1
00:00:04,080 --> 00:00:07,480
Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of

2
00:00:07,480 --> 00:00:13,840
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is

3
00:00:13,960 --> 00:00:17,960
Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,

4
00:00:18,280 --> 00:00:21,640
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,

5
00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:27,600
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet

6
00:00:27,840 --> 00:00:39,800
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. The treasure trove was enormous. It's a recent

7
00:00:39,840 --> 00:00:43,280
Speaker 1: discovery in northwest Saudi Arabia. In fact, just this summer,

8
00:00:43,360 --> 00:00:46,959
Speaker 1: archaeologists published their findings after years of work. What they

9
00:00:47,000 --> 00:00:51,000
Speaker 1: found stunned them. A massive stockpile deep underground in the

10
00:00:51,080 --> 00:00:54,640
Speaker 1: natural tunnel, formed by a hollow lava tube, and the

11
00:00:54,680 --> 00:00:59,680
Speaker 1: horde inside hundreds of thousands of treasures. It's a find

12
00:00:59,720 --> 00:01:02,600
Speaker 1: that overshadows the usual hordes that are turned up these

13
00:01:02,680 --> 00:01:05,760
Speaker 1: days by folks with metal detectors and a keen sense

14
00:01:05,800 --> 00:01:09,720
Speaker 1: of ancient burial sites. For instance, someone recently set the

15
00:01:09,760 --> 00:01:13,199
Speaker 1: new record for finding the largest Old English treasure hoard.

16
00:01:13,360 --> 00:01:16,320
Speaker 1: As important as their discovery is, it was just one

17
00:01:16,360 --> 00:01:19,720
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty one gold coins and four more odd

18
00:01:19,760 --> 00:01:24,440
Speaker 1: gold objects. That discovery outshines the famous Sutton Who burial ship,

19
00:01:24,520 --> 00:01:27,920
Speaker 1: which had only offered up thirty seven coins to archaeologists.

20
00:01:28,319 --> 00:01:31,760
Speaker 1: By comparison, the massive scale of the lava tube treasure

21
00:01:31,840 --> 00:01:34,560
Speaker 1: surpasses it all by far. We can start to make

22
00:01:34,600 --> 00:01:36,520
Speaker 1: sense of that, though, when we realized just how long

23
00:01:36,560 --> 00:01:39,480
Speaker 1: it took the hoarders to work their stockpile. It was

24
00:01:39,520 --> 00:01:43,479
Speaker 1: the work of generations, you see. Once archaeologists started dating

25
00:01:43,520 --> 00:01:45,880
Speaker 1: the objects the unearthed from the horde, they found that

26
00:01:45,920 --> 00:01:48,920
Speaker 1: the oldest was placed there nearly seven thousand years ago.

27
00:01:49,480 --> 00:01:52,200
Speaker 1: In other places they might not have survived. It was

28
00:01:52,240 --> 00:01:55,640
Speaker 1: the extremely dry conditions of the lava tube that preserved them.

29
00:01:56,040 --> 00:01:59,160
Speaker 1: But they're not just old. The most recent items date

30
00:01:59,200 --> 00:02:02,400
Speaker 1: to about the middle sixteen hundreds. That means that to

31
00:02:02,600 --> 00:02:06,000
Speaker 1: create this underground collection in the darkness of the lava tube,

32
00:02:06,160 --> 00:02:08,560
Speaker 1: it wasn't just the work of generations, but the work

33
00:02:08,600 --> 00:02:11,680
Speaker 1: of millennia. Not that it's a treasure that would attract

34
00:02:11,720 --> 00:02:14,880
Speaker 1: anyone though, because this is slightly unusual for a horde.

35
00:02:15,160 --> 00:02:18,200
Speaker 1: It wasn't gold or coins, or even an ancient ship.

