Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Walt Disney once said, all
Speaker 1: our dreams can come true if we have the courage
Speaker 1: to pursue them. Throughout history, artists, scientists, and scholars have
Speaker 1: worked tirelessly to solve life's greatest mysteries and provide a
Speaker 1: greater understanding of the world. This sort of work takes dedication,
Speaker 1: though it takes time and effort, late nights and long hours.
Speaker 1: But keep it up for long and you can wear
Speaker 1: a person down. That's what happened to a seriologist, Hermann Helpricht,
Speaker 1: although it was his pursuit of a dream that shed
Speaker 1: new light on Assyria, the ancient Mesopotamian kingdom. In eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty three, Herman was studying some sketches sent to him
Speaker 1: by the University of Pennsylvania. Their excavation team had been
Speaker 1: digging at the Temple of Bell at Nippur when they
Speaker 1: unearthed pieces of agate. Agate is a type of rock
Speaker 1: teaming with miniature crystals, and while most of the agate
Speaker 1: found at the site was fairly standard in look and composition.
Speaker 1: Two fragments stood apart as different from the others. Archaeologists
Speaker 1: theorized they were parts of an ancient finger ring, but
Speaker 1: Herman wasn't so sure. Unfortunately, there was only so much
Speaker 1: he could learn from the drawings. Still, he poured over
Speaker 1: them for hours, looking for possible connections or translations in
Speaker 1: the characters inscribed along the edges. On one were the
Speaker 1: letters K and you, but without more that wasn't helpful.
Speaker 1: Whatever was written on the other ring was unclear. The
Speaker 1: mystery bothered Herman until late one night. That night, as
Speaker 1: he drifted to sleep, he slipped into a dream. And
Speaker 1: in this dream, a man approached him, an old and
Speaker 1: slender priest. He wore ancient ceremonial garb, and he led
Speaker 1: Herman to a chamber within the temple that was filled
Speaker 1: with treasure. Within the chamber was a small room with
Speaker 1: no windows. Herman had to crawl to get inside, But
Speaker 1: once he was in there he found a wooden chest
Speaker 1: surrounded by pieces of agate. And that's when the priest
Speaker 1: told him of a command issued by a king called
Speaker 1: Curry gal Zoo to the Assyrian people. The king had
Speaker 1: sent them a vote of cylinder made of agates and
Speaker 1: told them to fashion agates ear rings for a statue
Speaker 1: of the god Ninib. However, the Assyrians had no raw
Speaker 1: agate except for the cylinder that they had been given
Speaker 1: by the king. With no other choice, they cut it
Speaker 1: into three rings. The first two rings possessed part of
Speaker 1: the king's inscription and were used as the statue's ear rings.
Speaker 1: The priest told Herman that the third ring was lost
Speaker 1: and would never be founding in and after that, Herman
Speaker 1: awoke from his dream and ran back to his desk.
Speaker 1: He pulled out the drawings, searching them again for some
Speaker 1: kind of sign, and then he saw what the priest
Speaker 1: had been talking about. The pieces in theory could be
Speaker 1: fitted together to form one ring. However, he wouldn't know
Speaker 1: until he got his hands on the real things. When
Speaker 1: he told the story of how he came to his
Speaker 1: conclusion to his American colleagues at the university, they laughed
Speaker 1: at him. Dreams were not an academic solution to a
Speaker 1: historical problem like this. Nevertheless, he took his findings and
Speaker 1: his story to the Imperial Museum in Constantinople, where the
Speaker 1: actual fragments were being kept. The director of the museum
Speaker 1: there listened to Herman talk about his dream, and did
Speaker 1: so with respect and understanding. He wasn't so sure about
Speaker 1: the meaning that Herman had interpreted from it, since the
Speaker 1: fragments were of different colors and didn't appear to be
Speaker 1: connected in any way, but he indulged the archaeologist any
Speaker 1: and had the agate fragments brought out from storage. Herman
Speaker 1: picked them up and examined them in the light. The
Speaker 1: drawings hadn't done them justice. He placed them together just
Speaker 1: as the priest had described in his dream, and to
Speaker 1: his surprise, they fit perfectly, creating a larger slice of
Speaker 1: a vote of cylinder. And just like that, part one
Speaker 1: of the puzzle had been solved. But there was more.
Speaker 1: With the pieces assembled, Herman was able to see the
Speaker 1: full inscription, and that allowed him to translate it. It
Speaker 1: dedicated the cylinder to the same god named in his dream,
Speaker 1: the god Ninib, and declared that it had been a
Speaker 1: gift from a very familiar king, King Kurigalzu, again first
Speaker 1: mentioned in his dream. In the end, doctor Hermann Helpricht
Speaker 1: was just like any of us. He had an impossible
Speaker 1: dream and was surrounded by people who had a difficult
Speaker 1: time believing in his potential, But like any true hero,
Speaker 1: he pursued it despite their protests, and in the process
Speaker 1: he taught a valuable lesson. It seems that with a
Speaker 1: lot of hard work and a little bit of faith,
Speaker 1: we really can make a dream come true. Ramen Drona
Speaker 1: Ryan Roy was the second son of the Rajah bah Wal.
