessel
Speaker 1: by the time it's discovered underwater is just the bottom.
Speaker 1: If that this wreck is also just very well preserved,
Speaker 1: with parts of its riggings still intact. Part of the
Speaker 1: galley has also survived, and items found on board include
Speaker 1: kitchen items like bronze pots, tablewear and bowls, as well
Speaker 1: as sailors personal items like shoes and combs, and even
Speaker 1: rosary beads. But no cargo has been found with this wreck.
Speaker 2: It is possible that it was carrying goods in barrels
Speaker 2: and that those barrels may have floated away after the
Speaker 2: ship sank. Denmark's Viking Ship Museum has also announced the
Speaker 2: discovery of the wreck of the Danibroge, which was sunk
Speaker 2: by the British Navy during the Battle of Copenhagen in
Speaker 2: eighteen oh one. This this was the flagship of the
Speaker 2: Danish Norwegian fleet, and it caught fire and exploded after
Speaker 2: the British Navy struck it.
Speaker 1: This announcement was made on the two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: fifth anniversary of the battle, which was April second, So
Speaker 1: technically this was a second quarter find, but just on
Speaker 1: the edge. But both this and the Cog were found
Speaker 1: and studied as part of advanced work ahead of construction
Speaker 1: of an artificial island that will both act as a
Speaker 1: new housing district and worked to mitigate the threat of
Speaker 1: sea level rise.
Speaker 2: The articles that I was reading about both of these
Speaker 2: were written in English, but they were obviously like published
Speaker 2: four people in Denmark and surrounding areas, and so they
Speaker 2: didn't really specify what was going on with this construction site.
Speaker 2: And I kept being like, okay, but these are shipwrecks.
Speaker 2: How are the shipwrecks a construction site? And the answer
Speaker 2: is building an island?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 2: Which sounds fascinating. Maritime archaeologists have published findings from the
Speaker 2: excavations of a shipwreck off the coast of Singapore. The
Speaker 2: excavations were carried out in sort of phases between twenty
Speaker 2: sixteen and twenty nineteen. They recovered three point five tons
Speaker 2: of broken ceramic and a few intact ceramic pieces. This
Speaker 2: wreck is being described as the first ancient shipwreck ever
Speaker 2: found in Singapore waters, and the cargo dates back to
Speaker 2: the fourteenth century Yon Dynasty.
Speaker 1: Much of this cargo was blue and white ceramic. There
Speaker 1: was more of this style of ceramic that has been
Speaker 1: found in any other shipwreck in the world. There were
Speaker 1: also a number of other styles of ceramic represented. The
Speaker 1: ship's hull has not survived, but it's believed to have
Speaker 1: been a Chinese junk that was bound for Temasek, which
Speaker 1: was the port that preceded the establishment of modern Singapore.
Speaker 2: The wreck of the Lac LaBelle has been found on
Speaker 2: the floor of Lake Michigan, almost exactly one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty years after it disappeared in a storm that was
Speaker 2: in seventeen eighty two, and a shipwreck hunter spotted it
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty two. But the find of the wreck
Speaker 2: was not announced until earlier this year because its discoverer
Speaker 2: wanted to create a three D model of the wreckage.
Speaker 2: Four other people learned where it was.
Speaker 1: The Lach LaBelle was sailing from Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Grand Haven, Michigan,
Speaker 1: carrying both passengers and cargo, and it started to leak
Speaker 1: about two hours into the trip across the lake. The
Speaker 1: ship turned back to Milwaukee but foundered in the stormy weather.
Speaker 1: The passengers were moved to lifeboats before the ship sank,
Speaker 1: although eight people drowned when one of the lifeboats capsized.
Speaker 2: Storms that struck the UK in late January may have
Speaker 2: exposed the timbers of a seventeenth century shipwreck. The ship
Speaker 2: sank off the coast of southern England and it made
Speaker 2: the Fame, which was a Dutch merchant vessel that sank
Speaker 2: in sixteen thirty one. Other parts of this wreck had
Speaker 2: already been discovered underwater in the Swash Channel, and there
Speaker 2: had been some research work at that wreck site. But
Speaker 2: these timbers that the storm exposed on the beach might
Speaker 2: be part of the hull that was missing people could
Speaker 2: not find when they did that earlier work. The plan
Speaker 2: is to take these timbers to a conservation lab and
Speaker 2: take some samples from it to compare what they found
Speaker 2: on the beach with what they found underwater to see
Speaker 2: if it matches.
