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 V.
Speaker 1: Wilson and I'm Holly Fry.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure how time has already rolled us around
Speaker 2: to this point, but here we are with our quarterly
Speaker 2: Unearthed episodes. Again, if you're new to the show, this
Speaker 2: is when we talk about things that have been literally
Speaker 2: and figuratively unearthed over the last few months. And as usual,
Speaker 2: this Unearthed is a two parter, and this time around,
Speaker 2: I want to start by acknowledging that while I was
Speaker 2: working on these episodes, I was struggling. I'm still struggling,
Speaker 2: to be honest, and normally this is the kind of
Speaker 2: stuff that we would talk about in our Friday behind
Speaker 2: the scenes, but not today. It's not what we're doing today. First,
Speaker 2: the day I started working on these episodes, Plain closed,
Speaker 2: Federal agents grabbed PhD student Remesa oz Turk off the
Speaker 2: street in Somerville, Massachusetts, and as she was on her
Speaker 2: way to break her Ramadan fast. I lived in Somerville
Speaker 2: for five years and Tuft's University, which is where she
Speaker 2: was studying, that was in walking distance of my apartment
Speaker 2: in Somerville. So even though I don't live in Somerville anymore,
Speaker 2: she feels like my neighbor. So that happened on March
Speaker 2: twenty fifth. It was still weighing heavily on my mind
Speaker 2: on March twenty seventh, when President Trump issued an executive
Speaker 2: order called Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, which
Speaker 2: among other things, characterizes the Smithsonian Institution in its museums
Speaker 2: as needing to be saved from quote improper ideology. Basically
Speaker 2: following the descriptions and the language in this executive order,
Speaker 2: our podcast is insane and full of improper ideology because
Speaker 2: we talk about ways that racism and sexism and oppression
Speaker 2: have always been part of American history. And that followed
Speaker 2: another executive order called Ending Radical Indoctrination in K through
Speaker 2: twelfth Schooling that was on January twenty ninth. Then those
Speaker 2: two executive orders have a lot of common themes. Based
Speaker 2: on that January twenty ninth one, our podcast is also
Speaker 2: not appropriate for use in K through twelve schools for
Speaker 2: pretty much the same reason that it's quote insane, and
Speaker 2: also because we recognize that trans people exist, and we
Speaker 2: try to talk about trans people with respect compassion and dignity.
Speaker 2: I sound angry because I am. The next thing that
Speaker 2: also happened just recently was the continuing the reduction of
Speaker 2: the Federal Bureaucracy executive order from March to the fourteenth.
Speaker 2: That one eliminated the Institute of Museum and Library Services
Speaker 2: to the maximum extent allowed by law. That's like a
Speaker 2: way to shut it down without going through Congress to
Speaker 2: shut it down, which would normally be how that would work.
Speaker 2: It was reported that the entire staff of the Institute
Speaker 2: of Museum and Library Services was placed on leave as
Speaker 2: I was doing the final read through of this outline
Speaker 2: before sending it to Holly last night. There've also been
Speaker 2: other executive orders and actions by the Department of Government
Speaker 2: Efficiency that have cut other funding for scientists and other researchers.
Speaker 2: And then there's the removing the names and accomplishments of
Speaker 2: black people and Indigenous people and Japanese Americans and women
Speaker 2: and LGBTQ people and others from an array of historical
Speaker 2: sites and museums and Arlington National Cemetery and on and
Speaker 2: on in the wake of executive orders about ending DEI.
Speaker 2: This is not even a tenth of what has been
Speaker 2: going on with this federal administration, and it might not even.
Speaker 1: Be a tenth of only the things.
Speaker 2: That have directly impacted my friends and family in negative ways.
Speaker 2: But this is some of what's been happening that has
Speaker 2: most directly been connected to our work, and it's made
Speaker 2: it kind of hard to focus. We do a lot
Speaker 2: of episodes that contextualize current political and social issues, and
Speaker 2: a lot of what we talk about is inherently political,
Speaker 2: but we have not really made a ton of explicitly
Speaker 2: political statements on the show. Even without explicitly political statements,
Speaker 2: it really should be obvious to anybody who listens to
Speaker 2: us that our approach is rooted in a core belief
Speaker 2: that oppression is bad, and we're all human beings and
Speaker 2: we all deserve dignity and equal rights, and a lot
Speaker 2: of history all over the world has not really lived
Speaker 2: up to that ideal. That is also true of the present.
Speaker 2: But this is a history podcast and not a current
Speaker 2: events show. These executive orders and other directives are calling
Speaker 2: for a view of history that is focused only on
Speaker 2: patriotism and the idea of American greatness. But you can
Speaker 2: only arrive at such an interpretation of history by willfully
Speaker 2: ign a lot of stuff. It is not anti American
Speaker 2: to acknowledge these realities, and it is absurd to try
Speaker 2: to pretend that they don't exist and don't still influence
Speaker 2: the world today. Executive orders are not laws, and we
Speaker 2: are not federal employees, So in terms of what we
Speaker 2: write and say on the show, we can just say no,
Speaker 2: we will not be doing that. But also we rely
Speaker 2: on the work of museums and libraries and researchers from
Speaker 2: a range of disciplines, including the sciences, for our show.