Speaker 1: At the turn of the twentieth century, Roy, along with
Speaker 1: his two brothers, were set to inherit half of East
Speaker 1: Bengal in India. Roy's father, the Rajah, died in nineteen
Speaker 1: o one, and his sons were next in line to
Speaker 1: take over, but Roy had other priorities. He was wealthy,
Speaker 1: of course, and he spent much of his time hunting
Speaker 1: and partying, But he also had a weakness for women
Speaker 1: and was involved in several extramarital affairs. But his desire
Speaker 1: for fun had come at a price. He reportedly had
Speaker 1: contracted syphilis. Over the span of four years, the disease
Speaker 1: spread throughout his body. By then he couldn't ignore it
Speaker 1: any longer. Roy, along with his wife and his brother
Speaker 1: in law, all traveled to Darjeeling for treatment, a journey
Speaker 1: of almost four hundred miles. Not long after he arrived, though,
Speaker 1: Roy passed away from what they say were gallstones. His
Speaker 1: wife had his body cremated. The following day, a funeral
Speaker 1: was held. And if that seems like a pretty quick
Speaker 1: timeline to you, you're not the only one. Back home
Speaker 1: in Bawal, others felt the same, and they asked Roy's
Speaker 1: wife what had happened in Darjeeling at what time was
Speaker 1: he cremated? Was she sure it was him? But without
Speaker 1: a body or other witnesses, the questions faded and the
Speaker 1: family moved on. Roy's widow moved in with her brother,
Speaker 1: and over the next decade, Roy's other brothers also passed away,
Speaker 1: without an heir to inherit their fortune. Instead, the court
Speaker 1: took over as wards and administered the estate on behalf
Speaker 1: of their widows. And that's where Roy's story should have ended.
Speaker 1: But something changed, you see, exactly eleven years after Roy
Speaker 1: had been cremated, a religious ascetic known as a sun
Speaker 1: Yasi came to town. When he first was spotted near
Speaker 1: the home of Roy's wife, his hair was matted down
Speaker 1: and his skin was covered in ash, but there was
Speaker 1: still something else about him. For one, he was in
Speaker 1: great shape for a man who had lived on the
Speaker 1: streets for so long. And Secondly, something familiar about him
Speaker 1: caught the attention of many who saw him. Specifically, they
Speaker 1: noted his uncanny resemblance to the Prince of bah Wall,
Speaker 1: the one who had died in Darjeeling. Eventually, one of
Speaker 1: Roy's nephews visited the man, but the ascetic was quick
Speaker 1: to tell him that he wasn't his uncle. Regardless, the
Speaker 1: local population was convinced that this man was the late
Speaker 1: prince back from the dead, and his words spread far
Speaker 1: and wide. The ascetic finally gave up pretending and admitted
Speaker 1: the truth. Yes, he was, in fact the lost Prince.
Speaker 1: Roy's wife was furious and refused to see him, calling
Speaker 1: him an impostor. Without hesitation, She claimed he was just
Speaker 1: a stranger after the family's money, but some think her
Speaker 1: avoidance might have been for another reason. She didn't want
Speaker 1: to ruin all her hard work and trying to get
Speaker 1: rid of him. Once the man's identity was made public,
Speaker 1: he explained what had happened in his trip, how his wife,
Speaker 1: with the help of her brother, had poisoned him and
Speaker 1: tried to incinerate the body to hide the evidence amazingly, though,
Speaker 1: when he was about to be cremated, a violent hail
Speaker 1: storm sent everyone fleeing for shelter. During that time, a
Speaker 1: group of ascetics had found him and took him in.
Speaker 1: They helped his body to heal, but the ordeal had
Speaker 1: caused severe memory loss in his mind. As a result,
Speaker 1: he spent the next decade roaming around India until his
Speaker 1: memories eventually came back. After consulting with his guru, he
Speaker 1: decided to return home. His would be sisters questioned him
Speaker 1: and checked him for signs of his real identity. While
Speaker 1: his memory was hit or miss, he did remember the
Speaker 1: names of servants who had worked for the family over
Speaker 1: the years. He also possessed the birth marks that they
Speaker 1: had hoped to find. They believed his story, although many
Speaker 1: did not. Roy's widow refused to accept him as her
Speaker 1: deceased husband, especially when he filed a motion to be
Speaker 1: reinstated as heir to the Bawhal inheritance. For months, he
Speaker 1: argued his case against the corrupt owners of the estate.
Speaker 1: They submitted forged documents, which the courts quickly dismissed, and
Speaker 1: in the end, it was the physical evidence that proved
Speaker 1: the truth the man who had been discovered meditating in
Speaker 1: the streets was in fact the lost Prince of bah Wall.
Speaker 1: The wards of his estates continued to put up a
Speaker 1: fight for years, but they ultimately failed to disprove the
Speaker 1: man's identity. Twenty five years after he'd shown up in
Speaker 1: Dhaka Rahman, Dranna Ryan Roy had finally come home, but
Speaker 1: he didn't get to celebrate for long. On the night
Speaker 1: of the final verdict, Roy traveled to the Kali Temple
Speaker 1: to pray. On his way home home, he suffered a
Speaker 1: stroke and collapsed on the road. Two days later, he
Speaker 1: passed away, this time for real, and just like that,
Speaker 1: the unbelievable family reunion tragically came to an end. I
Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World
Speaker 1: of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious,