WEBVTT - Casket-a-go-go, Part 3 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:09.720 Welcome to Invention, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, 0:00:09.840 --> 0:00:12.479 welcome to Invention. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:14.680 Joe McCormick, and we're back with part three of our 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:19.080 exploration of coffin tech. It's death Tech month at at 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:21.840 Invention here. In the last couple episodes we talked about 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:25.239 like special types of coffins. Originally, in the first episode, 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:27.760 I think we focus mainly on coffins that we're designed 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:31.760 to keep you from being prematurely buried and uh and 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:36.280 thrashing about inside your your grave sealed for doom forever. Uh. 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:39.520 And in the last episode we focused mainly on well, 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:43.120 we we looked at length of the fist coffin the 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:45.839 f I s K. How can you say fisk coffin. 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:49.040 That's almost impossible. Yeah, I'm surprised that it sold so 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:53.040 well with a name like that, which was a strange 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:55.200 and elegant invention. And it's all right, But a lot 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:57.840 of what we talked about was stuff to prevent people 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:02.240 from having their bodies stolen by resurrection men or resurrectionists 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:05.800 who took bodies from graves in order to sell them 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:10.319 to medical colleges and dissection rooms and anatomists. Yeah so 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:13.840 so yeah, we talked about ways to to safeguard the 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:17.240 the the casket, the burial ground, putting cages over them, 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:21.200 having specially designed caskets to keep people out, weird gadgets 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:23.840 to go around your neck, etcetera. But now we're going 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:26.120 to get into Uh, I guess what we would call 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:31.480 active measures? Right? A casket or a coffin that fights back. Right, 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:33.920 So what if all the last solutions we are, all 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:36.880 the previous solutions we talked about were just too wimpy. 0:01:36.920 --> 0:01:39.200 Here is a possible solution. If you want to keep 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:42.720 people from stealing your corpse, turn them into a corpse 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:46.160 and then they'll have their own and they won't need yours. Uh, 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:49.800 you're talking about a casket that kills. Like if it 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:53.240 were like a seventies or eighties horror film, it would 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:57.320 be instead of being death Spa or deathback the beat 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:00.600 it kills, it would be death casket, the casket that killed. 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:04.880 Maybe that's too close, are it is too on the nose? 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:07.480 So you know, one thing I was thinking about is 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:10.560 if you go by Indiana Jones as your main source, 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:14.160 you would think that the booby trapping of tombs with 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:19.960 deadly mechanisms for crushing, impaling, fatally desiccating, plucking out the 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:23.400 eyeballs of grave robbers was sort of a time honored tradition, 0:02:23.520 --> 0:02:26.360 right that this goes back into the ancient world. Lots 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:29.400 of tombs are like this. But the sad fact is 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:33.080 that I can find almost no real evidence of booby 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:38.080 trapped tombs from the ancient world, with essentially one possible exception, 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:42.239 and that only exception is rumors about the unexcavated tomb 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:45.120 of the ancient Chinese emperor Chin chi Huang, which we 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:47.760 already did an episode of our other podcast, Stuff to 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:49.560 Blow your mind about, So if you want a whole 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:51.880 episode on that subject, you should look up our Chin 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:54.880 chi Huang episode. But the short version is some ancient 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:58.400 accounts claim that the tomb of Chin chi Huong is 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:03.359 rigged with weapons and poisons to slaughter any potential looters. 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:06.000 And I've got a description of the tomb here from 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:10.160 the first century b c. Chinese historian uh Sima Cuyon, 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:14.640 and it's translated by Burton Watson. Uh So it goes 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:17.080 like this. It says they dug down to the third 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:20.680 layer of underground springs and poured in bronze to make 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:24.840 the outer coffin. Replicas of palaces, scenic towers, and the 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:29.240 Hundred Officials, as well as rare utensils and wondrous objects 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:32.720 were brought in to fill the tomb. Craftsmen were ordered 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:35.960 to set up crossbows and arrows rigged so that they 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:40.160 would immediately shoot down anyone attempting to break in. Mercury 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:43.560 was used to fashion imitations of the Hundred Rivers, the 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:47.200 Yellow River, and the Young Sea, and the seas, constructed 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:50.120 in such a way that they seemed to flow above 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:54.240 or representations of all the heavenly bodies below the features 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:57.320 of the earth. Whale oil was used for lamps, which 0:03:57.320 --> 0:04:00.640 were calculated to burn for a long time without going out. 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:04.040 That is nice. They're like, this is really top shelf 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:07.520 when it comes to tombs. Yeah, and tomb technology. I mean, 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:11.400 you got your mercury, you got your automatic crossbows. Uh, 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:13.880 you'd assume maybe the mercury works kind of like a 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:18.360 toxic poison to fill the room with fumes. Very interesting stuff. 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:21.680 But of course the tomb remains unopened, to which on 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:24.040 one level means I mean, granted, it's unopened for a 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:27.760 variety of reasons. But you could say that, hey, just 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:30.200 just the idea that there are crossbows in there there 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:32.440 in there, that they are deadly traps in there, could 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:35.680 have contributed to its protection over the centuries. That's a 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:37.720 very good point that it could could be like a 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:42.240 mimetic protection um. And of course the thing is, we 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:44.600 don't know if there's anything to these stories, and even 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:47.559 if it was true when the tomb was crafted, I 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:51.360 strongly doubt that like crossbow mechanisms from two thousand years 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:54.760 plus ago would still work today right now. It will 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:57.640 be interesting though, because, as we discussed in that episode 0:04:57.640 --> 0:04:59.960 of Stuff to Blow your Mind, we may have actually 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.480 we find out what what is going on in that tomb. 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:06.800 There's been talk of of actually entering it or sending 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:10.280 in you know, the drones to explore it a little bit, uh, 0:05:10.320 --> 0:05:13.479 you know, as much as exploration, but also to to 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:16.240 make sure that the area is protected, that that the 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:20.960 the artifacts inside are not destroyed in due course due 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:24.080 to say seismic events or something like that. Right, but 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:26.160 maybe we'll send that first drone in and it'll get 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:28.520 hit by a crossbow bowls, you never know. That would 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:31.800 be very cool. But like I said, the kind of 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:34.600 strange and disappointing thing is this seems to be the 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:38.120 only case I can find of a booby trapped tomb 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:40.839 from the ancient world. But I would say, on the 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:43.800 other hand, the general lack of Indiana Jones style traps 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:47.120 does not mean that ancient people's weren't very keen on 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:50.680 keeping their graves undisturbed. Of course, one thing is just 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:53.800 standard type security features like you would find on the 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:58.400 tombs we've already talked about in the previous episodes, you know, seals, gates, 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:01.880 things being filled in, or having huge slabs placed on 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:04.480 top of or in front of them, that kind of thing, 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:07.000 just to keep people out. But the other thing I 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:10.280 would say, picking up on the idea of mimetic security 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:14.360 is like the idea of the mythical curse of the Pharaohs. Now. 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:17.599 Of course, that is more or less a twentieth century 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:22.799 mythical invention, but it does take slight inspiration from reality 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:26.799 in that some ancient tombs are marked with like curses 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:30.760 or warnings against people who might disturb them. I was 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:33.359 reading a really interesting thing about tomb curses on the 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:37.039 National Museum Scotland blog and a post by assistant curator 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:40.039 Dr Dan Potter with a translation that I'll get to 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:43.559 in a second. Uh. Now, when I imagine ancient tomb 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:48.320 curses and warnings and stuff, I often imagine really vividly 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:51.640 violent threats, the like may your teeth turn into bees 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:55.600 kind of thing, or may rot erect, you know, the 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:59.440 the poe poe kind of direction. But as an example 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:01.760 of the kind of two mornings, you're more likely to 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:05.400 actually find an ancient Egypt. Potter translates a stone with 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:09.360 an inscription from roughly between twelve to ten sixty nine 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:13.080 b C. And it's from the necropolis of sheik Abbot Alcerna, 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:16.360 which is in where ancient Thebes would have been. And 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:19.920 this is Potter's translation. It is to you that I 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:23.640 speak all people who will find this tomb passage. Watch 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:26.680 out not to take even a pebble from within it outside. 