Speaker 2: That doesn't just apply to Unearthed, but it especially applies
Speaker 2: to Unearthed because these episodes draw so heavily from newly
Speaker 2: published research. Basically, I tried to pull these episodes together
Speaker 2: while the institutions I rely on to do it and
Speaker 2: the people who work at those institutions were actively under attack.
Speaker 2: I don't know what will happen to these episodes as
Speaker 2: researchers in the US the United States lose their funding,
Speaker 2: and as that loss of funding ripples through the entire
Speaker 2: academic community here, and as universities and other institutions scale
Speaker 2: back on work that's focused on people who are not cisgender,
Speaker 2: straight white men. Because of these executive orders about Dei.
Speaker 2: It is obvious to me, though, that we will be
Speaker 2: poorer for it. That was the longest introduction I've ever
Speaker 2: written for one of our shows, and as far as
Speaker 2: what was unearthed this quarter, we're starting as we usually
Speaker 2: do with the updates. So in May of twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: we did an episode on Filipino food scientist Maria Rosa,
Speaker 2: whose most famous food invention today is banana ketchup. That
Speaker 2: episode ends very sadly because Arosa was killed in the
Speaker 2: Battle of Manila in nineteen forty five. When we recorded that,
Speaker 2: her burial place was not exactly known because she was
Speaker 2: buried in a mass grave at Malate Catholic School with
Speaker 2: others who were killed over the course of the That
Speaker 2: has now changed after a five year project involving that
Speaker 2: mass grave, which was underway as we recorded our episode
Speaker 2: on her. On February thirteenth, Orosa and others were laid
Speaker 2: to rest in the crypt of the Sant Agustin Church
Speaker 2: in Manila after a funeral mass that honored her and
Speaker 2: other World War Two heroes. The other people who were
Speaker 2: re interred with her included a doctor at the hospital
Speaker 2: where she was working, along with hospital volunteers and civilian patients.
Speaker 2: The identity of Eurosa's remains had been confirmed through both
Speaker 2: DNA testing and physical examination. Also, thank you to listener
Speaker 2: Dandy for sending us this story. It was not really
Speaker 2: widely reported beyond the Philippines, and I don't really think
Speaker 2: I would would have heard about it without that listener email.
Speaker 1: We did a two parter on Harriet Tubman in June
Speaker 1: of twenty sixteen, and in twenty twenty three we talked
Speaker 1: about archaeological work being done at the likely site of
Speaker 1: the home of her father Ben Ross. At the time
Speaker 1: that work was ongoing. Now, the Maryland Department of Transportation
Speaker 1: has launched a virtual museum detailing their findings and showcasing
Speaker 1: some of the objects from the site. It's an unwieldy
Speaker 1: URL to read off, but it's easily findable by searching
Speaker 1: Ben Ross home Place. This archaeological site is in Blackwater
Speaker 1: National Wildlife Refuge, and one of the reasons for a
Speaker 1: virtual museum is that the site of the home place
Speaker 1: is not an area that's accessible to the public. Also,
Speaker 1: the whole area is at risk of destruction due to
Speaker 1: sea level rise. They wanted to really preserve and document it.
Speaker 1: The virtual museum has pages for the home place, the archaeology,
Speaker 1: kitchen items, personal items, and Native people's artifacts. The Native
Speaker 1: people's artifacts are things that are mostly very very small.
Speaker 1: They're like fragments of pottery, projectile points, and flaked stones. Next,
Speaker 1: we talked about the Viking era Galloway Horde in one
Speaker 1: of last year's installments of Unearthed. A metal detectorist found
Speaker 1: this hord in Scotland back in twenty fourteen, and research
Speaker 1: into it has been ongoing. There's a lot that's still unknown,
Speaker 1: like why the horde of metal objects also includes wrapped
Speaker 1: balls of dirt. We don't know who it belonged to
Speaker 1: or why it was buried. This horde contains four armorings
Speaker 1: that are marked with runs, and that had led to
Speaker 1: some speculation that this was the combined wealth of.
Speaker 2: Four different parties. But only three of those armbands had
Speaker 2: old English name elements in the runes. The fourth band,
Speaker 2: which has the longest runic inscription, had not been decipherable.
Speaker 1: There's still some uncertainty about this fourth armband, but one
Speaker 1: possible interpretation is that they're basically saying the horde was
Speaker 1: community property. That interpretation only works though if part of
Speaker 1: the inscription is misspelled. But researchers have been pointing out
Speaker 1: that we shouldn't necessarily assume that every region and dialect
Speaker 1: was using the same spellings of words. We see this
Speaker 1: in English all the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've talked about times that spellings of things were
Speaker 2: not standardized, or sometimes people just misspell things when spellings
Speaker 2: are standardized. We're going to take us quick sponsor break
Speaker 2: and then have some more updates. There's been some new
Speaker 2: stuff unearthed at Pompeii, which was the subject of a
Speaker 2: two thousand and nine episode of the show and is
Speaker 2: just also a regular feature on Unearthed. First in Pompeii,
Speaker 2: homes with private baths were really only for the rich,
Speaker 2: and the bath complex that has just been discovered there
Speaker 2: was for the really rich. There are only three other
Speaker 2: villas in Pompeii that have been to discovered so far
Speaker 2: that have comparable bath facilities, and it's still being studied,
Speaker 2: but it's likely that this one is even bigger than those.
Speaker 2: It may have belonged to Alis Rustius Verus, who was
Speaker 2: a politician and would have hosted large numbers of guests
Speaker 2: at home.
Speaker 1: This was a multi room complex. It had a changing
Speaker 1: room that could accommodate about thirty people, plus separate rooms
Speaker 1: for hot, warm, and cold bathing, which people would progress
Speaker 1: through from hot to cold. That final cold room had
Speaker 1: a plunge pool more than a meter deep, and of
Speaker 1: course all of these rooms were impressively decorated, including frescoed
Speaker 1: walls and inlaid marble floors. This bathing facility was also
Speaker 1: connected to the banquet hall, so it seems likely that
Speaker 1: if guests came for a banquet, they might also be
Speaker 1: treated to a luxury bathing experience. In another Pompeii discovery,
Speaker 1: a set of frescoes depicting the initiation rights of the
Speaker 1: cult of Dionysus has been found on the walls of
Speaker 1: a banquet hall. These frescoes are really enormous. They're depicted
Speaker 1: at almost life size and they cover three walls of
Speaker 1: the room. They depict the person who's being initiated into
Speaker 1: the cult, as well as several women. Some of the
Speaker 1: women are dancing, and some of them are dressed as hunters.
Speaker 1: The hunters carry a goat and its entrails, and there
Speaker 1: are also satyrs with flutes and wine. These depictions were
Speaker 1: probably created sometime between forty and thirty BCE, and they
Speaker 1: are similar to those at Pompey's Villa of the Mysteries,
Speaker 1: which is not very far away. While they're shown in
Speaker 1: these frescoes, these rites were also secret, so these newly
Speaker 1: discovered frescoes corroborate some of what we know about religious
Speaker 1: practices in the cult of Dionysus.
Speaker 2: Moving on, in March of twenty twenty, we talked about
Speaker 2: the discovery of some glassy matter at Pompeii, which turned
Speaker 2: out to be part of a person's brain. Subsequent research
Speaker 2: concluded that this glassy matter contained neurons, and research that
Speaker 2: was published in February offers a hypothesis on how that
Speaker 2: glassy material came to be, like how does someone's brain
Speaker 2: turn into glass? According to the researchers, the only way
Speaker 2: this could have happened would have been for the person's
Speaker 2: brains who have been exposed to extremely high temperatures hotter
Speaker 2: than the pyroclastic flow that buried the city, But that
Speaker 2: could only be exposed to those temperatures for an extremely
Speaker 2: short time. So their hypothesis is that this person was
Speaker 2: exposed to a cloud of superheated ash ahead of that
Speaker 2: pyroclastic flow with that ash then dissipating and everything cooling
Speaker 2: off very quickly.
Speaker 1: This is very different from my guess that a James
Speaker 1: Bond's era villain was somehow involved and in Pompeii adjacent news,
Speaker 1: Archaia working in the Salerno area have found footprints of
Speaker 1: people and animals running away from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius,
Speaker 1: not from the eruption that destroyed Pompeii, but from one
Speaker 1: that happened around the year two thousand BCE. The footprints
Speaker 1: included those of adults and children, some in bare feet
Speaker 1: and some wearing shoes, moving on from Pompeii. Previous hosts
Speaker 1: of the show did an episode on the Bayou Tapestry,
Speaker 1: which is really an embroidery that was back in twenty eleven,
Speaker 1: and it's also come up on Unearthed, including in our
Speaker 1: Year End twenty twenty four episodes. Two of the scenes
Speaker 1: depicted in the Tapestry show King Harold Godwinson at his
Speaker 1: residence in West Sussex. Archaeologists working there believe they may
Speaker 1: have found the location of that residence. This conclusion follows
Speaker 1: a lot of different work, including analysis of historical maps
Speaker 1: and re examination of the findings of some archaeological that
Speaker 1: happens back in two thousand and six. One of the
Speaker 1: things that was unearthed in that archaeological work was a
Speaker 1: private latrine, which would not have been common at the time,
Speaker 1: and helps back up the idea that this might have
Speaker 1: been one of the structures at Harold's residence, because who
Speaker 1: else besides the king would have had a private latrine.
