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Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is

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Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,

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Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,

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Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet

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Speaker 1: of Curiosities. The death of any creature is a tragedy,

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Speaker 1: from a beloved family member to the smallest insect. Even

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Speaker 1: when nature takes its course and a lion devours a gazelle,

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Speaker 1: it's still hard to watch such a loss of life,

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Speaker 1: no matter how common it may be for humans. That

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Speaker 1: loss is commemorated in some kind of ritual burial. Some

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Speaker 1: Tibetan Buddhists, for example, leave their dead outside for birds

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Speaker 1: and other animals to eat. It's an act known as

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Speaker 1: a sky burial, and it's meant to acknowledge the circle

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Speaker 1: of life as the body is returned to nature. In

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Speaker 1: South Korea, many people have their deceased loved ones cremated

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Speaker 1: and turned into beautiful beads in colors like blue, green, pink,

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Speaker 1: and black. The beads are then stored and displayed in

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Speaker 1: glass containers or dishes. It's a way to honor those

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Speaker 1: who were lost in a colorful and uplifting way. In

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Speaker 1: eighteen thirty six Scotland, however, a different kind of burial

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Speaker 1: right was discovered. To this day, no one knows exactly

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Speaker 1: what it meant or who started it. All we know

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Speaker 1: is that it took nimble fingers. During the summer of

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Speaker 1: that year of eighteen sixty three, several boys were climbing

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Speaker 1: a hill known as Arthur's Seat. Now Arthur's Seat was

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Speaker 1: actually an ancient volcano that was part of a hill

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Speaker 1: cluster east of the city. Climbed to the top of

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Speaker 1: Arthur's Seat today and you can look out over the

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Speaker 1: bubolic green pastures leading towards the modern buildings and homes

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Speaker 1: of Edinburgh. But in eighteen thirty six there was more

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Speaker 1: countryside to explore, and the boys were out hunting rabbits.

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Speaker 1: During their escapade, they came to a cave, the entrance

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Speaker 1: to which was blocked by several sheets of slate. It

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Speaker 1: took some effort, but they were able to remove the

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Speaker 1: obstruction and peer inside. They found seventeen coffins arranged in

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Speaker 1: three rows. The first two rows contained eight coffins each

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Speaker 1: while the third row only had one. The coffins were

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Speaker 1: removed and opened. Inside were bodies in varying states of decay,

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Speaker 1: some wrapped in cloth, others dressed in handmade clothes. No

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Speaker 1: one knew who placed them there, and even after news

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Speaker 1: reports were published weeks after the discovery, nobody claimed responsibility.

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Speaker 1: According to an article in The Scotsman on July six,

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Speaker 1: eighteen thirty six, it was believed that one person had

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Speaker 1: been behind the coffin's presence in the cave, and that

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Speaker 1: they had been placed there over a number of years.

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Speaker 1: The wood of the coffins in the first row had

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Speaker 1: rotted away considerably the last often, though the one by

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Speaker 1: itself in the third row was much newer and couldn't

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Speaker 1: have been older than a few days. But what really

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Speaker 1: puzzled the locals was how small they were. These weren't

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Speaker 1: children's coffins. They were described in the press as Lilliputian,

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Speaker 1: measuring only three point seven inches long, and the bodies

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Speaker 1: inside were actually wooden figurines, in other words, dolls. Once

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Speaker 1: word got out, rumors began to spread about what the

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Speaker 1: coffins had been used for. The Scotsman reported that they

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Speaker 1: had been created by witches as part of their spells.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't completely unfounded either, arthur Seed had been a

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Speaker 1: hot bit of witchy activity during the sixteenth century, complete

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Speaker 1: with hasty accusations and even hastier burnings. Another theory was

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Speaker 1: that the figures had been effigies of people who had

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Speaker 1: died far from Edinburgh, a common practice in Saxony, who

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Speaker 1: had made and entombed them, however, remained a mystery. Despite

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Speaker 1: the healthy amount of speculation as to the origins of

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Speaker 1: the tiny coffins, the true was nowhere to be found

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Speaker 1: until another theory cropped up one hundred and fifty years later.

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Speaker 1: But during the eighteen hundreds, Edinburgh, like many parts of Europe,

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Speaker 1: were plagued by a disgusting and disrespectful practice, grave robbing.

