WEBVTT - Thinking Sideways: The Persian Princess 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:02.800 This episode of Thinking Sideways is not brought to you 0:00:02.840 --> 0:00:07.160 by membership patches for groups that nobody has ever heard of. Instead, 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:11.240 it's brought you by crime Con. That's right, ladies and gentlemen. 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:15.319 Crime Con is happening again this year. It's on May 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:20.439 fourth through six in Nashville, Tennessee. We're going to be 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:24.200 there along with a whole bunch of other podcasters and 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:26.920 really cool famous people. I'm gonna let you go out 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:29.200 to the list and look for yourself, but you know 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:32.160 you want to go, so if you use the promo 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:36.600 code sideways, you'll get tem per cent off. So go 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:49.040 register and we will see you in Nashville. Boys and girls, 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:05.320 Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Thinking Sideways the podcast. 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:11.520 I'm Devin, joined as usual by Joe and Steve, and 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:14.520 today we're going to talk about a mystery. I know 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:18.480 that's different from what we normally do. Yeah, well this 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:20.880 good you know recipe we could talk about instead if 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:25.240 you wanted cooking show. Yeah, we should be a travelogue. 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:28.560 We should the neighborhoods of Portland. Yeah. Um, Today we're 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:32.040 going to talk about mystery we're calling the Persian Princess. 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:34.120 And before we get too far into what I do. 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:37.160 Want to thank Hayden for the suggestion of this mystery 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:40.000 we're going to talk about. I mean, it may seem 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:42.760 kind of boring, this Persian princess thing, but I have 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:46.520 a fun twist ending kind of and an attempt and 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:49.560 a like a really really bad attempt at a quick 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:51.800 overview of the case that you may have already read 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:58.400 because it's also our episode description. Uh. In October two thousand, 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:01.720 of video surfaced in which a man claimed to have 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:05.360 the mummified remains of a Persian princess for sale. The 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:09.680 investigation that followed revealed not only that the mummy might 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:12.720 be a forgery, but also that there might be a 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:14.679 murder in the mix, which is the fun twist ending 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:17.720 there was a dead body in the middle of that. Mommy, 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:22.480 wasn't there, Well there, Usually iscifically it works, it's usually 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:27.760 how it works, though. Yeah, okay ready indeed okay. Uh So. 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:32.240 On October nineteenth, two thousand, a Pakistani man named Ali 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:36.040 Akbar made a video showcasing a mummy in a gilded 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:40.880 sarcophagus that he said he was selling for six million rupees, 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:45.600 which at the time was about eleven million dollars um, 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:48.840 which is about sixteen million dollars now, which I know 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:50.800 is a huge difference. That's a big jump in the 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:54.040 seventeen short years. Yeah, and for folks who don't know 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:58.840 sarcophagus is a fancy coffin, not everybody goes yeah, actually 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:02.360 sometimes a sarcop guess it's see, it's like the exterior, 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:07.040 the ex character the cofin put the coffin into. Yeah, 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:11.240 it's the fancy thing. They put a fancy coffin. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:14.840 While this interested some people to be sure, other people 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:20.799 thought maybe this was illegal and in violation of the 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:23.760 antiquity laws. It's probably illegal amount how you cut it. 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:26.720 It's either fraud which is illegal, or let's you know, 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:31.480 valuable artifact which is also illegal. Yeah. Either way, the 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:33.640 police decided that it was a good idea to go 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:38.160 question ak Bar. When they did, he said he wasn't 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:41.360 in actual physical possession. Instead, he was acting as like 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:45.120 a go between, a middleman. When the police did actually 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:49.640 go to question him, they he said that he wasn't 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:53.760 actually in physical possession of the mummy and sarcophagus and 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:56.520 coffin and all that stuff. Instead it was kept at 0:03:56.520 --> 0:04:03.080 the house of a tribal leader. Yeah, thank you, thank you. 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:09.760 I want to do that on your own. I don't. 