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:30.920 If you find this stone, you shall not transgress against it. Indeed, 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:34.000 the gods since the time of pre who rest in 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:37.160 the midst of the mountains, gained strength every day even 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:40.240 though their pebbles are dragged away. Look for a place 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:43.000 worthy of yourselves and rest in it, And do not 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:46.320 constrict gods in their own houses. As every man is 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:48.920 happy in his place, and every man is glad in 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:52.520 his house. As for he who will be sound, beware 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:56.040 of forcefully removing this stone from its place. As for 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:58.960 he who covers it in its place, great lords of 0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:03.080 the West will reproach him very very very very very 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:09.960 very very very much. That is a stern tongue lashing. 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:12.800 I really like that. At the end though, it's kind 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:15.680 of quaint and polite. It's like, don't mess with my tomb. 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:18.720 I'm dead, I'm a god. Now you go find your 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:23.440 own tomb, become a god in your own way, and please, please, please, please, 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:26.800 please please please don't mess with it. I love this. Yeah, 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:28.880 the excessive use of the very here, because that would 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:32.880 not be considered you know, proper in English, modern English 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:35.400 anyway to to use that. But but really it gets 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:39.040 the point across. The more varies, the better it reminds me. 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:42.079 I had a professor once of I believe it was 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:46.319 a uh, you know, Canterbury Tales classes that I was taking. 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:48.720 He was the professor, and he he liked to stress 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:52.040 that while we're not fond of double negatives now, uh, 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:54.439 there was a time when you would just quote Negate 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:56.960 the hell out of something if you wanted to to 0:08:57.040 --> 0:09:00.720 make sure it was negated. They're great old instances of 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:03.920 word repetition in in older languages, especially like from the 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:07.880 ancient world. I think about the idea of holy, holy holy. 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:12.280 You know, it's just saying like, you don't say extremely holy, 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:15.520 you say holy, holy holy. You keep repeating the word 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:19.520 to emphasize the superlativeness of work. But yeah, I like 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:23.720 this idea of thinking about the mythology that surrounds two 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:26.960 warnings is a kind of meme based security invention. And 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:29.160 you could think of that in a religious context as 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:31.720 it's invoked here, like you're gonna upset the gods. Things 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:33.720 are going to be very bad for you if you 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:35.920 disturb this tomb, or you could think about it in 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:38.640 a chin chi huang kind of context where you could 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:42.320 seed stories out with the historians, or you know, just 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:45.960 throughout the culture that there's some mega like killer robots 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:47.959 in this tomb you don't want to go inside. Yeah. 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:49.720 One thing I was thinking about is if you just 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:54.120 have the the curse posted, it depends on literacy for 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:56.960 what to really convey its meaning. Uh. Not everyone may 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:01.280 be able to read, but everyone speaks the language crossbow. Um. 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:05.040 But then again, if you're if it's not just about 0:10:05.320 --> 0:10:07.240 making sure that you have a sign posted, but to 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:09.200 spread the word of it, to make sure that the 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:13.000 curse is known, that's a different thing altogether. Well, should 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:15.160 we take a quick break and then come back to 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:20.559 discuss some gorrier, more modern versions of active measures protecting 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:28.679 it to him? Let's do it. Alright, we're back, so 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:31.520 let's let's get into the gory details. Right. So we 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:34.720 were discussing previously that even when ancient tombs have curses, 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:37.520 it seems like they're often less gruesome than you would expect. 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:40.520 But leave it to modern Americans and Europeans to take 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:46.640 tomb security to ridiculously nasty, violent places. As exhibit A, 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:49.000 I would like to read a report from the Stark 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:53.319 County Democrat, which was a Canton, Ohio newspaper, the addition 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:59.240 of January one. This is this article is called a 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:03.200 torpedo blows them up. This is wonderful days pleasuated this 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:07.839 in its entirety Mount vernon January nineteen, So you got 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:11.600 your dateline. A report reaches here that on Monday night, 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:14.840 three body snatchers, while attempting to rob a grave of 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:18.600 near Gan this county met with a fatal accident. The 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:21.920 story goes that while excavating the grave, the Picks came 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:25.960 