Speaker 1: There's also a piece of the Bio Tapestry that has
Speaker 1: been rediscovered in state archives in northern Germany that's now
Speaker 1: being repatriated to France. While this embroidery depicts the Norman
Speaker 1: conquest of Britain, it is considered to be a French
Speaker 1: cultural asset. The Bayou Tapestry is currently undergoing a major
Speaker 1: conservation project, and it's going to be taken off display
Speaker 1: later this year because the museum where it is housed
Speaker 1: will be undergoing its own renovation. The museum is going
Speaker 1: to close on August thirty first, twenty twenty five, and
Speaker 1: it's expected to reopen in twenty twenty seven next. There's
Speaker 1: graffiti in the basement of the Lincoln Memorial, also called
Speaker 1: the Undercroft. This was first found in nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 1: and according to statements given to The Washington Post earlier
Speaker 1: this year, the subject of that graffiti might be past
Speaker 1: podcast subject Theta Bara. We covered her on May fourth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. The evidence that this is who is
Speaker 1: being depicted is described as compelling but circumstantial. This is
Speaker 1: a drawing done in Carpenter's pencil. It shows someone in
Speaker 1: profile smoking a cigarette with curly hair and pretty pronounced makeup.
Speaker 1: Considering that it's done in Carpenter's pencil, including dramatic lipstick
Speaker 1: and blush and I makeup, and the next to that
Speaker 1: image is the word vamp in loopy script. Next in
Speaker 1: our Spring twenty twenty four on Earth, we talked about
Speaker 1: the discovery of a bog body in Ballachy, Northern Ireland,
Speaker 1: which was nicknamed the Blachy Boy. When this body was
Speaker 1: first discovered, people thought it was a recent murder victim,
Speaker 1: but it was estimated to actually be somewhere around two
Speaker 1: thousand years old. Subsequent research has confirmed that approximate date,
Speaker 1: but osteological study suggests that the person was female. A
Speaker 1: significant majority of bog bodies that have been found from
Speaker 1: this period are male, which makes this one unusual. They
Speaker 1: also found cut marks at the neck vertebrae that suggest
Speaker 1: that this person was intentionally decapitated before being put in
Speaker 1: the bog. The skull is not present. Researchers are now
Speaker 1: calling this bog body the Bally Maccombs more woman and
Speaker 1: in our last update this time around, Josephine Baker, who
Speaker 1: prior hosts it, an episode about on March eighth, twenty ten,
Speaker 1: wrote a memoir which was originally published in French in
Speaker 1: nineteen forty nine. This is not available in English until now.
Speaker 1: It is titled Fearless and Free. It's been translated, as
Speaker 1: I said, into English for the first time. It has
Speaker 1: been published by Tiny Reparations Books, which is an imprint
Speaker 1: of Penguin Books. Moving along, we have quite a few
Speaker 1: findes related to Egypt in some way. First, a four
Speaker 1: one hundred year old burial in the Sacara Necropolis appears
Speaker 1: to be that of a royal doctor. It's possible that
Speaker 1: this doctor served under Pharaoh Peppi the Second, who was
Speaker 1: also entombed at Sakara. Like many other tombs at Sacara,
Speaker 1: this one had been looted long before archaeologists found it,
Speaker 1: but its intricately painted walls have led to its being
Speaker 1: described as an exceptional discovery. In addition to being a
Speaker 1: royal doctor, this person was also a dentist and an
Speaker 1: expert in medicinal plants and venomous bites.
Speaker 2: Next, an international interdisciplinary team of researchers has concluded that
Speaker 2: skeletal remains that were speculated to be that of Arsenoway
Speaker 2: the Fourth, the half sister of Cleopatra, belonged to someone else.
Speaker 2: This person does seem to have died at around the
Speaker 2: same time that Arsnoway did, but it's more likely that
Speaker 2: the skull belongs to a male child, likely between the
Speaker 2: ages of eleven and fourteen, with what the paper described
Speaker 2: as showing evidence of developmental disturbances. Those disturbances included asymmetry
Speaker 2: in the bones, which could have come from a variety
Speaker 2: of different causes. This person also likely came from Italy
Speaker 2: or Sardinia rather than Northern Africa. In February, a team
Speaker 2: led by British archaeologist Peers Lytherland discovered the rock cut
Speaker 2: tomb of Tutmos the Second. The tomb itself was largely
Speaker 2: empty because it had been flooded at some point. It
Speaker 2: was built under a waterfall, and this probably happened within
Speaker 2: a few years of it being built, but there is
Speaker 2: still a lot of debris inside, including chunks that have
Speaker 2: fallen from the ceiling, pieces of wall decorations, fragments of
Speaker 2: wooden shafts, and other objects. This includes some alabaster fragments
Speaker 2: with Tutmos's name on them. Tutmos the Second was both
Speaker 2: half brother and husband to Hedge Shepsit, and we talked
Speaker 2: about both of them in our episode on Hudspsit and
Speaker 2: the Voyage to Punt. Not long after that find was announced,
Speaker 2: Lytherland announced that he may have discovered another tomb, also
Speaker 2: belonging to Tutmos the Second, which may have been the
Speaker 2: one where his mummy and grave goods were housed. I
Speaker 2: wasn't able to find more updates about that second discovery.
