Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
Speaker 2: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 2: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
Speaker 2: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
Speaker 2: to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: One of the most fascinating things about the natural world
Speaker 1: is the interconnectedness. Sands from the Sahara Desert blow all
Speaker 1: the way to the Amazon Rainforest, The Scottish Highlands and
Speaker 1: the Appalachians were once the same mountain range. Separate bodies
Speaker 1: on separate continents can be curiously intertwined. The same can
Speaker 1: be said about humans. The choices our ancestors make shape
Speaker 1: our lives senties later, and the choices we make today
Speaker 1: shape the future. And sometimes separate groups of people with
Speaker 1: entirely different goals can form a picture of history without
Speaker 1: even meaning to. This story dates back centuries and brings
Speaker 1: us to a place where past and future collide. Let's begin.
Speaker 1: In twenty eleven, underwater archaeologists from Texas State University splashed
Speaker 1: into the Caribbean Sea near Panama. Magnetic sensors had brought
Speaker 1: them to this spot. They were looking for something special,
Speaker 1: a ship that once belonged to the notorious pirate Captain
Speaker 1: Henry Morgan. Over four hundred years earlier, Morgan sailed in
Speaker 1: to ransack Panama City, but a storm sent his ship
Speaker 1: to the seafloor before he and his crew could touch land. Now,
Speaker 1: the archaeologists hoped to find it, but the divers returned
Speaker 1: with some curious news. There was a ship, but it
Speaker 1: was full of cargo, and this didn't make any sense
Speaker 1: if Captain Morgan would have arrived with empty holds to
Speaker 1: fill in his raid. The team investigated further and realized
Speaker 1: that this wasn't Morgan's ship at all. It belonged to
Speaker 1: Spain and it was known as the Incarnacion, which translates
Speaker 1: to the Incarnation, and it went down eleven years after
Speaker 1: Morgan's shipwreck. The discovery of the Incarnacion was a big deal. Yes,
Speaker 1: it was full of loot for researchers to examine, which
Speaker 1: is an obvious win, especially since louters used to ransack
Speaker 1: ships when they sank, But ocean worms and bacteria would
Speaker 1: also degrade the wood. For these reasons, experts hardly know
Speaker 1: anything about seventeenth century Spanish shipwrecks. This one, however, sank
Speaker 1: about forty feet below the water and its hull was
Speaker 1: buried in the sand, so it was more protected against
Speaker 1: these common threats, and because of this, when it was
Speaker 1: discovered in twenty eleven, it became the first Spanish shipwreck
Speaker 1: found in the Americas that contained cargo or an intact hull.
Speaker 1: This set in motion a whole new line of research
Speaker 1: that is still ongoing today, and it's possible that whatever
Speaker 1: answers the Incarnacion provides could effect not just our understanding
Speaker 1: of the past, but the choices we make in the future,
Speaker 1: and those revelations may come about in surprising ways. In
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen, two years after they had stumbled upon the ship,
Speaker 1: the American dendro Chronology Conference was held in Tucson, Arizona.
Speaker 1: Like most people who hear the word for the first time,
Speaker 1: you might be wondering what dendro chronology is. Luckily, for you,
Speaker 1: I have googled it. Dendro Chronology is the scientific method
Speaker 1: for dating tree rings. Dendro Chronologists can determine the exact
Speaker 1: year a tree ring was formed. This field of work
Speaker 1: relates closely to another called dendro climatology, which uses tree
Speaker 1: rings to study past and present climate. And if you're wondering, well,
Speaker 1: what about future climate, You're not alone. Three scientists who
Speaker 1: attended that twenty thirteen conference wondered the same thing, especially
Speaker 1: when it comes to hurricanes, which are infamously dangerous and destructive.
Speaker 1: Being able to predict hurricanes could seriously improve emergency planning.
Speaker 1: The scientists were Valerie Cherie, and associate professor at the
Speaker 1: University of Arizona Laboratory of Tree Ring Research, Marta Dominga's Delmasa,
Speaker 1: a dendro archaeologist from Spain, and great aunt Harley, a
Speaker 1: paleoclimatologist from the US. It all started when Grant mentioned
Speaker 1: some research that he'd been conducting on pine trees in Florida.