in contact with a torpedo, which exploded, killing one of 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:29.800 the ghouls named Dipper, and mangling the leg of another 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:33.040 whose name could not be learned. The third part, the 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:36.320 third party was occupying a sleigh as a lookout and 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:39.760 after the accident, succeeded in getting his disabled companion in 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:42.520 the sleigh and driving off. This is one of This 0:11:42.559 --> 0:11:45.680 is like a page from you know, Coran McCarthy book 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:48.880 that we can only find the Library of Babble. Yeah, Dipper, 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:54.640 they only know one of their names. And again I 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:57.400 love the description as ghouls because I think we mentioned 0:11:57.440 --> 0:11:59.960 this in the last episode. But Google's, of course, are 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:04.480 aditionally monsters of a necrophageous persuasion. They lurk in graveyards 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:07.040 and they scavenge the flesh of the dead. But let's 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:08.719 come back to that other detail that I meagined. A 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:11.480 lot of people latched onto, uh the idea that a 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:16.560 torpedo exploded, right, Yeah, a torpedo blows them up. So 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:19.440 I'm thinking like a torpedo on a submarine, Like did 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:24.200 somebody bury an explosive charge among their great uncle's grave goods, 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:27.600 which exploded when the ghoul's broke in. No, this was 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:30.680 not an accidental explosion of something that happened to be 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:34.680 down there. This apparently was a specific technology designed to 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:39.880 protect graves by maiming and murdering resurrection men and grave robbers. Yeah, 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:42.440 that the coffin torpedo. I ran across this as well. 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:44.440 I was not familiar with it previously, and when I 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:47.040 read it, of course, the thing that entered my mind 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:49.400 is the idea that you have a casket that is 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:52.959 fired out of a torpedo tube on a submarine. I thought, well, 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:55.720 that's what it is. How weird that I've run across 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:59.000 such an invention. But no, it's even weirder. Yes, So 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:03.840 I've come across two major records of booby trap coffin inventions. 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:08.400 Uh so. One is that on October eight eight, an 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:12.960 Ohio inventor named Philip K. Clover received a patent for 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:16.079 what he called a coffin torpedo. It was designed to 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:21.400 quote prevent the unauthorized resurrection of dead bodies. To presume 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:24.680 the authorized one would be the end times one, right, Yeah, 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:26.880 it would need to be Jesus or you know, an 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:32.960 accepted uh spokesperson for Jesus, or a sufficiently powerful necromancer. Uh. 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:37.240 The torpedo would be loaded with a shotgun style spray 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:40.319 of lead balls, and then we would be buried facing 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:43.280 up inside the lid of the coffin, and if triggered, 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:45.800 the Coffin torpedo would of course blast the thief and 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:48.840 possibly killed them. Okay, so in a way it gets 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:51.800 even grizzlier because what we're talking about he is really 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:56.000 more comparable with a land mine or or a shotgun trap. 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:59.600 The probably a landmine is the more accepted comparison here. Yes, 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:01.520 actually one person I'm going to sit in a minute 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:05.240 makes exactly that comparison. So another coffin torpedo came out 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:07.679 a few years later. This one was patented by a 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:10.960 guy named Thomas In Howell, also of Ohio. So it 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:15.600 seems like maybe Grave like unauthorized resurrection was happening a 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:18.920 lot in Ohio at the time. Howell says in his 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:22.720 patent that other Grave torpedoes already exist, but that he's 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:28.200 improved the Grave torpedo design by including quote exterior nipples 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:32.520 on the shell and quote pivoted swinging hammers combined with 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:35.840 a rotary disc or collar for engaging the hammers and 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:39.080 by its rotary movement, release the hammers, which constitute the 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:42.160 essential and important feature of my invention. So he's all 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:44.480 about nipples and hammers. Yeah, I don't really have a 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:47.200 clear vision of what these hammers are accomplishing. You can 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:49.680 look up a diagram on the I've got a link 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:52.520 here to the to the patent for you. But basically 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:55.240 it ends up working sort of the same. It's like 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:57.680 a landmine thing. In fact, I was reading a blog 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:02.320 post about this invention by an anthropologist named Katie Myers Emery, 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:04.520 who has written a lot on like a Burial of 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:07.400 the Dead, traditions and stuff, in which she says that 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:11.200 Howell's model was really more like a landmine than a gun. 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:15.440 But she also quotes a contemporary advertisement for one of 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:18.440 these grave torpedoes. I think it's for Howell's model, which 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:22.520 reads sleep well, sweet angel, Let no fears of ghouls 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:26.400 disturb thy rest. For above thy shrouded form lies a 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:30.320 torpedo ready to make minced meat. If anyone who attempts 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:33.440 to convey you to the pickling vat I think it's 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:36.080 really also drives home that the use of the word 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:39.840 torpedo has has shifted some in our in our usage. 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:43.120 I think so too, because I think of essentially an 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:46.560 underwater missile, like a run for Red October or something. 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:49.840 But I love this this pitch here, sleep well, sweet angel, 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:52.920 let no fears of ghouls disturb thy rest. It's it's 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:55.240 good copy, but it's also not catchy. I mean, I 0:15:55.280 --> 0:15:58.080 feel like the Howell's model needs a catch your jingle, 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:02.800 Like they won't use me for science. I'd rather stay 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:06.080 here and rot. You know. The other thing I'm thinking 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:08.240 is that at this point in our history, like an 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:11.480 undisturbed grave is so normal, you know. I feel like 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:14.520 I almost I want to attract the ghoules, like it 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:16.520 would kind of make my death more of a celebration. 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:19.480 But it's just just a thought. Yeah, why not have 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:22.960 another boring burial like everybody else, you know, why not 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:27.880 get things of popping around your grave? Uh So. In fact, 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:31.120 the strangest thing of the story is that this torpedo 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:35.120 was not even the first lethal trap for grave robbers 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:39.640 of the Resurrectionist age. It seems that since the eighteenth century, 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:43.600 there had been what are known as cemetery guns. Uh, 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:46.640 that's not a trick name. That just means guns used 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:50.080 for cemeteries. So I found a link to one in 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:54.840 particular being auctioned at Southeby's in January of sixteen. It 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:59.040 is an eighteenth or early nineteenth century flintlock gun, originally 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:01.920 made out of ash would steel and wrought iron by 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:04.919 the Jurgenson Machine Company of New York. I've got a 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:07.920 picture of it for you here, Robert. I think this 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:10.360 gun being sold at auction is one of the same 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:14.159 ones I've read about elsewhere, being displayed at a museum 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:19.080 called the Museum of Mourning Art at Arlington Cemetery in Pennsylvania. 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:21.879 And so this gun would have been positioned on a 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:24.840 swivel mount and then it would be mounted at the 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:27.600 site of the grave that needed to be protected, and 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:30.600 then it would be fired by trip wires. So you'd 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:34.639 place trip wires that linked to the triggering mechanism, and 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:37.719 if somebody pulls the trip wire, if the tension you know, 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:40.720 goes up on the wire, it triggers the gun and 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:43.040 the shot or the ball I guess, goes out at 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:49.040 in the direction of the grave. This seems excessive yeah, 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:52.880 I'd have to imagine that if these were ever deployed 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:55.919 at any kind of scale, they would kill innocent people. Right. 0:17:55.960 --> 0:17:57.520 And if people just happened to be going through the 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:00.240 graveyard and they you know, trip over the trip, are 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:03.080 they you know, kicked the wrong thing? Oh? Yes, her 0:18:03.119 --> 0:18:07.040 squirrels would set them off birds, I mean small children. 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:11.119 It's yeah, this is this is this is ridiculous. Well, 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:14.360 now you might wonder if like, okay, this sounds excessive. 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:17.880 So maybe things like this were made but never actually used. 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:20.680 But there are accounts of them being used. I found 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:24.280 a couple in a book by an author named Susie Lennox. 