Speaker 1: And speaking of HUDs Sheepsit, archaeologists and Luxor have found
Speaker 1: more than one thousand intricately decorated blocks at the entrance
Speaker 1: to her funeral complex, as well as a collection of
Speaker 1: limestone and quartzite tablets. These blocks are brightly decorated with
Speaker 1: paint that is still vivid and are described as showing
Speaker 1: the artistic mastery of this era. In addition to those
Speaker 1: tomb discoveries. A different team working at the ancient necropolis
Speaker 1: of a Nubis Mountain and Abydos have found a pharaoh's tomb,
Speaker 1: but which pharaoh is not yet known. This tomb is
Speaker 1: about thirty six hundred years old and excavations there are ongoing.
Speaker 1: Tracy had really thought that we talked about some research
Speaker 1: similar to what we're about to mention recently on the show,
Speaker 1: but looking back, she did not see any such thing.
Speaker 1: I know, I talked about it on a different project
Speaker 1: not that long back. Researchers at University College London have
Speaker 1: investigated the aroma of well preserved Egyptian mummies, finding that
Speaker 1: they smell, in the words of the news release, pretty good.
Speaker 1: They were characterized with words like woody, spicy, and sweet,
Speaker 1: as well as having some floral notes. This work involved
Speaker 1: chemical analysis and human beings just smelling the mummies. This
Speaker 1: of course doesn't necessarily reflect what they smelled like at
Speaker 1: the time they were mummified.
Speaker 2: This was not just for fun, even though that to
Speaker 2: me does sound like kind of a fun project getting
Speaker 2: people to and if mummies, but odors can help researchers
Speaker 2: determine how well preserved a money is without invasive testing.
Speaker 2: And oders can also help pinpoint which substances were used
Speaker 2: in the mummification. And our last Egypt find is kind
Speaker 2: of more Egypt adjacent. A leather suitcase belonging to Howard
Speaker 2: Carter has been rediscovered in England. Carter is the person
Speaker 2: who's credited with finding the tomb of King tut. After
Speaker 2: its rediscovery, this leather suitcase sold at auction in February
Speaker 2: for twelve thousand pounds. That's roughly fifteen thousand dollars. Let's
Speaker 2: take another little sponsor break, and then we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about some art. There is so much artwork to
Speaker 2: talk about in this installment of Unearthed, just so much.
Speaker 2: I love art, so it's great, so much art to
Speaker 2: talk about that it's going to be the entire rest
Speaker 2: of this episode. First, a painting that was bought for
Speaker 2: ten dollars at a thrift store outside of Philadelphia has
Speaker 2: turned out to be the work of William Henry Dorsey.
Speaker 2: Dorsey was a free black man born in Philadelphia in
Speaker 2: eighteen thirty seven, and in addition to being an artist,
Speaker 2: he was a coin collector and a scrapbooker and an
Speaker 2: art collector, especially focused on the work of other Black artists.
Speaker 2: I have put him on the list for a future
Speaker 2: episode of his own because he sounds very interesting to me.
Speaker 2: This painting depicts a black man fishing by the edge
Speaker 2: of a river next to a mill with its own
Speaker 2: water wheel attached. Andy Robbins, who bought this painting at
Speaker 2: the thrift store, has given it to the Historical Society
Speaker 2: of Pennsylvania, where it is now on display. A double
Speaker 2: sided portrait by eighteenth century artist Ammy Phillips was discovered
Speaker 2: in an abandoned storage unit back in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: but it made headlines at the start of this year
Speaker 2: when it went up for auction. It's not known who
Speaker 2: the sitter is, but it's believed that the same person
Speaker 2: is shown on both sides of the painting. Her pose
Speaker 2: is similar on both sides, and there's a small birthmark
Speaker 2: on her face in each of them. She's sitting in
Speaker 2: the same chair, wearing the same dress and the same necklace,
Speaker 2: with her left arm on the same book, but the
Speaker 2: face doesn't look the same between the two portraits. On
Speaker 2: one side, blondish hair is covered by a bonnet and
Speaker 2: on the other, brown hair is up in a bun.
Speaker 2: The face shapes and mouth shapes are different. Are these
Speaker 2: two different people or two different versions of the same person.
Speaker 2: It's a bit of a mystery. This artist was an
Speaker 2: itinerant portrait painter who worked in a range of portrait styles,
Speaker 2: and his career spanned for more than fifty years, in
Speaker 2: that time, producing as many a two thousand portraits.
Speaker 1: It could be the original Doublemint twins.
Speaker 2: I was looking at it. I was like, are these
Speaker 2: sisters cousin right? They're just friends, I don't know, or
Speaker 2: the same person in two different drafts.