Speaker 1: And finally, we have talked about the Parthenon marbles on
Speaker 1: the show before. In March, it was announced that last
Speaker 1: year the Greek Ministry of Culture reclaimed a piece of
Speaker 1: the Parthenon that had been removed by Lord Elgin to
Speaker 1: be taken to the UK. There recovered pieces did not
Speaker 1: come straight from England, though it came from the wreck
Speaker 1: of elginship Mentor, which sank in eighteen oh two. This
Speaker 1: is a small piece of marble that is believed to
Speaker 1: have been part of a beam or a roof of
Speaker 1: the Parthenon. Seventeen crates of marbles were recovered from the
Speaker 1: shipwreck by Elgin Secretary, So most of the Greek Ministry
Speaker 1: of Culture's discoveries of the site have been remnants of
Speaker 1: the ship itself and items like everyday pottery.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I appreciated how the recovery of this tiny piece
Speaker 2: of marble was hailed as like a giant success because
Speaker 2: of all that context around the Parthenon marbles and the shipwreck.
Speaker 2: That's it for this installment of Unearthed, with the exception
Speaker 2: of some listener mail, I have a listener mail from Whitney.
Speaker 2: Whitney wrote, Hi, there, my family and I recently went
Speaker 2: to the Titanic exhibit at the Oregon Museum of Science
Speaker 2: and Industry in Portland, and thanks to your wonderful podcast,
Speaker 2: I was able to impress one of the people working
Speaker 2: at the exhibit. While walking around looking at the artifacts,
Speaker 2: a museum employee came up to me with a replica
Speaker 2: of a life jacket that was have been on the
Speaker 2: Titanic and asked me if I wanted to wear it.
Speaker 2: I of course said yes, and the employee mentioned how
Speaker 2: the life jacket was heavier than the ones we use nowadays.
Speaker 2: When he asked me what I thought the life jacket
Speaker 2: was made out of, without hesitation, I said cork. I
Speaker 2: don't remember the specific podcast episode or really much of
Speaker 2: the details, but I remember you guys covering a story
Speaker 2: of a shipwreck that happened near the shore. There weren't
Speaker 2: enough lifejackets, so people on board fought each other to
Speaker 2: get one, but due to the life jackets being old
Speaker 2: and made of cork and I think having previously been used,
Speaker 2: the unfortunate individuals who had a lifejacket ended up sinking
Speaker 2: and drowning instead of floating and slafe fleet making it
Speaker 2: to shore. When I correctly answered the question, the museum
Speaker 2: employee did a double take and told me I was
Speaker 2: the only person that day to have correctly answered the question.
Speaker 2: Although I must admit it was still pretty early in
Speaker 2: the day and I only knew the answer because of
Speaker 2: you two. It was a small thing but really made
Speaker 2: my day. I know that you guys love animals, so
Speaker 2: I've also included a picture of my mom's favorite child,
Speaker 2: little Bear. Little Bear was very upset about not getting
Speaker 2: to go to the museum. Thanks so much for all
Speaker 2: you do. I love learning and I have been a
Speaker 2: big fan of your podcast for years. Sincerely, Whitney, we
Speaker 2: have a very cute little white, white scruffy dogs, little Bear.
Speaker 2: I went to refresh my memory about which episode that
Speaker 2: was about the life jackets made of cork. I have
Speaker 2: already forgotten which episode it was, and that was like
Speaker 2: two hours ago that I went and looked it up.
Speaker 2: But yeah, the issue was that some of the life jackets.
Speaker 2: The cover on the life jacket had deteriorated and let
Speaker 2: water get in some of them, it was that the
Speaker 2: cork had deteriorated. Yeah, so when water permeated through the
Speaker 2: life jacket, like the material on the outside, it just
Speaker 2: soaked into the cork and became heavy, which is terrible. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was not no longer buoyant cork, just porous cork. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure. There was also a different shipwreck episode
Speaker 2: where the life jackets had been standardized by weight. There
Speaker 2: was a weight requirement for how much cork, and so
Speaker 2: some unscrupulous life jacket manufacturers had supplemented the weight of
Speaker 2: their life jackets with iron bars, which're not buoyant. Uh,
Speaker 2: not even not even So thank you so much for
Speaker 2: the email. I love to feel smart.
Speaker 1: What's that like? I don't know.
Speaker 2: Lately, lately I feel more like I'm sort of struggling.
Speaker 2: I remember being at the Bookbinders Museum in San Francisco
Speaker 2: and the docent asked me what I thought the apprentices
Speaker 2: had used to clean the things that they were using,
Speaker 2: and I was like, I don't know, probably urine, and
Speaker 2: that was right, and I felt very smart. So I
Speaker 2: feel a kinship with Whitney with this email. If you
Speaker 2: would like to send us a note, we are at
Speaker 2: History Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com. If you want to
Speaker 2: see our show notes, which include so many articles that
Speaker 2: went into Unearthed, they are at our website of Missed
Speaker 2: Inhistory dot com, and you can subscribe to our show
Speaker 2: on the iHeartRadio app and wherever else you'd like to
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