36
00:02:18,680 --> 00:02:22,440
Speaker 1: It was a burial mound though. That's right. The collection

37
00:02:22,560 --> 00:02:26,760
Speaker 1: was a horde of bones. They were densely packed into

38
00:02:26,800 --> 00:02:30,160
Speaker 1: the lava tube, stretching away into the darkness, and as

39
00:02:30,200 --> 00:02:33,160
Speaker 1: the researchers started to pull them out, test their ages,

40
00:02:33,280 --> 00:02:36,320
Speaker 1: catalog them, and take notes, they began to see that

41
00:02:36,360 --> 00:02:40,120
Speaker 1: this bone horde contained pieces from over fourteen different species

42
00:02:40,520 --> 00:02:44,680
Speaker 1: and included the bones of cows, camels, horses, rodents, and

43
00:02:44,760 --> 00:02:48,079
Speaker 1: a lot more. The study got really serious though, when

44
00:02:48,080 --> 00:02:51,559
Speaker 1: they checked the bones from markings. Sure they found cuts,

45
00:02:51,639 --> 00:02:54,720
Speaker 1: and maybe that's what you'd expect, but they also found

46
00:02:54,760 --> 00:02:58,519
Speaker 1: the marks of teeth. These bones had been chewed, some

47
00:02:58,600 --> 00:03:01,760
Speaker 1: were even partially digect trusted. That tells us that these

48
00:03:01,800 --> 00:03:05,040
Speaker 1: bones weren't just a burial mound for the dead. And

49
00:03:05,200 --> 00:03:07,760
Speaker 1: here's the thing, it wasn't like these were just the

50
00:03:07,800 --> 00:03:11,079
Speaker 1: bones of cows and goats. Know what the researchers found

51
00:03:11,120 --> 00:03:14,800
Speaker 1: gave them a chill because some of the bones were human.

52
00:03:15,919 --> 00:03:18,560
Speaker 1: In fact, it's human skull fragments that were found among

53
00:03:18,600 --> 00:03:22,040
Speaker 1: the other nod bones. But what archaeologists guess about these

54
00:03:22,040 --> 00:03:25,760
Speaker 1: skulls is even more gruesome than that. If we go

55
00:03:25,840 --> 00:03:28,600
Speaker 1: by their best guests, they think these skulls were scavenged

56
00:03:28,720 --> 00:03:31,760
Speaker 1: from graves after the bodies of the dead were buried.

57
00:03:32,040 --> 00:03:34,920
Speaker 1: Someone from the clan of hoarders came through sniff them

58
00:03:34,920 --> 00:03:38,119
Speaker 1: out and dug them up. Then they lugged them back

59
00:03:38,160 --> 00:03:40,320
Speaker 1: to the lava tunnel, where they added them to a

60
00:03:40,360 --> 00:03:43,360
Speaker 1: treasure trove. After they gave those skulls a good chew,

61
00:03:43,440 --> 00:03:46,680
Speaker 1: of course, and one of the archaeologists even suggested that

62
00:03:46,720 --> 00:03:49,200
Speaker 1: these skull caps with tooth marks are the only thing

63
00:03:49,280 --> 00:03:52,960
Speaker 1: to survive because the hoarders chewed the rest to splinters.

64
00:03:53,520 --> 00:03:57,120
Speaker 1: The pieces of skull candy only survived because they didn't

65
00:03:57,240 --> 00:04:00,640
Speaker 1: taste quite as good. All of that would be truly

66
00:04:00,680 --> 00:04:03,680
Speaker 1: horrifying if the family packing the lava two with bones

67
00:04:03,720 --> 00:04:07,040
Speaker 1: for seven thousand years was human, But as you may

68
00:04:07,080 --> 00:04:10,480
Speaker 1: have guessed by now, this family was something else. No,

69
00:04:10,640 --> 00:04:14,320
Speaker 1: the builders of this massive treasure trove weren't people, but hyenas.

70
00:04:14,760 --> 00:04:18,480
Speaker 1: Striped hyenas. That is, these days they're a threatened species,

71
00:04:18,839 --> 00:04:21,080
Speaker 1: but they used to be a mainstay of the region.

72
00:04:21,600 --> 00:04:24,880
Speaker 1: So breathe a sigh of relief. But to me, the

73
00:04:24,920 --> 00:04:27,279
Speaker 1: fact that it's a family of hyenas passing on the

74
00:04:27,279 --> 00:04:29,800
Speaker 1: work of a major treasure trove from parent to child,

75
00:04:30,480 --> 00:04:34,599
Speaker 1: that makes seven thousand years of stockpiling skeletons all the

76
00:04:34,680 --> 00:04:51,039
Speaker 1: more impressive. By all accounts, he was a nice man.