Speaker 1: Back in twenty twenty three, we did an episode on
Speaker 1: Venetian painter Caniletto, who was known for his large scale
Speaker 1: city scapes which are spectacularly beautiful, and we talked about
Speaker 1: how one of his assistants was his nephew, Bernardo Belotto,
Speaker 1: and how Blotto became really skilled at copying Caniletto's technique
Speaker 1: and would sometimes even signed Caniletto's name to his own work. Well,
Speaker 1: one of the paintings that had been attributed to Caniletto
Speaker 1: has now been reattributed to his nephew, that is the
Speaker 1: Grand Canal with San Simeon Piccolo from seventeen thirty seven.
Speaker 2: This determination came through research for a new book called
Speaker 2: Caniletto and Guardi Views of Venice, which was published by
Speaker 2: the Wallace collect Part of this attribution about who actually
Speaker 2: did the painting came from the way the painting uses
Speaker 2: color and light, because Belotto was known for being sort
Speaker 2: of colder and less vibrant in the color that he
Speaker 2: used than his uncle was.
Speaker 1: Speaking of artists that we have covered on the show,
Speaker 1: we are now to Lavinia Fontana, who we covered in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. A miniature portrait of an Italian noble
Speaker 1: woman came up for auction in Texas, which used to
Speaker 1: belong to another past podcast subject, Horace Walpole. Walpole displayed
Speaker 1: the painting at Strawberry Hillhouse. It is believed to depict
Speaker 1: Bianca Cappello, grand Duchess, consort of Tuscany and wife of Francesco,
Speaker 1: the first de Medici, who Walpole had a fascination with.
Speaker 2: Walpole also believed this painting had been created by a
Speaker 2: different artist, mannerist painter Bronzino, who lived in the sixteenth century,
Speaker 2: But after this portrait was found at auction, it was
Speaker 2: reattributed to Lavinia Fontana. This miniature has been loaned to
Speaker 2: Strawberry Hill House and it will be on display there
Speaker 2: until April twenty third of this year, which is twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five if you're listening when this episode is actually publishing. Also,
Speaker 2: another painting has also been reattributed to Lavinia Fontana. This
Speaker 2: one was previously attributed to Flemish Renaissance artist Peter Porbuss,
Speaker 2: but it was reattributed after an expert spotted the painting
Speaker 2: in a storage room at the Musee de la Chartreuse
Speaker 2: in Duay, France. This one depicts a family with a
Speaker 2: girl passing flowers to her father and a servant behind
Speaker 2: them with a basket of fruit. This painting is going
Speaker 2: to go through restoration before becoming part of the museum's
Speaker 2: permanent collection. Next up, conservators in France have digitized and
Speaker 2: analyzed a set of cathedral wall paintings that have been
Speaker 2: hidden for centuries. These date back to the thirteenth century
Speaker 2: and they cover seven bays in the apse of Algers Cathedral,
Speaker 2: and based on research that was involved in this project,
Speaker 2: two different groups originally created them. Then back in fourteen
Speaker 2: fifty one, the cathedral was damaged by a fire and
Speaker 2: the walls were whitewashed That's probably why these paintings were
Speaker 2: not destroyed during the French Wars of Religion. Then in
Speaker 2: the eighteenth century, wooden choir stalls were built in front
Speaker 2: of those whitewashed walls. These wall paintings were rediscovered back
Speaker 2: in the nineteen eighties, but it took a decade just
Speaker 2: to remove the whitewash before they could be conserved. This
Speaker 2: whole process was made more difficult and time consuming because
Speaker 2: the choir stalls are backed by tall wooden panels which
Speaker 2: cannot be removed, so everything had to happen in this
Speaker 2: very narrow space between the wood panels and the wall.
Speaker 2: It sounds very awkward and tedious the descriptions. It sounds
Speaker 2: like that whole thing of like building your spite house
Speaker 2: an inch from the house next to it, Like how
Speaker 2: do you get anything done in there? How are you
Speaker 2: going to repaint that? While ever never h Digitizing these
Speaker 2: paintings involved taking more than eight thousand total photographs, which
Speaker 2: then had to be stitched together into one image, and
Speaker 2: that was a whole other, multi year process. These paintings
Speaker 2: depict the life and works of Saint Mauria, who was
Speaker 2: the Bishop of Algier in the fifth century. Next, researchers
Speaker 2: working with a thirteenth century fresco in Ferrara, Italy, have
Speaker 2: published research suggesting that one of the things depicted in
Speaker 2: the fresco is a tent from the Islamic world. The
Speaker 2: fresco is in the apse of a church, and it's
Speaker 2: believed that it depicts a real tent that was used
Speaker 2: in that church to conceal the altar, either all the
Speaker 2: time or during particular parts of the liturgical year. This
Speaker 2: tent is brightly colored, it's covered in jewels, and the
Speaker 2: round shape it matches the curve of the apse. Its
Speaker 2: borders feature sort of a pseudo Arabic style of inscription,
Speaker 2: and there are color combinations that were really popular in
Speaker 2: thirteenth century and to Lucy's silks. The depiction in the
Speaker 2: fresco is similar to surviving fragments of those silks and
Speaker 2: to artistic representations of tents like these being used in
Speaker 2: the Islamic world.
Speaker 1: This research suggests that textiles made their way from the
Speaker 1: Islamic world to Christian churches, possibly through the textiles being
Speaker 1: taken as spoils of war and then gifted to churches
Speaker 1: or church leaders. Popes are known to have gifted altar
Speaker 1: curtains to churches going back to at least the ninth century,
Speaker 1: so it's possible that this tent was a gift to
Speaker 1: the church from the pope or another high ranking person
Speaker 1: within the church, or this also could have been a
Speaker 1: gift from a wealthy family. Moving on, we have kind
Speaker 1: of a saga about art attribute.
Speaker 2: Back in twenty eighteen, someone who had bought a painting
Speaker 2: at a garage sale in Minnesota for fifty dollars submitted
Speaker 2: an inquiry to the Vang Museum in Amsterdam about whether
Speaker 2: this painting might be that artist's work. The following year,
Speaker 2: the museum said no, it wasn't quote based on stylistic features.
Speaker 2: From there, a data science company called LMI Group bought
Speaker 2: the painting and did its own analysis of it. LMI
Speaker 2: Group was co founded by Maxwell L. Anderson, who's an
Speaker 2: art historian and has served as the director of a
Speaker 2: number of museums.
Speaker 1: LMI Group concluded that the painting was Van Goes work.
Speaker 1: The name Elmar is in one corner of the canvas,
Speaker 1: which has been adopted as the painting's name, and LMI
Speaker 1: Group speculates that it's a reference to a character in
Speaker 1: Hans Christian Anderson's eighteen forty eight novel The Two Baronesses.
Speaker 1: LMI sent its conclusion to the Vango Museum, which maintained
Speaker 1: that it still did not believe that this work was
Speaker 1: van Goes. On January thirty first, LMI Group gave a
Speaker 1: statement that read, in part quote, we are puzzled why
Speaker 1: the Vango Museum invested less than one working day to
Speaker 1: summarily reject the facts presented in our four hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty six page report without offering any explanation, let alone
Speaker 1: studying the painting directly rather than looking at it reproduced
Speaker 1: as a JPEG. LMI Group has published this report on
Speaker 1: its website, and that PDF is indeed more than four
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty pages long. Obviously we cannot go through
Speaker 1: a document that long here, but it looks at where
Speaker 1: the painting would fit in Vango's ouvre, material science DNA analysis,
Speaker 1: including on a hair found on the painting, and the
Speaker 1: comparison of the handwriting used to write Elmar to other
Speaker 1: words that appear on Vango's paintings.
Speaker 2: This is currently unresolved, but there are other experts who
Speaker 2: have offered a completely different alternative explanation. And that is
Speaker 2: that Elmar is not a reference to a Hans Christian
Speaker 2: Andersen character, but is the name of the artist who
Speaker 2: made the painting. That's Danish artist Henning Elmar, who died
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1: Mysteries, Uh, hopefully we'll find out. A man in northern
Speaker 1: Greece found a headless statue in the trash and turned
Speaker 1: it over to authorities, and that statue has been confirmed
Speaker 1: to be roughly two thousand years old, dating back to
Speaker 1: the Hellenistic period. It's made of marble, and it's about
Speaker 1: thirty inches tall, and it is missing its head and arms.
Speaker 1: It depicts a woman in flowing garments, and since statues
Speaker 1: of human women during this period were more likely to
Speaker 1: be made of other materials like wood, this likely represented
Speaker 1: a goddess. Based on its size, it may have been
Speaker 1: a votive statue from a temple. Authorities in Greek including
Speaker 1: the Cultural Heritage Protection Office, are trying to learn more
Speaker 1: about the statue and find out how it came to
Speaker 1: be in the trash.
Speaker 2: Speaking of things found in the trash, an eighteenth century
Speaker 2: sketch by English portrait painter George Romney was pulled out
Speaker 2: of a dumpster in Hudson, New York last year. The
Speaker 2: id on who made this one was not all that difficult.
Speaker 2: In addition to having Romney's signature on it, his studio
Speaker 2: stamp is on the reverse side of the sketch. A
Speaker 2: private collector bought this at auction in March.