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Speaker 1: Medical students in need of corpses often utilized less than

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Speaker 1: legal ways of obtaining bodies for study, and in eighteen

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Speaker 1: two men found a great way to put some money

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Speaker 1: in their pockets by helping students and teachers alike. Their

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Speaker 1: names were William Burke and William Hair. Hair ran a

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Speaker 1: boarding house where one of his guests died unexpectedly. He

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Speaker 1: sold the body to a doctor, Robert Knox for seven

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Speaker 1: pounds ten shillings. Seeing a new business opportunity before them,

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Speaker 1: Hair and Burke started selling the corpses of the people

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Speaker 1: who died at the boarding house to Knox, who used

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Speaker 1: them in his anatomy class. There was just one problem.

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Speaker 1: Those guests weren't dying on their own. The two men

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Speaker 1: had to help nature along. Over the course of ten months,

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Speaker 1: bur can here were believed to have killed sixteen lodgers,

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Speaker 1: people who had been traveling alone with little or no

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Speaker 1: family to miss them. They were finally caught in eighteen

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Speaker 1: twenty eight and prosecuted for their crimes. In the nineteen nineties,

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Speaker 1: Samuel Menaphee of the University of Virginia and Alan Simpson

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Speaker 1: of Edinburgh University proposed that the seventeen coffins represented Burke

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Speaker 1: and Hair's victims, the sixteen they murdered, plus the first

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Speaker 1: victim who had died of natural causes. Unfortunately, every theory

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Speaker 1: has proven to be nothing more than that a theory.

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Speaker 1: There is no way to know for sure who made

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Speaker 1: the dolls, their clothes, or the coffins in which they

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Speaker 1: were placed. Today only eight coffins survive and are on

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Speaker 1: display at the National Museum Scotland, but the story doesn't

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Speaker 1: end there. In two thousand fourteen, the museum received a package.

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Speaker 1: Inside was a tiny coffin with a wooden doll inside it,

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Speaker 1: just like all the others. Included was a note with

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Speaker 1: the number eight team written out in Roman numerals across

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Speaker 1: the top. Below that the words to the National Museum

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Speaker 1: of Scotland a gift for caring for our nation's treasures,

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Speaker 1: followed by a passage from Robert Louis Stevenson's short story

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Speaker 1: The Body Snatcher, which had been based on Burkenhair's exploits.

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Speaker 1: The museum had no clue who had sent it, and

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Speaker 1: there was no return address. From England's Buckingham Palace to Versailles.

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Speaker 1: In France, royal palaces were more than just living quarters

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Speaker 1: for the country's rich and powerful. They hosted leaders in

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Speaker 1: other countries, and they turned into hubs of government activity. Versaiah,

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Speaker 1: for example, became France's de facto capital after Louis the

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Speaker 1: fourteenth began conducting official business there. But one palace stood

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Speaker 1: out above the rest. It was the epitome of sophistication

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Speaker 1: and decadence for almost seven hundred years, and it's also

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Speaker 1: served as the seat of Brussels government for just as long,

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Speaker 1: and yet most people today don't even know it existed.

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Speaker 1: The Palace of caude Bear started life as a castle

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Speaker 1: built around the year eleven hundred by the counts of

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Speaker 1: Brussels and lou ven It was constructed out of the

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Speaker 1: cow de Bear, meaning cold hill in Dutch. By putting

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Speaker 1: the castle on the tallest hill in Brussels, there was

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Speaker 1: less of a risk of flooding from nearby rivers, and

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Speaker 1: it literally elevated the counts above the rest of the city.

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Speaker 1: Over time, territories changed, as did those who ruled over them.