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:12.880 I just want to keep going. Um. I you know, 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:16.000 I'm really good at pronouncing something. Then I looked up 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:17.880 a lot of stuff, and then now I'm realizing I 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:20.960 didn't look all of it up. So sorry everyone, But 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:23.960 this this tribal leader lived kind of near the border 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:28.160 of Afghanistan. So police police go to question Riki and 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:30.919 he tells them the mommy was a gift. Of course 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:33.400 it was, yeah, he said. The man he had gotten 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:36.800 it from was an Iranian who said that he had 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:41.160 found it after an earthquake in or near Quarta, Kta. 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:45.360 Both Akbar and Riki were charged with violations of the 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:48.880 antiquity rules and were sentenced to ten years in jail. 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:51.640 And that's pretty much the end of their involvement in 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:54.960 the story, kind of mostly mostly by name. At least 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:58.480 a week later, the mummy was making waves and an 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:06.120 archaeologist Ahma Hassan Danni of Islami's Bods Quite Isam University. 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:11.359 I'm so sorry from not not even language, sorry sorry sorry, 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:14.359 um said that the mummy seemed to be a princess, 0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:17.359 probably from about six D B C E, which is 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:21.719 BC for Christ for Common era if we're in use 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:25.600 sciency terms. The mummy was wrapped in an ancient Egyptian 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:29.880 style and rested in a gilded wooden coffin with cuneiform 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:36.960 carvings inside of a stone sarcophagus. Cuniform, well maybe kind 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:40.480 of Cuniform is one of the earliest systems of writing, 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:43.320 for those of you who don't know. It was invented 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:46.320 by the Sumerians, and they basically they made it with this. 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:51.400 They had these little blunt wedge reads. They were basically 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:53.760 like little triangles at the end split a read into 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:56.919 quarters and then you would just push it in in 0:05:57.000 --> 0:06:00.640 a different sets of you know, shapes, um. But they 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:04.920 were all this like weird little trianglie people people have 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:07.760 probably people who don't know what this is has probably 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:11.080 actually seen it in movies because it's it's always like 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:13.880 two or three arrows at a time pointing in a 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:16.640 direction and they kind of rotate around, like it'll be 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:19.920 three in a row, three stacked on top of each other, 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:22.839 and then you rotate. But people have seen it in 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:26.560 a lot of Hollywood stuff, and what you're describing as 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:31.039 an arrow I would describe as a triangle right arrowhead, Yeah, 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:35.880 triangle kind it's difference, but people Hollywood use it to 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:39.520 make it look things look old. Yeah, for a more 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:43.640 body reference. If you remember the Predator movies, that's you know, 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:47.520 like Predator, Predator versus Alien. Yeah, yeah, that's what the 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:49.720 that's the kind of writing the Predator did, kind of. Yeah, 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:54.080 it's kind of writing. Um, well, cuniform, so the ancient aliens, 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:57.280 well they probably gave it to us, dude. Yeah, so 0:06:57.440 --> 0:07:00.760 cuneiform itself actually just means wedge shape, so it is 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:04.039 that kind of wedge triangle shaped anyway. Anyway, that was 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:07.360 a little thing. The wooden coffin had a far of 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:09.840 our carved in it, which kind of looks like a 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:12.600 guy in the middle of a giant wingspan. It looks 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:17.040 super objected, right, kind of if there's a guy standing 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:20.800 in the middle of like just imagine a giant Egyptian wingspan, 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:23.280 like you know what I'm talking about, but instead of 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:25.480 like a head of an animal or something, it's just 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:29.600 a guy standing there, normal human, yeah, facing sideways. This 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:33.640 was a symbol of Zoroastrianism, which is a pre Islamic 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:37.520 Persian religion. You sometimes see it in Iran still, but 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:40.440 it's not really religious anymore. It's been taken over by 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:43.120 a secular meaning. It's kind of more of just a 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:48.800 national symbol. Yeah, more of like amah. Yeah. As mentioned, 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:51.920 there was a gold chest plate that was written in 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:57.440 cuneiform um. She had a gold crown and mask on 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:00.840 her face. The mummy there was also a chest like 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:03.840 there was a weird leaf pattern almost that was also 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:05.920 in gold that was on kind of her chest area 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:08.640 as well, which you don't see referenced a lot, but 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:12.880 you can see in the pictures Pricey little mommy. Yeah. Yeah. 