Speaker 1: This sketch is believed to be of Henrietta Greville, Countess
Speaker 1: of Warwick, possibly in preparation for the oil painting of
Speaker 1: her and her children that he painted in the late
Speaker 1: eighteen seventies. This doesn't look at all like the oil painting, though,
Speaker 1: since it's a very basic sketch, a person who didn't
Speaker 1: recognize the name would probably think this was just scribbles. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you don't sort of know the context of what
Speaker 1: his work sketches looked like, you could look at it
Speaker 1: and think a child did this, a small child just
Speaker 1: learning how to hold a crayon. It absolutely does not
Speaker 1: surprise me that it would have wound up in the trash.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy four, a painting called Woman Carrying the
Speaker 1: Embers by Peter Breugel the Younger was discovered to have
Speaker 1: been stolen from the National Museum in Danks, Poland. It
Speaker 1: had been replaced with a magazine cutout, which was discovered
Speaker 1: when a worker accidentally knocked it off the wall. Now
Speaker 1: that painting has been found in the Gouda Museum, where
Speaker 1: it was being described as being on loan from a
Speaker 1: private collection. This discovery was made with the help of
Speaker 1: art detective Arthur Brand and it started after the Dutch
Speaker 1: arts magazine VIND covered an exhibition at the museum. A
Speaker 1: photo of the painting in Vinn looked like a photo
Speaker 1: from an article about the theft, which also involved another painting,
Speaker 1: which i'd been published back in nineteen seventy four. It
Speaker 1: is not currently clear how the theft originally happened or
Speaker 1: how the painting wound up on loan to the Gouda Museum.
Speaker 1: I have thoughts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does seem very lucky or very lucky that
Speaker 2: somebody recognized the similarity to something from a publication from
Speaker 2: back in the seventies. Next, a portrait that has gone
Speaker 2: on display at Rest Park in England may depict Lady
Speaker 2: Jane Gray and if so, it may be the only
Speaker 2: portrait painted of her before she was executed. Our episode
Speaker 2: on Lady Jane Gray and the nine days she spent
Speaker 2: as Queen ran on March fifth of twenty seventeen. This
Speaker 2: painting was added to the collection at Rest Park Way
Speaker 2: back in the early eighteenth century, and at that time
Speaker 2: it was described as a painting of Lady Jane Gray,
Speaker 2: who had died in fifteen fifty four, but eventually that
Speaker 2: identity was called into question. The English Herita website frames
Speaker 2: this return to the interpretation that it does depict Lady
Speaker 2: Jane Gray as still somewhat speculative. This conclusion has involved
Speaker 2: tree ring dating of the wood panels it was painted on,
Speaker 2: X ray, fluorescent studies, and infrared reflexology, plus the work
Speaker 2: of historical experts who have pointed out similarities between the
Speaker 2: painting and portraits that were painted after her death, and
Speaker 2: they use words like compelling and possible. And lastly, we
Speaker 2: have previously talked about how in the ancient Greek world
Speaker 2: marble statues that appear white today were painted in vibrant colors.
Speaker 2: They were also clothed and adorned with jewelry, and according
Speaker 2: to recent research, some of them were perfumed. So people's
Speaker 2: experiences with these statues would have been both visual and olfactory.
Speaker 2: That sounds lovely, yeah, would have spelled nice, not overwhelming.
Speaker 2: I could be a little sensitive to fragrances this is,
Speaker 2: so whether I would enjoy that would kind of depend
Speaker 2: on what the fragrances were. So that is the first
Speaker 2: part of our two parter on Unearthed for Today, and
Speaker 2: I have a little listener mail. This is from Joni.
Speaker 2: Joni wrote after our episode on exem Clement and said, hello,
Speaker 2: Holly and Tracy. I love your show and I'm a
Speaker 2: longtime listener. While not a first time writer, I am
Speaker 2: definitely an infrequent one. While I was listening to the
Speaker 2: March tenth episode on exem Clement, you made a comment
Speaker 2: about being a bit confused by her being referred to
Speaker 2: as brother Exam by the other legislators. I don't know
Speaker 2: the real story behind the brother reference, but I do
Speaker 2: have a story from my own past that may or
Speaker 2: may not be relevant. When I was in college, I
Speaker 2: joined a fraternity called Alpha Fi Omega APO is a
Speaker 2: national co ed service fraternity that is focused on leadership, friendship,
Speaker 2: and community serus. All members were called brothers as opposed
Speaker 2: to brothers and sisters, in the spirit of acknowledging that
Speaker 2: we are all equal members. As a woman, I appreciated
Speaker 2: and preferred being called a brother. I have no idea
Speaker 2: if exem Clement would have felt the same way, or
Speaker 2: if the rationale behind her being called brother was the same.
Speaker 2: I just wanted to share that perspective. Thank you so
Speaker 2: much for everything you do. Your podcast is among my favorites.
Speaker 2: I often listen when I am working out or doing
Speaker 2: chores around the house. All the best, Joni, Thank you
Speaker 2: so much for this email. I like that a little
Speaker 2: bit of perspective.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we kind of talked about a similar thing, but
Speaker 1: from a fictional world, because I think I have mentioned
Speaker 1: how on Star Trek people call even the women captain sir.
Speaker 2: Everyone's sir. Yeah, so yes.
Speaker 1: Kind of fundamentally the same concept.
Speaker 2: If you'd like to send us a note about this
Speaker 2: or any other podcast, we are at History Podcast at
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio dot com, and you can subscribe to our show
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