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:27.040 The book is called Body Snatchers, Digging Up the Untold 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:30.800 Stories of Britain's Resurrection Men from Pin and Sword, which 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:36.120 is a history press published in and So Lennox says, uh, 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:38.840 this following account was reported in The Times, I mean 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:43.560 the Times of London in eighteen seventeen. So apparently there 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:46.600 was a really tall guy. There was a British grenadier 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:49.879 who was seven feet tall, and he passed away and 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:53.240 for some reason, his very tall body was highly coveted 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:56.080 by an atomis. Maybe they just I don't know, they 0:18:56.119 --> 0:18:58.040 wanted to see what made him so taller, and there 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:01.800 was a standard fee increase were for you know, excessively 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:04.879 tall or excessively short specimens. Maybe, oh, maybe in the 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:08.120 medical college it's easier to see a larger specimen from 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:10.560 the sitting up in the gallery. Or maybe they saw 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:13.280 him in half and sell him as too. I don't know, 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:17.040 but for some reason, yeah, his very tall body was 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:20.560 highly desired by the resurrection men. So his body was 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:23.480 buried in the cemetery of St Martin in the Fields, 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:27.320 which is this Anglican church in Westminster's in London. And 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:30.639 because the seven foot corps was known to be of 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:33.679 great value to the body snatchers, the sexton of the 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:36.639 church quote put together a number of gun barrels so 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:39.399 as to form a magazine that they might all be 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:43.359 discharged together. So he set up a bunch of grave guns, 0:19:43.600 --> 0:19:46.879 all aimed at this grave. And apparently the trip wire 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:50.400 that pulled the trigger on the gun battery was attached 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:52.600 to a piece of wood, and then the wood was 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:55.439 buried just under the surface of the grave. So if 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:58.640 you start digging down to access the coffin, you would 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:01.399 hit the wood and you'd have to remove it, so 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:03.480 in removing it you would pull on the wood. This 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:05.919 would pull the triggers of the gun battery and the 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:08.159 person standing over the grave would get hit by a 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:11.920 volley of bullets. And according to this Times report, one 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:14.840 night after the burial, at about four thirty am, the 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:18.600 sexton of the church heard a tremendous report. So he 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:20.840 goes out to the churchyard and the sexton finds a 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:23.479 bunch of picks and shovels lying around on the ground, 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:27.399 and to quote from the Lennox's retelling here quote, he 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:30.159 also found a man's hat with a bullet hole in 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:33.120 one side of it. As there was no exit hole. 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:36.560 The sexton concluded that it must have lodged in the 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:39.760 head of one of the body snatchers, killing him instantly, 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:44.119 with his friends taking his lifeless body away with them. 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:47.560 So immediately I was wondering, wait a second, now, if 0:20:47.680 --> 0:20:49.879 you are a group of resurrection men, you're trying to 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:52.800 dig up a body and one of your buddies gets killed, 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:55.440 I mean for the other ones, isn't that just as good? 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:57.960 Like you just run off and you sell this fresh 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:00.879 dead body. Now, yeah, I wonder if new racket was 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:03.439 born that night they're like, hey, we just keep we 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:05.879 just need to keep hiring new guys into our gang, 0:21:06.359 --> 0:21:09.560 and we'll just kill them and sell their bodies. Yeah, hey, Jeff, 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:12.200 you move the wood. Yeah, well better yet, we don't 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:14.160 even have to kill them ourselves. We just bring them 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:17.600 to the cemetery. We have this crazy gun that shoots people. Yeah, yeah, exactly. 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:20.320 You always get the new guy to move the wood 0:21:20.359 --> 0:21:22.800 and pull the string, and you get a fresh body 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:26.600 every night. Now, needless to say, this would be quite 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:29.600 illegal if you were to sit try and set something 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:31.560 like this up today. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:35.480 I think the risk that these guns posed too obviously 0:21:35.560 --> 0:21:38.400 innocent people would be a clear thing that would make 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:40.880 them illegal over time. But even so, I mean, even 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:43.240 if you're aiming them at criminals, I don't know, I 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:45.240 don't know if it seems right to just like shoot 0:21:45.280 --> 0:21:47.400 people when they're trying to do something in the kind 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:50.119 of gray area space of digging up dead bodies at 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:52.200 the time. Now, on the other hand, of course, the 0:21:52.200 --> 0:21:55.960 guns didn't always work. Lennox also recounts the story from 0:21:56.160 --> 0:22:00.240 Camden Town in eighty three, where body snatchers succeeded in 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:03.840 breaching a gun protected grave just by dismantling the trip wire. 0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:05.560 So they saw what was going on there and they 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:09.040 just took the system apart. So maybe we should take 0:22:09.040 --> 0:22:10.760 a quick break and then when we come back we 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:21.760 can discuss something like the end of the resurrection Men period. Alright, 0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:24.560 we're back, So yeah, obviously this threat comes to an 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:27.320 end because I mean, imagine, like most people out there, 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:29.639