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Speaker 1: In eleven eighty three, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa

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Speaker 1: created the Duchy of Brabant and a great, big wall

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Speaker 1: was erected around Brussels. The Duke of Brabant then moved

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Speaker 1: the seat of the court from nearby Louven two Brussels,

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Speaker 1: specifically to Caudebart Castle. Because it had been built as

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Speaker 1: a castle instead of a palace. The structure it was

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Speaker 1: fortified and served as a defensive military stronghold. In thirteen

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Speaker 1: fifty six, Count Louis the second of Flanders breached the

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Speaker 1: city's protective walls and occupied Brussels, but as forces were

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Speaker 1: pushed outs and new walls were constructed after they left,

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Speaker 1: the castle had served its purpose, but that wasn't the

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Speaker 1: end of its usefulness. Since it was no longer needed

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Speaker 1: for defense, it was slowly converted into a palatial home

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Speaker 1: and entertainment venue for visiting dignitaries. The whole property was

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Speaker 1: expanded over the next few hundred years, and new additions

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Speaker 1: were constructed. The main building grew in size, a gallery

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Speaker 1: was installed to display various artworks and statues, and a

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Speaker 1: massive banquet hall was built. Charles the fifth, the Duke

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Speaker 1: of Burgundy, had a Gothic chapel installed during the sixteenth century.

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Speaker 1: There as well, powerful elites began to build their own

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Speaker 1: homes nearby, just so they could be close to the action.

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Speaker 1: Counter Bear Palace was suddenly the new hot destination for

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Speaker 1: princes and diplomats from all over France, Germany and the Netherlands.

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Speaker 1: In more ways than one, the palace was no stranger

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Speaker 1: to disaster. For example, it's roof was damaged badly by

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Speaker 1: a fire in sixteen seventy nine, but on February three

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Speaker 1: of seventeen thirty one, things got out of control. Arch

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Speaker 1: Duchess Maria Elizabeth of Austria, sister to Emperor Charles the sixth,

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Speaker 1: was living at Calderbart and had gone to bed for

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Speaker 1: the night for some reason, though she never put out

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Speaker 1: the candles in her room, a fire started that quickly

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Speaker 1: engulfed the rest of the palace. Emergency workers were unable

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Speaker 1: to get to the affected rooms in time, though since

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Speaker 1: they did not have the authority to enter the private

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Speaker 1: apartments inside, and the high winter winds only helped spread

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Speaker 1: the fire even more, it didn't take long for the

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Speaker 1: palace to burn down. Much of the art was lost,

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Speaker 1: as were important court documents. The arch Duchess was saved

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Speaker 1: thanks to the quick actions of one firefighter who decided

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Speaker 1: to break protocol and rush inside to get her. Of

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Speaker 1: all the structures on the property, only the chapel and

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Speaker 1: the banquet hall still stood once the flames had been

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Speaker 1: put out, but when all was said and done, the

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Speaker 1: fire was officially blamed on the kitchen staff instead of

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Speaker 1: the Archduchess, due to the feared backlash of accusing her

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Speaker 1: of such thoughtlessness. A public square was built atop the

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Speaker 1: ruins in seventeen seventy five, and if you didn't know

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Speaker 1: any better, you'd think that it had been there forever.

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Speaker 1: There were no remnants of the old palace left behind.

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Speaker 1: At street level, the chapel and the walls of the

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Speaker 1: banquet hall were all torn down, but below the feet

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Speaker 1: of those million around the square, the palace wasn't truly gone.

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Speaker 1: The buildings that occupy the space today, such as the

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Speaker 1: Center for Fine Arts and the Musical Instruments Museum, sit

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Speaker 1: directly on top of the stone passageways and brick walls

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Speaker 1: of the original palace, which were excavated over twenty five

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Speaker 1: years starting in the nineteen eighties. Brick walls dating back

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Speaker 1: to the fifteenth century are still intact. The vaulted archways

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Speaker 1: that once sat below the chapel are illuminated to day

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Speaker 1: by modern lightbulbs instead of wax candles. Statues are encased

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Speaker 1: in protective glass, and the crumbling remains of a staircase

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Speaker 1: to nowhere can be seen behind a chain rope. Underneath

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Speaker 1: this part of the city there are great, big rooms

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Speaker 1: with cobblestone floors that take visitors back in time hundreds

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Speaker 1: of years. There may even be more of the original

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Speaker 1: palace that hasn't yet been found. But for now, visitors

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Speaker 1: can still get a unique glimpse into Brussels past. All

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Speaker 1: they have to do is peel back the surface and

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Speaker 1: look down. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of

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Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast

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Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky

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Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award

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Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,

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Speaker 1: and television show, and you can learn all about it

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Speaker 1: over at the World of Lore dot com. And until

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Speaker 1: next time, stay curious. Yeah h