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:15.400 The body was laid on a mat that was covered 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:19.000 in honey and wax, which is kind of typical of mummies. 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:22.040 The inscription was translated to say that she was the 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:26.680 basically unknown daughter of kings zerk sees the first of 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:31.920 persia U named Duguna, and she was a member of 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:37.320 the Acameded dynasty. Actually, like basically verbatim, it read, I 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:39.920 am the daughter of the great King zerk sees U. 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:44.800 Mazerika protects me. I am Reduguna. I am so one 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:46.880 thing I want to point out about this mommy, because 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:50.280 people I immediately did not understand what she looked like. 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:52.920 I had a preconceived notion based on stuff that I 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:56.920 see on TV. It's not the dry wrapped mummy like 0:08:57.000 --> 0:09:01.600 she's encased in the resin, the resin, in the honey, 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:04.400 in the wax, like she is fully inside of this stuff. 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:07.520 It's not your typical dry mummy that stands up and 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:11.000 walks around on Halloween kind of look, right, And that's 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:14.280 really what mummies were like. And then once you get 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:17.560 through that, then you do get to that drier kind 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:22.880 of wrapping, although it's you know, soaked in resonant shell off, 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:25.120 but essentially they're kind of like cast in resin or 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:29.400 something right there, like a paper weight, yeah, kind of, yeah, actually, 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:31.880 and then they push the and that's kind of how 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:33.839 they keep the gold. I'm sorry, I'm trying to really 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:35.560 her not to cover my face as I'm talking about 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:39.360 the mask, but the gold crown in the mask is 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:41.720 kind of you know, it's slay on top of her, 0:09:41.760 --> 0:09:43.920 and then there's resin poured on top of that, so 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:46.719 it stays in place, sealed in. Yeah, it's all kind 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:49.960 of sealed in, baked in maybe I think sealed. I 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:54.360 think this kind of resin is not like aering resin. 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:56.480 I think it's just kind of you know, yeah, I've 0:09:56.480 --> 0:09:58.960 never I've never dealt with it like honey, you know 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:01.280 how honey just sticky. Oh, and that it kind of 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:06.040 heartens after a while. Yeah, you know, there's probably some like, 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:08.600 you know, some sort of new age funeral home here 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:11.000 in town that actually does modifications, So we should probably 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:14.280 call them. If there isn't. The millennials will make it happen. 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:17.360 Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah, I like artisanal mommification or something 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:18.960 like that. I'm sure there's gonna be a little place 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:21.960 opening up very soon here in town. Yeah, that's an 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:27.760 interesting pronuncia. That's a different way than Yeah, it sounds 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:32.800 it sounds more artisanal. Yeah, I pulled the word up suddenly. 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:36.160 It had no time to prepare myself for pronuncia fair enough. Yeah, yeah, 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:40.280 I guess I guess I can, because you've gotten everything 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:44.920 else right so for me. Yeah. So okay, So this 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:49.839 whole inscription thing kind of puzzled archaeologists. Actually, the whole 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:53.000 thing puzzled archaeologists, And this is why this was such 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:55.120 a big deal as well. So it's like puzzling in 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:59.800 a huge deal because she was found in Persia. But 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:04.960 as far as anybody knew was son of Darius, Persians, 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:08.040 he was a Persian, he was Persian. Yeah, right, so 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:12.640 the it's all Persian, this Persian that, um. But the reason, yeah, 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:15.360 I guess that's probably worth bringing up. The reason that 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:18.600 this was so startling and so big was, as far 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:23.160 as anybody knew at that time, mummification was really just 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:28.719 only practiced by Egyptians. In Egypt. They thought maybe she 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:34.040 was had married a Persian prince and she was Egyptian 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:38.040 and that they had sent you know, honored her tradition 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:41.800 or something well, or that when she was married off 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:44.200 that they had sent you know, there was there was 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:50.240 some knowledge of this sort of when an Egyptian, well 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:52.400 that they would know that they would send also like 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:54.720 you know, they would send the Egyptian scholars and they 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:58.840 would send you know, jewelry and stuff like that. Yeah, exactly, 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:02.280 party they're in there for they would retain the knowledge, right, 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:05.199 And so then there was well they wouldn't there were 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:09.480 people who were who only did momification, but that they 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:12.400 would have maybe sent a couple of them as as well, 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:15.920 so that when she did die, she could be you know, 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:18.720 buried in the proper way her body could be prepared 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:21.720 for the afterlife in the appropriate way. Makes sense that 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:23.520 she was a princess. The rest of us we get 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:26.560 thrown into a hole that. Yeah, got a special team 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:29.160 that's just like all on that one issue. Yeah, true, 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:33.400 Princess one is down wrap stacked. Yeah, I mean really yeah, 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:35.640 because I mean, like I said, it's not as though 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:40.080 it just anybody knew how to mummify a body, right, 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:44.760 I mean, well, we could probably figure it out the internet, right, 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:48.360 But you know, in those times, particularly if she was Persian, 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:53.560 meant either that she had come from Egypt and some 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:56.080 people had come from Egypt to take care of her 0:12:56.120 --> 0:12:59.520 body when she died, or the Persians actually had a 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:03.280 history of momification that nobody knew about before, and this 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:06.040 was like a huge breakthrough an understanding. Yeah. I don't think. 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:08.079 I don't think as like a lot of these ancient 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:11.040 ancient Persian reality, I don't think they found their tombs, 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:13.120 have they. I don't think so. Yeah, I think they're 0:13:13.160 --> 0:13:15.120 all that. So you know, it could be that they 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:17.840 were all busy mommifying themselves and then we just don't know, 0:13:17.920 --> 0:13:19.640 We just don't know. We haven't found them yet Yeah, 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:22.880 so that was a big deal. And actually that of 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:26.199 course means that, um, a couple other people said no, actually, 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:28.080 you know what, I think we own the rights to 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:34.400 that mummy, uh, the Persian princess. Yeah, yeah, exactly, yes, 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:36.600 So where it was, you know, that particular patch of 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:39.920 real estate is close to Iran, Afghanistan and in Pakistan, 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:42.320 so it's like, well, you know, probably that piece of 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:44.280 real estate has been part of those all three of 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:48.520 those countries at some point. Yeah, so Iran, Pakistan, and 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:53.240 actually the Taliban. Yeah, they all made claims that they 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:56.199 were actually the rightful owners of this mummy. Eventually Pakistan 0:13:56.320 --> 0:14:00.640 one out and they placed the Persian Princess as Princess 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:05.720 Juguna in the National Museum of Pakistan on display as 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:11.360 a cultural heritage thing. Whoops. There, I'm kind of curious 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:13.200 about what the Taliban wanted to do with the mommy, 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:15.520 because remember they're not they're not there, they're not too 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:21.480 keen on. But we'll talk about that later, you think, okay, yeah, 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:24.360 we'll talk about it later. Yeah. Sorry. Anyway, so you 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:28.880 may have heard us go whoops, um, why why whoops? Well, 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:32.200 so it turns out during this whole hullabaloo. An American 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:36.520 archaeologist named Oscar White Muscarella, who is an expert in 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:40.920 Persian antiquities, came forward. He said that he had actually 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:43.800 also been approached about a year prior by a different 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:48.360 middleman in two thousand, right, so right as the discovery 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:50.080 of this thing was kind of being made public. I 