1 00:00:04,080 --> 00:00:07,440 Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of 2 00:00:07,480 --> 00:00:14,440 Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of 3 00:00:14,480 --> 00:00:18,440 Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all 4 00:00:18,480 --> 00:00:22,159 Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just 5 00:00:22,200 --> 00:00:28,840 Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. 6 00:00:36,280 --> 00:00:39,159 Speaker 1: On the Yale campus in New Haven, Connecticut is the 7 00:00:39,200 --> 00:00:42,640 Speaker 1: Binicky Rare Book and Manuscript Library. It's one of the 8 00:00:42,760 --> 00:00:46,159 Speaker 1: largest of its kind, and its vast collection includes the 9 00:00:46,200 --> 00:00:50,160 Speaker 1: Gutenberg Bible, the first text printed mechanically, as well as 10 00:00:50,200 --> 00:00:53,120 Speaker 1: a twelve hundred and fifty year old Buddhist text and 11 00:00:53,240 --> 00:00:57,200 Speaker 1: thousands of other folios. But hidden in the stacks is 12 00:00:57,240 --> 00:01:00,440 Speaker 1: also a tome that has baffled scholars for over a century. 13 00:01:00,840 --> 00:01:04,040 Speaker 1: A four hundred and eighty page work covered in calfskin, 14 00:01:04,360 --> 00:01:08,440 Speaker 1: written in a language unknown to any living person. Its 15 00:01:08,480 --> 00:01:12,319 Speaker 1: pages are filled with cryptic tables and illustrations of bizarre 16 00:01:12,360 --> 00:01:16,360 Speaker 1: plants and astrological signs. Carbon dating places it in the 17 00:01:16,400 --> 00:01:20,280 Speaker 1: early fifteenth century, but there is no explanation for its 18 00:01:20,319 --> 00:01:24,160 Speaker 1: purpose or even a name for its author. It's called 19 00:01:24,360 --> 00:01:28,280 Speaker 1: the Voinage Manuscript, and it has utterly baffled scholars for 20 00:01:28,400 --> 00:01:32,319 Speaker 1: over a century. Uv imaging has shown a signature in 21 00:01:32,360 --> 00:01:36,120 Speaker 1: the book from the seventeenth century of one Yakubus Horsiki 22 00:01:36,240 --> 00:01:40,440 Speaker 1: de Tepenesh, the court pharmacist to the Habsburg Emperor Rudolph 23 00:01:40,440 --> 00:01:43,160 Speaker 1: the Second, suggesting that it was once held in their 24 00:01:43,200 --> 00:01:46,240 Speaker 1: imperial library, and from there we know that it ended 25 00:01:46,280 --> 00:01:49,080 Speaker 1: up decades later in the hands of a Jesuit scholar 26 00:01:49,160 --> 00:01:52,440 Speaker 1: named Marcus Barrish. Because of the small note that he 27 00:01:52,560 --> 00:01:55,680 Speaker 1: left in the margins in it, he asked a colleague 28 00:01:55,760 --> 00:01:58,760 Speaker 1: to help translate the script. He never found a solution 29 00:01:58,880 --> 00:02:02,040 Speaker 1: to the question of its meaning its origin, though. The 30 00:02:02,080 --> 00:02:06,160 Speaker 1: manuscript then disappeared from record until nineteen twelve, when it 31 00:02:06,280 --> 00:02:09,520 Speaker 1: reappeared at an auction at Sotheby's in London and was 32 00:02:09,560 --> 00:02:14,080 Speaker 1: sold to a Polish American antiquarian named Wilfrid Voinich. Now 33 00:02:14,120 --> 00:02:17,800 Speaker 1: Voynache must have been gobsmacked when he first perused the manuscript. 34 00:02:18,120 --> 00:02:22,120 Speaker 1: Inside its cafskin cover, there were six distinct sections, the 35 00:02:22,120 --> 00:02:26,280 Speaker 1: first containing herbs, presented over one hundred drawings, each labeled 36 00:02:26,280 --> 00:02:29,920 Speaker 1: in the inscrutable language. Only about thirty percent of the 37 00:02:29,960 --> 00:02:34,280 Speaker 1: illustrations of medieval plants are familiar to scientists. The other 38 00:02:34,400 --> 00:02:38,120 Speaker 1: seventy percent seem to be composites of known herbs or 39 00:02:38,200 --> 00:02:42,680 Speaker 1: are else made up entirely. The next section was astronomical 40 00:02:42,720 --> 00:02:47,120 Speaker 1: in nature, showing star clusters, suns and moons, and zodiac signs. 