Speaker 1: The rings he observed there showed signs of serious trauma,
Speaker 1: but he couldn't tell what had caused it. He considered
Speaker 1: a few possibilities until landing on a theory hurricanes. Hurricanes
Speaker 1: stunt the growth of trees, and their rings show that trauma.
Speaker 1: Even hundreds of years later, Grant had tree ring records
Speaker 1: from Florida dating back to seventeen oh seven that showed
Speaker 1: when hurricanes occurred, but the US government didn't start logging
Speaker 1: hurricanes in the Caribbean until eighteen fifty, so he didn't
Speaker 1: have enough supporting data to prove his theory. That's where
Speaker 1: Marta and Valerie came in. As a dendro archaeologist, Marta
Speaker 1: can figure out when centuries old Spanish ships were built,
Speaker 1: ships like the Incarnacion. She told Grant that she had
Speaker 1: access to Spanish ship travel records that had been preserved
Speaker 1: since the seventeen hundreds. Grant, by the way, happens to
Speaker 1: be kind of a pirate nerd, so on that night
Speaker 1: in twenty thirteen, he and Marta probably clicked. Then Valery
Speaker 1: suggested that they compare Grant's tree ring records to MARTA's
Speaker 1: shipwreck data, and between these two data sets and some
Speaker 1: other relevant ones, the team formed a yearly record of
Speaker 1: hurricanes in the Caribbean going all the way back to
Speaker 1: the year fifteen hundred. This helped Grant prove his theory
Speaker 1: about the Florida Pines, but that wasn't all the team discovered.
Speaker 1: The data sets also showed fewer shipwrecks between sixteen forty
Speaker 1: five and seventeen fifteen, and those dates stuck out to
Speaker 1: Valerie as a natural scientist, they were extremely familiar dates
Speaker 1: to her. She realized that this was the exact timeframe
Speaker 1: of the Maunder Minimum, a well known period of very
Speaker 1: low visible sun spots. Basically, the Sun's radiation is not constant.
Speaker 1: During the Maunder Minimum, its energy was lower, which meant
Speaker 1: cooler temperatures, cooler waters, and therefore Valerie realized probably fewer hurricanes.
Speaker 1: Fewer hurricanes would explain why there were fewer shipwrecks. And
Speaker 1: then Grant, pirate nerd that he is noticed yet another
Speaker 1: event that occurred almost simult paneously, the Golden Age of piracy.
Speaker 1: The team realized that the Golden Age of piracy likely
Speaker 1: occurred because of the Mander Minimum. One of the most
Speaker 1: prolific pirates that that time was Captain Henry Morgan, and
Speaker 1: even though Morgan did lose some ships to hurricanes, he
Speaker 1: apparently got lucky. Valerie, Marta, and Grant published their findings,
Speaker 1: which have helped fine tune hurricane prediction models. As for
Speaker 1: the Texas State team, they're able to study the incarnacions
Speaker 1: would and the artifacts that carried to not only glean
Speaker 1: information about colonial society, but how the Gulf coastline has
Speaker 1: changed over time. The Arizona team's discoveries could help uncover
Speaker 1: more of the Gulf's mysteries. There's no telling what else
Speaker 1: these teams might find, but I for one look forward
Speaker 1: to seeing how their revelations collide. When most of us
Speaker 1: hear the word mummy, our minds go to the Pyramids
Speaker 1: at Giza, the Nile River, and the Valley of the Kings.
Speaker 1: But Egypt doesn't have a monopoly on mummies, and in fact,
Speaker 1: one of the world's most unique collections can be found
Speaker 1: almost four thousand miles from Cairo, in the basement of
Speaker 1: an old church in Dublin, Ireland. And when I say old,
Speaker 1: I mean really old. Saint Miken's was originally built in
Speaker 1: ten ninety five, when the area was occupied by the Vikings.
Speaker 1: The current structure dates back to sixteen eighty six. That's
Speaker 1: when the basement crypt was constructed and when it gained
Speaker 1: its first occupants. And it's not difficult to see them.
Speaker 1: Just tell the groundskeeper that you're there to see the vaults.
Speaker 1: He'll lead you past the graveyard to a rusty old
Speaker 1: cellar door. Watch your head as you descend down the
Speaker 1: steep flight of stone steps, and you'll find yourself in
Speaker 1: a medieval crypt. The first thing you notice when you
Speaker 1: get down there is how dry and dark it is.