77
00:04:51,520 --> 00:04:53,839
Speaker 1: There's a lot of history to unpack around Henry the

78
00:04:53,839 --> 00:04:56,280
Speaker 1: First of England, so much that it reads like an

79
00:04:56,279 --> 00:04:59,520
Speaker 1: early draft of Game of Thrones. Henry and his older

80
00:04:59,560 --> 00:05:02,600
Speaker 1: brother's Roberts and William, were born to William the Conqueror.

81
00:05:02,839 --> 00:05:05,880
Speaker 1: Upon their father's death, the older sons were given land

82
00:05:05,880 --> 00:05:08,839
Speaker 1: and power, but Henry was not. He spent much of

83
00:05:08,880 --> 00:05:12,080
Speaker 1: his time conspiring with William against Robert in an attempt

84
00:05:12,080 --> 00:05:15,800
Speaker 1: to rise to power. The brothers fought often Joscelyn for

85
00:05:15,920 --> 00:05:19,479
Speaker 1: land and control. None trusted the other, but both seemed

86
00:05:19,480 --> 00:05:22,719
Speaker 1: to have trusted Henry the least honestly. After reading through

87
00:05:22,720 --> 00:05:25,279
Speaker 1: the events, it's a wonder the brothers didn't kill each other,

88
00:05:25,400 --> 00:05:28,120
Speaker 1: although for a while some historians wondered if one of

89
00:05:28,160 --> 00:05:32,480
Speaker 1: them had succeeded. In early August of eleven hundred, an

90
00:05:32,600 --> 00:05:36,240
Speaker 1: arrow ended King William's life with no male heir. Robert

91
00:05:36,279 --> 00:05:39,039
Speaker 1: and Henry fought bitterly over the kingdom, and in the

92
00:05:39,160 --> 00:05:44,080
Speaker 1: end Henry was hastily crowned king. He settled into the kingdom,

93
00:05:44,240 --> 00:05:47,440
Speaker 1: marrying and having two children with Queen Matilda and countless

94
00:05:47,480 --> 00:05:51,159
Speaker 1: other children with various mistresses. He enjoyed all the riches

95
00:05:51,240 --> 00:05:54,839
Speaker 1: the life of a king offered, including power, women, and food.

96
00:05:55,440 --> 00:05:58,960
Speaker 1: The royals had an appetite for the unusual, including swans

97
00:05:59,000 --> 00:06:02,400
Speaker 1: and peacocks. The king had a fetish for fish. Often

98
00:06:02,440 --> 00:06:05,760
Speaker 1: he overindulged in his favorite lamp rays, a type of

99
00:06:05,800 --> 00:06:09,200
Speaker 1: eel found in Brooks rivers and the sea. Henry was

100
00:06:09,279 --> 00:06:11,080
Speaker 1: so fond of the dish he ate them cooked in

101
00:06:11,120 --> 00:06:14,400
Speaker 1: wine and even in a pie. Unfortunately for him, his

102
00:06:14,480 --> 00:06:19,080
Speaker 1: favorite dish caused considerable digestive upset, despite his doctor's warnings

103
00:06:19,120 --> 00:06:21,640
Speaker 1: to stop eating them. Though the new king believed that

104
00:06:21,800 --> 00:06:24,280
Speaker 1: as the king he was free to do as he wished.

105
00:06:25,240 --> 00:06:28,039
Speaker 1: That mentality went far beyond the dinner table. Though He

106
00:06:28,080 --> 00:06:30,200
Speaker 1: had a man thrown from the top of the castle,

107
00:06:30,279 --> 00:06:34,080
Speaker 1: and he imprisoned his brother. After his second brother, Robert, invaded,

108
00:06:34,279 --> 00:06:37,119
Speaker 1: Henry had him locked away for the remainder of his life.

109
00:06:37,720 --> 00:06:40,480
Speaker 1: His quest for land and power had a king traveling

110
00:06:40,520 --> 00:06:44,560
Speaker 1: extensively to the queen. However, never trusted ships or anything

111
00:06:44,640 --> 00:06:49,000
Speaker 1: from the sea, and stayed behind. Henry ruled harshly. It

112
00:06:49,040 --> 00:06:51,839
Speaker 1: was often quite brutal, which, as you might imagine, didn't

113
00:06:51,960 --> 00:06:55,119
Speaker 1: endear him to the people of England. Neighboring kingdoms weren't

114
00:06:55,160 --> 00:06:57,520
Speaker 1: exactly fond of him either, and though they tried to

115
00:06:57,640 --> 00:07:01,359
Speaker 1: challenge his authority, Henry stayed in pound Her After his

116
00:07:01,400 --> 00:07:04,799
Speaker 1: son drowned in eleven twenty, leaving his succession in peril.