41 00:02:47,480 --> 00:02:51,800 Speaker 1: The biological section is truly bizarre, showing naked women in 42 00:02:51,880 --> 00:02:56,400 Speaker 1: water interacting with strange tubes and anatomical structures. Many who 43 00:02:56,480 --> 00:03:00,400 Speaker 1: have studied the manuscript believe it concerns alchemy or may 44 00:03:00,440 --> 00:03:05,920 Speaker 1: be human reproduction. Then there's the pharmacological section, with bottles, vials, 45 00:03:05,960 --> 00:03:08,880 Speaker 1: and jars that one might find in an old apothecary shop. 46 00:03:09,280 --> 00:03:12,320 Speaker 1: And then there's another section with blocks of text that's 47 00:03:12,560 --> 00:03:16,359 Speaker 1: interspersed with numbers, leading scholars to believe they are formulas 48 00:03:16,400 --> 00:03:19,440 Speaker 1: for medicine. All of this was written in a language 49 00:03:19,440 --> 00:03:23,679 Speaker 1: that no one can decipher that eventually became known as Voyinagees. 50 00:03:24,440 --> 00:03:28,200 Speaker 1: The language itself contains about two hundred glyphs used to 51 00:03:28,240 --> 00:03:31,080 Speaker 1: form the words of the text. Scientists have found that 52 00:03:31,120 --> 00:03:35,440 Speaker 1: their distribution across the document is extremely similar to modern languages, 53 00:03:35,800 --> 00:03:38,920 Speaker 1: meaning that it isn't merely random gibberish, but it follows 54 00:03:38,960 --> 00:03:43,560 Speaker 1: its own real linguistic logic. Voinage spent years studying and 55 00:03:43,600 --> 00:03:46,240 Speaker 1: sharing the book with his contemporaries, to the point that 56 00:03:46,320 --> 00:03:50,560 Speaker 1: his name itself became its unofficial title. Eventually, the Voyage 57 00:03:50,640 --> 00:03:54,360 Speaker 1: Manuscript landed at the Binikey Library at Yale University, where 58 00:03:54,440 --> 00:03:58,640 Speaker 1: cryptologists and linguists all used different types of language models 59 00:03:58,680 --> 00:04:02,920 Speaker 1: and statistical analysis to try to understand how the language works. 60 00:04:03,320 --> 00:04:06,800 Speaker 1: They were able using simple ciphers and machine learning to 61 00:04:06,880 --> 00:04:11,000 Speaker 1: reproduce Voyage style texts, but still could not translate it 62 00:04:11,080 --> 00:04:15,160 Speaker 1: into a modern language. Experts from other areas of study 63 00:04:15,360 --> 00:04:17,920 Speaker 1: have likewise tried to make sense of the strange document. 64 00:04:18,400 --> 00:04:22,240 Speaker 1: Historians have suggested a Northern Italian style to the illustrations, 65 00:04:22,560 --> 00:04:25,359 Speaker 1: and the carbon dating, as well as that original signature 66 00:04:25,360 --> 00:04:29,039 Speaker 1: in the book, place it squarely in Bohemia. Botanists have 67 00:04:29,160 --> 00:04:33,279 Speaker 1: thoroughly cataloged its illustrations and have identified many of the 68 00:04:33,320 --> 00:04:37,000 Speaker 1: real herbs portrayed. Astronomers have confirmed that the symbols of 69 00:04:37,040 --> 00:04:39,920 Speaker 1: the zodiac and the positions of the planets and stars 70 00:04:39,920 --> 00:04:44,520 Speaker 1: depicted adhere to what their medieval predecessors knew. Recently, the 71 00:04:44,520 --> 00:04:48,800 Speaker 1: Binicky Library's digital archives of the manuscript have been made public, 72 00:04:48,960 --> 00:04:53,479 Speaker 1: allowing amateur sleuths and cryptographers to assist in deciphering a 73 00:04:53,520 --> 00:04:57,720 Speaker 1: relic that has continued to prove itself stubbornly unreadable. An 74 00:04:57,720 --> 00:05:02,560 Speaker 1: annual symposium brings together experts across all interested fields to 75 00:05:02,600 --> 00:05:06,919 Speaker 1: discuss new discoveries, and recent advances in machine learning have 76 00:05:07,080 --> 00:05:10,960 Speaker 1: uncovered thematic groupings of texts that support the idea that 77 00:05:11,000 --> 00:05:15,160 Speaker 1: text is organized around specific topics. But the puzzle at 78 00:05:15,160 --> 00:05:18,200 Speaker 1: the core of the Voyage manuscript remains the same the 79 00:05:18,320 --> 00:05:21,680 Speaker 1: language itself. Could it be a lost tongue or the 80 00:05:21,720 --> 00:05:26,800 Speaker 1: author's personal shorthand maybe an intricate cipher. Whatever it is, 81 00:05:27,040 --> 00:05:30,159 Speaker 1: neither experts nor ai have been able to solve it, 82 00:05:30,360 --> 00:05:35,039 Speaker 1: and so it stands a reminder of humankind's unrelenting curiosity, 83 00:05:35,640 --> 00:05:39,440 Speaker 1: whether It's secrets are ever fully uncovered or remain an 84 00:05:39,520 --> 00:05:42,240 Speaker 1: enduring enigma. It reminds us that the thrill of a 85 00:05:42,279 --> 00:05:48,320 Speaker 1: mystery unites professional scientists, technologists, and amateur sleuths alike, all 86 00:05:48,400 --> 00:05:52,640 Speaker 1: drawn together by the shared desire to crack a good puzzle. 87 00:06:06,120 --> 00:06:09,280 Speaker 1: There is one thing that unites almost every culture across 88 00:06:09,360 --> 00:06:13,240 Speaker 1: human history, a love of dancing. It's a primal part 89 00:06:13,279 --> 00:06:15,520 Speaker 1: of who we are. Whether it's at a concerts or 90 00:06:15,600 --> 00:06:19,240 Speaker 1: a nightclub or a family wedding, whenever anyone around you 91 00:06:19,360 --> 00:06:21,880 Speaker 1: is moving to the same rhythm, the urge to get 92 00:06:21,960 --> 00:06:25,320 Speaker 1: up and join them can seem uncontrollable. But for the 93 00:06:25,320 --> 00:06:29,040 Speaker 1: residents of Strasbourg in the year fifteen eighteen, that urge 94 00:06:29,080 --> 00:06:33,920 Speaker 1: was literally uncontrollable. It started on a hot July day 95 00:06:34,040 --> 00:06:36,679 Speaker 1: when a woman walked on to the cobbled streets outside 96 00:06:36,720 --> 00:06:39,800 Speaker 1: her home and started twisting and shaking as if she 97 00:06:39,839 --> 00:06:43,120 Speaker 1: were dancing the music only she could hear. As minutes 98 00:06:43,160 --> 00:06:46,960 Speaker 1: turned to hours, she kept dancing, and nearby merchants and 99 00:06:47,040 --> 00:06:51,640 Speaker 1: curious townspeople gathered around to watch. The woman was breathing 100 00:06:51,760 --> 00:06:54,400 Speaker 1: hard and sweat was rolling down her face, but it 101 00:06:54,440 --> 00:06:57,200 Speaker 1: was like she physically could not stop, no matter how 102 00:06:57,240 --> 00:07:00,839 Speaker 1: hard she tried. As the sun went down, she finally 103 00:07:00,839 --> 00:07:03,880 Speaker 1: collapsed to the ground in exhaustion. A man in the 104 00:07:03,880 --> 00:07:06,200 Speaker 1: crowd stepped forward and knelt down to check on her, 105 00:07:06,480 --> 00:07:08,839 Speaker 1: but after taking a moment to catch her breath, the 106 00:07:08,880 --> 00:07:12,960 Speaker 1: woman got right back up and kept on dancing. By 107 00:07:13,000 --> 00:07:16,440 Speaker 1: the next morning, she was still going, and another passerby 108 00:07:16,880 --> 00:07:19,160 Speaker 1: was so inspired that he dropped what he was doing, 109 00:07:19,240 --> 00:07:22,880 Speaker 1: and enjoined the dance as well. So did another and another, 110 00:07:23,200 --> 00:07:26,440 Speaker 1: and within a week there were thirty people compulsively dancing 111 00:07:26,480 --> 00:07:29,080 Speaker 1: in the streets. Every so often, one of them would 112 00:07:29,120 --> 00:07:31,520 Speaker 1: fall down in exhaustion, but after a bit of rest, 113 00:07:31,560 --> 00:07:34,400 Speaker 1: they would get back up, despite bloody feet and even 114 00:07:34,480 --> 00:07:37,960 Speaker 1: broken limbs. As July turned to August, the number of 115 00:07:38,040 --> 00:07:41,400 Speaker 1: dancers had climbed into the hundreds. City officials were so 116 00:07:41,520 --> 00:07:44,400 Speaker 1: worried they called together a group of doctors and religious 117 00:07:44,480 --> 00:07:47,880 Speaker 1: leaders to figure out a solution. The clergy thought that 118 00:07:47,920 --> 00:07:51,680 Speaker 1: the townspeople had become possessed by Saint Vitas, a Christian 119 00:07:51,760 --> 00:07:55,400 Speaker 1: murdyr whose feast day is celebrated with dancing, but the 120 00:07:55,480 --> 00:08:00,440 Speaker 1: doctors theorized that it was a disease caused by overheated blood. Essentially, 121 00:08:00,480 --> 00:08:05,160 Speaker 1: they diagnosed the locals with boogiey fever. The group of experts, however, 122 00:08:05,400 --> 00:08:08,360 Speaker 1: agreed on the same solution. They just had to dance 123 00:08:08,400 --> 00:08:11,000 Speaker 1: it off and get it out of their system. So, 124 00:08:11,200 --> 00:08:14,160 Speaker 1: in an effort to encourage the frenzy, the city hired 125 00:08:14,200 --> 00:08:17,360 Speaker 1: carpenters to build massive dance floors for the dancers to 126 00:08:17,400 --> 00:08:21,040 Speaker 1: gather on. They brought in musicians to accompany the movement, 127 00:08:21,120 --> 00:08:24,640 Speaker 1: and they even hired professional dancers to help everyone keep 128 00:08:24,760 --> 00:08:28,280 Speaker 1: up the tempo. But the city officials had underestimated what 129 00:08:28,360 --> 00:08:31,840 Speaker 1: they were dealing with. The dancers indeed wore themselves out, 130 00:08:32,160 --> 00:08:35,200 Speaker 1: but they didn't or couldn't slow down, so as the 131 00:08:35,240 --> 00:08:38,079 Speaker 1: weeks wore on, some of them began to drop dead 132 00:08:38,120 --> 00:08:42,240 Speaker 1: from strokes or heart attacks. By late August, around four 133 00:08:42,320 --> 00:08:45,120 Speaker 1: hundred people were dancing, and more than a dozen of 134 00:08:45,160 --> 00:08:48,480 Speaker 1: them were dying each and every day. In an act 135 00:08:48,520 --> 00:08:52,400 Speaker 1: of desperation, the city council reversed course and banned both 136 00:08:52,520 --> 00:08:56,000 Speaker 1: music and dancing. The dance halls were torn down, and 137 00:08:56,040 --> 00:08:58,880 Speaker 1: anyone who refused to sit still was hauled off to 138 00:08:58,960 --> 00:09:02,439 Speaker 1: the shrine of Saint Vida and forced to pray for forgiveness. 139 00:09:02,920 --> 00:09:05,720 Speaker 1: Within a couple of weeks, the so called dancing plague 140 00:09:05,760 --> 00:09:09,640 Speaker 1: began to subside, just as mysteriously as it had begun. 141 00:09:10,080 --> 00:09:12,960 Speaker 1: By the end of September, after two months of chaos, 142 00:09:13,320 --> 00:09:16,760 Speaker 1: it was finally over. To this day, no one is 143 00:09:16,800 --> 00:09:20,360 Speaker 1: sure what caused the dancing plague. Some historians believe it 144 00:09:20,400 --> 00:09:23,960 Speaker 1: was food poisoning from a mind altering fungus called ergot. 145 00:09:24,280 --> 00:09:27,079 Speaker 1: Others think that it was simply a case of mass hysteria, 146 00:09:27,400 --> 00:09:30,120 Speaker 1: an extreme version of something that we all know to 147 00:09:30,160 --> 00:09:36,960 Speaker 1: be true. In the right time and place, dancing is contagious. 148 00:09:39,640 --> 00:09:42,400 Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet 149 00:09:42,480 --> 00:09:46,040 Speaker 1: of Curiosities. This show was created by me Aaron Manke 150 00:09:46,320 --> 00:09:49,760 Speaker 1: in partnership with iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the 151 00:09:49,800 --> 00:09:53,120 Speaker 1: Grim and Mild team, and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn 152 00:09:53,160 --> 00:09:55,200 Speaker 1: more about the show and the people who make it 153 00:09:55,440 --> 00:09:59,760 Speaker 1: over at Grimandmild dot com slash Curiosities. You'll also find 154 00:09:59,800 --> 00:10:02,880 Speaker 1: a lo to the official Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book, 155 00:10:03,080 --> 00:10:07,040 Speaker 1: available in bookstores and online, as well as ebook and audiobook. 156 00:10:07,280 --> 00:10:09,600 Speaker 1: And if you're looking for an ad free option, consider 157 00:10:09,679 --> 00:10:12,920 Speaker 1: joining our Patreon. It's all the same stories, but without 158 00:10:12,960 --> 00:10:16,120 Speaker 1: the interruption for a small monthly fee. Learn more and 159 00:10:16,240 --> 00:10:20,360 Speaker 1: sign up over at patreon dot com, slash Grimandmild, and 160 00:10:20,640 --> 00:10:23,080 Speaker 1: until next time, stay curious.