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:52.640 think the guy sent him, like some polaroids he sent, Yeah, 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:56.760 he sent some polaroids, and he said he immediately had 0:14:56.840 --> 0:15:01.160 some doubts about the mummies authenticity, mostly tied up to 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:04.880 where the money was found, and also the translation of 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:09.480 the breastplate. He said that, um, it seemed kind of familiar, 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:12.800 and it was taken like almost word for word. Maybe 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:14.920 there's this like this is where the reporting gets a 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:18.240 little weird, because I've seen this statement where he says 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:20.200 it was taken word from word from this other thing, 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:23.040 and then I've seen other statements that say, actually it 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:26.040 was made by Pete somebody who was totally illiterate in 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:30.280 the Persian language, and it's like riddled with mistakes. So 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:32.920 I'm not really totally sure, but there was something really 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:36.440 off about the chest plate. It might have been taken 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:42.000 from this pretty famous inscription called the Bastian inscription, which 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:44.280 is probably not how you pronounce that word, which is 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:47.560 a multi lingual inscription that can can serve as kind 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:50.760 of a Rosetta stone, but for cuneiform instead of hieroglyphics. 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:56.920 It's three different languages all in Cuneiform. It's Old Persian, Emilet, 0:15:56.960 --> 0:16:02.600 and Babylonian. The original carving of that inscription is pretty big. 0:16:02.640 --> 0:16:07.720 It's like fifty ft high by eighty two ft wide, 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:12.640 which is fifteen meters and respectively. And it was like 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:16.040 a hundred or three hundred and twenty feet off the ground, 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:18.640 which is a hundreds meant to be read from far 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:21.520 away apparently. Yeah, well it's big. It's like it's a billboard. 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:24.280 It's like first billboard. It is like the Hollywood sign. 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:27.680 It is. Yeah, absolutely is. And actually what the story 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:30.640 is is that it was it was carved during the 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:36.000 reign of Darius, who deserved seed One's father, so would 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:42.600 have I guess been the grandfather of Um Reduguna the Persian. Uh. 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:45.320 It's a World Heritage site. Yeah, so it's a World 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:49.320 Heritage site, et cetera. Um. Anyway, the American archaeologists said 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:51.400 that he didn't think the mummy was more than a 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:54.480 hundred years old and it was probably like modern. So 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:59.040 the dealer, being kind of a smart alec, was like, okay, sure, yeah, 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:00.680 I'll send you part of the often, just like a 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:03.440 little sliver of the wood from the coffin, and then 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:05.720 you can carbon date that and that will prove that 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:09.439 this is authentic, and then um, and I can face 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:12.439 sucker well or you know, then you'll obviously be interested 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:15.080 in buying it because it's this like huge antiquity, even 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:18.760 though again it's kind of like it's super illegal and 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:20.760 you would think an archaeologist would know that, but whatever, 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:23.080 you're not supposed to be like carving a chunk out 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:27.600 the coffin. Yeah. So um, he did send a small 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:30.800 piece of the coffin and it did get carbon dated. 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:34.520 The carbon dating came back on the coffin and that 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:37.760 was about two and fifty years old in reality. The 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:43.320 dealer's representative counter argued that that could hardly be considered modern. 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:51.879 So so he should still be interested in buying this antiquity, right, yeah, 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:56.800 um so. Muscarella, who by now was almost certain that 0:17:56.840 --> 0:18:00.639 this whole mummy thing was a total forgery, alerted the 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:03.760 FBI and clearly they did not take any action on that, 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:09.080 and they don't care. Yeah, and I mean I will say, 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:12.359 you know again, as we know, carbon dating really only 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:14.760 says that's when the tree was cut down. So for 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:17.520 all you know, the coffin could have been made made 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:19.359 more recently than they could have been like you know, 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:22.080 salvage would maybe they know, somebody tore a barn down. 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:28.040 It's it's totally possible. Yeah, even later. Um Ahmed Donnie, 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:31.639 who was the director of the Institute of Asian Civilizations 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:36.360 in Islama's Islamabad at the time, I inspected the mummy 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:39.879 because he was also kind of suspicious of his mummy. Again. 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:43.200 You know, I think a lot of people were like, 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:46.960 this is really cool discovery. We're learning new things about 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:49.520 ancient civilizations. But at the same time, a lot of 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:53.520 people were super suspicious of it because people fake stuff 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:55.720 all the time. It turns out actually that this was 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:59.439 a big thing. Was faking mummy. Oh yeah, big sport 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:02.240 back hundred years ago. Yeah, which is kind of sad. 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:04.199 You know, I must be disappointing to come across this. 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:06.840 I mean there's so many initial initial excitement and then bam, 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:09.480 you know, all gets taken away. Yeah, but so when 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:13.000 the mummy itself was examined, it seemed like the body 0:19:13.080 --> 0:19:16.040 was much younger than even the coffin surrounding it. He 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:19.680 noticed that the matt below the body, it's kind of 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:21.840 like it's like up the walls of the coffin and 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:24.280 then below the body. Um, it's kind of like a 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:27.640 protective thing. Was really seems to only be about five 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:34.520 years old still at a Walmart tag. Yeah exactly, um Ke, 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:39.199 alerted Awesoma Ibraheim, who was the curator at that National 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:42.600 Museum in Pakistan where the mummy was being displayed. Ibraheim 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:44.720 took a closer look at the mummy on display and 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:48.639 did find that the inscription was maybe not an exact 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:51.160 copy that we had thought before. Like I said, this 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:53.320 is where they realized there were a ton of grammatical 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:58.120 errors in the cuneiform inscription. Yeah, so, like I said, 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:00.600 I had like a bunch of grammatic errors. It's somebody 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:02.400 looked at a picture of it and thought, oh, yeah, 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:04.760 I can do that, probably from a movie. Yeah, you know. 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:06.880 Another another funny thing about it is and they took 0:20:06.920 --> 0:20:09.119 a close look at at the carvings that were in 0:20:09.160 --> 0:20:12.880 the coffin. They noticed that somebody had had actually made 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:17.560 guide marks with a lead pencil, yeah, prior to the carving, 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:20.200 and they forgot to erase them or whatever remove them 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:24.160 after it was all done. Yeah. So um, anyway, that's 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:30.040 it seems like maybe that was not maybe it's not real. Um. 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:33.160 And the final kind of nail in the proverbial coffin 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:38.159 was that it actually turned out that the name that 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:41.480 was being used was a wrong version of the name 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:47.240 um Dugana. It turns out, is actually the Greek form 0:20:47.280 --> 0:20:51.640 of the Persian name. It's a slightly different spelling, which 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:53.639 the pronunciation is the same. So I'm not going to 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:57.359 try to relay. But Reduguna is spelled r h oh, 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:00.600 and then the actual Persian version of it is spelled 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:06.520 w a R. So obviously that's not right. Somebody really 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:10.520 didn't do his research here. Yeah. Ibraheim spent some time 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:13.720 investigating the body, including having an X ray and CT 0:21:14.000 --> 0:21:18.560 scanned in April of two thousand one and stated that 0:21:18.760 --> 0:21:22.440 actually it was not a mummy at all. Done done, 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:24.280 done well. I mean it's in a sense it was 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:26.960 a mommy, it just wasn't I guess, you know, a 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:29.280 dead body was wrapped up in a mummy is sort 0:21:29.280 --> 0:21:30.560 of way. So I guess it was kind of a 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:34.160 mommy kind of Yeah, just an ancient No, not really 0:21:34.160 --> 0:21:37.879 that old at all. Yeah, So we're going to do 0:21:37.920 --> 0:21:40.360 a thing where we like leave you hanging for a second, 0:21:40.520 --> 0:21:43.160 and then we're going to talk about theories. But first 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:52.879 let's take a break. Bow wow bow wow wow bow 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:58.159 wow wow. Yippi yow wow wow yippi yo yippy ya. 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:01.920 What did I just say? Well, if you speak d 0:22:02.000 --> 0:22:04.440 O double G, then you know that I said something 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:07.880 super exciting and soon you'll be chasing the mail carrier 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:11.080 down the street in a happy way, not that angry 0:22:11.080 --> 0:22:15.000 ears back kind of way. Why. 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