117
00:07:05,040 --> 00:07:08,680
Speaker 1: Henry took a second wife, although they remained childless after that,

118
00:07:09,200 --> 00:07:11,800
Speaker 1: forcing the king to declare his daughter with his first

119
00:07:11,840 --> 00:07:15,360
Speaker 1: wife his heir. He quickly married her off to Geoffrey

120
00:07:15,360 --> 00:07:19,200
Speaker 1: of Anjou. Henry's relationship with his daughter, as you might imagine,

121
00:07:19,280 --> 00:07:22,360
Speaker 1: was rather strained, causing fighting to break out along the

122
00:07:22,360 --> 00:07:25,640
Speaker 1: new couple's borders and her father's, but at least he

123
00:07:25,680 --> 00:07:29,960
Speaker 1: had his health right one late November, when King Henry

124
00:07:30,040 --> 00:07:32,960
Speaker 1: was in his sixties, he arrived in Normandy for some hunting.

125
00:07:33,440 --> 00:07:35,520
Speaker 1: By the end of the trip though he'd fallen ill.

126
00:07:36,000 --> 00:07:38,720
Speaker 1: Days later, it became clear that he wasn't going to

127
00:07:38,760 --> 00:07:42,240
Speaker 1: make it, so he summoned the archbishop along with members

128
00:07:42,240 --> 00:07:45,360
Speaker 1: of the court. They settled his estate and wishes, and

129
00:07:45,400 --> 00:07:48,120
Speaker 1: then he died on December one of eleven thirty five.

130
00:07:48,720 --> 00:07:52,080
Speaker 1: Parts of Henry's internal organs were buried in Normandy and

131
00:07:52,120 --> 00:07:55,440
Speaker 1: his body lay in state for an extended period. Finally,

132
00:07:55,640 --> 00:07:58,440
Speaker 1: he was returned to England and buried on his birthday

133
00:07:58,480 --> 00:08:02,360
Speaker 1: in a ceremony attended by the church and nobles. News

134
00:08:02,400 --> 00:08:05,360
Speaker 1: of the king's death spread quickly, and despite Henry's last

135
00:08:05,360 --> 00:08:08,320
Speaker 1: wishes that his daughter become queen, a civil war known

136
00:08:08,360 --> 00:08:12,840
Speaker 1: as the Anarchy began, lasting eighteen years. The official cause

137
00:08:12,880 --> 00:08:15,440
Speaker 1: of King Henry the first death. It hadn't been a

138
00:08:15,480 --> 00:08:19,600
Speaker 1: hunting accident like William's demise decades before. No, Henry's death

139
00:08:19,640 --> 00:08:22,640
Speaker 1: took a more bizarre twist. You see, during his stay

140
00:08:22,680 --> 00:08:25,559
Speaker 1: in Normandy, a host serve the king his favorite food

141
00:08:25,880 --> 00:08:28,920
Speaker 1: and all you can eat buffet of eel, as the

142
00:08:28,920 --> 00:08:32,440
Speaker 1: British like to say, Henry couldn't resist, and tucked in.

143
00:08:32,880 --> 00:08:36,520
Speaker 1: Within a week he was dead. It's not clear if

144
00:08:36,520 --> 00:08:39,640
Speaker 1: the meal had caused acute gastritis or if the king's

145
00:08:39,679 --> 00:08:42,640
Speaker 1: death had been a case of food poisoning. Either way,

146
00:08:42,800 --> 00:08:45,320
Speaker 1: it makes me wonder what they ate at the funeral feast.

147
00:08:45,800 --> 00:08:48,360
Speaker 1: Was it lamp ray pie or did the thought of

148
00:08:48,400 --> 00:08:55,280
Speaker 1: that simply make them feel a little eel. I hope

149
00:08:55,280 --> 00:08:58,599
Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.

150
00:08:58,960 --> 00:09:02,040
Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about

151
00:09:02,080 --> 00:09:06,600
Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show

152
00:09:06,840 --> 00:09:10,120
Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how

153
00:09:10,200 --> 00:09:13,760
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,

154
00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:17,640
Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show and

155
00:09:17,679 --> 00:09:19,920
Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World

156
00:09:19,920 --> 00:09:25,360
Speaker 1: of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,