Speaker 1: The stone walls seem to close in around you. You
Speaker 1: can see why some people think it inspired Brahms Stoker
Speaker 1: to write parts of Dracula. Several small rooms break off
Speaker 1: from the main corridor, each covered with iron bars. Look
Speaker 1: inside and you'll see old coffins haphazardly stacked on top
Speaker 1: of one another. Many of them are falling apart, giving
Speaker 1: visitors an unobstructed view of the bodies inside. Now, the
Speaker 1: corpses in the crypt are old enough that they should
Speaker 1: be severely decayed, but for some reason, possibly a combination
Speaker 1: of the limestone walls, the dry air inside the crypt,
Speaker 1: and methane gas from the surrounding swamp soil, they're unusually
Speaker 1: well preserved. Strangely, those same conditions are also causing the
Speaker 1: wood coffins to decompose, and this unusual combination has naturally
Speaker 1: created the macab viewing gallery that you find inside the
Speaker 1: crypt today, and it's also the only reason visitors are
Speaker 1: allowed to view the mummies at all. The Catholic Church
Speaker 1: doesn't typically go rooting around through its cemeteries in search
Speaker 1: of tourist attractions. To do so would be sacrilegious right
Speaker 1: not to mention, kind of dishonest to the people who
Speaker 1: paid for those tombs. That's why this isn't really an
Speaker 1: official tour, and why Saint Miken's doesn't technically charge an
Speaker 1: entry fee. The only people who pay to be there
Speaker 1: are the mummies. A space in the crypt would not
Speaker 1: have been cheap too, so most of the occupants were
Speaker 1: probably wealthy. The fanciest coffins there belong to the Earls
Speaker 1: of Leetram, several generations of them. In fact, there are
Speaker 1: also some famous Irish revolutionaries down there, including the Sheers brothers,
Speaker 1: who were executed in seventeen ninety eight for plotting against Britain.
Speaker 1: Their coffins are in decent condition, so you can't see
Speaker 1: their bodies. That's probably a good thing, though, considering that
Speaker 1: the brothers were killed by being drawn and quartered. Now,
Speaker 1: if you continue far enough down the crypt, you'll eventually
Speaker 1: reach a room that contains the Big Four. These are
Speaker 1: the church's best preserved mummies. They stand in a line
Speaker 1: of lidless coffins, surrounded by the bone fragments and skulls
Speaker 1: of their neighbors. Their true identities are unknown, but the
Speaker 1: tour guides have affectionately given them names. First up is
Speaker 1: the Unknown. She is a female mummy of no noteworthy qualities,
Speaker 1: aside from having claimed the name long before the Willy
Speaker 1: Wonka experience made it a meme. Next up is the Thief,
Speaker 1: a man whose hand and leg appeared to have been removed,
Speaker 1: suggesting that he may have been punished for stealing. The
Speaker 1: third figure is now a stand in. It used to
Speaker 1: be a small figure called the Nun, but her body
Speaker 1: was stolen from the crypt in twenty nineteen. She was
Speaker 1: eventually recovered, but her head was not. It's the fourth figure, however,
Speaker 1: that is the most visually arresting. The Crusader stood at
Speaker 1: six and a half feet tall, making him something of
Speaker 1: a giant. When he was alive, he was so tall
Speaker 1: that his legs had to be broken before he could
Speaker 1: fit into his coffin, and he's significantly older than the
Speaker 1: other mummies too, dating back to the Fourth Crusades. That
Speaker 1: would make him about eight hundred years old, twice as
Speaker 1: old as the crypt itself. How he got down there
Speaker 1: is a mystery, but despite his age, he is in
Speaker 1: remarkable condition, and one of his hands seems to be
Speaker 1: reaching out of the coffin toward the viewer. Some people
Speaker 1: say that he's offering to shake hands or beckoning visitors
Speaker 1: toward him personally, though I think he looks like he's
Speaker 1: waiting for you to give him something. Maybe he's there
Speaker 1: as a reminder that while Saint Miken's does it charge
Speaker 1: for the tour, donations are always appreciated. I hope you've
Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe
Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the
Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was
Speaker 1: created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the Worldoflore dot com.
Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious.