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Double Agent · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: A lot has been made of the brave soldiers who
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  Speaker 1: proved themselves in epic battles to defeat Hitler and the
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  Speaker 1: Nazis in World War Two, and rightfully so. But just
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  Speaker 1: as important were the people working behind the scenes to
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  Speaker 1: undermine the German army. You may have heard of the
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  Speaker 1: English code breakers at Bletchley Park who cracked the Enigma
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  Speaker 1: code and saved England from German U boats. But there
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  Speaker 1: was another behind the scenes agent who comepletely deceived the Nazis,
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  Speaker 1: working with the English to trick the Germans into thinking
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  Speaker 1: that the Allied invasion would land somewhere other than Normandy.
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  Speaker 1: And curiously enough, he wasn't even an Englishman. Juan Puyo
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  Speaker 1: Garcia was never cut out to be a soldier. He
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  Speaker 1: was skinny and awkward, with pointy ears that stuck out
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  Speaker 1: from both sides of his head. He was always a
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  Speaker 1: handful as a child, his mother sent him to boarding
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  Speaker 1: school when he was just six. As an adult, he
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  Speaker 1: became a poultry farmer right before he was caught up
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  Speaker 1: with the rest of the country in the Spanish Civil
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  Speaker 1: War between the liberal Republicans and the fascist Nationalists. And
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  Speaker 1: although Jan began as a Republican and defected to the Nationalists,
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  Speaker 1: who were ultimately victorious, he regretted it almost immediately, especially
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  Speaker 1: when he saw how they supported the Nazi regime in Germany,
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  Speaker 1: which quickly began to spread authoritarianism across Europe in the
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  Speaker 1: late nineteen thirties. Juan wanted to do his part to
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  Speaker 1: stop the rise of the Nazis, but again, he wasn't
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  Speaker 1: really a soldier, but he felt like he was also
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  Speaker 1: pretty sneaky. He had successfully defected from one army to
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  Speaker 1: the other during the Spanish Civil War. After all, maybe
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  Speaker 1: he could bring those stealthy skills to the war in Europe.
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  Speaker 1: He decided that he would act as a spy on
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  Speaker 1: the behalf of the British, but when he reached out
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  Speaker 1: to them, they rejected his offer for help. He didn't
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  Speaker 1: really have anything to offer them he needed to make
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  Speaker 1: himself an asset first, and so this time he reached
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  Speaker 1: out to the Germans and claimed that he was traveling
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  Speaker 1: to London on business and was willing to spy for them.
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  Speaker 1: They accepted, but of course he had no business in London. Instead,
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  Speaker 1: he worked from Spain and Portugal, where he concocted elaborate
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  Speaker 1: stories about the contacts he was supposedly making in London
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  Speaker 1: and the information he was learning from them. He conveyed
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  Speaker 1: all of this to the Germans and convinced them that
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  Speaker 1: he was legitimately sending them information from within England. Now
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  Speaker 1: he had something to show the English. When he reached
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  Speaker 1: back out to MI five, they were interested in talking
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  Speaker 1: with him. They flew him to London, where he located
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  Speaker 1: his family. At least that part of Juan's story was
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  Speaker 1: now actually true. The English, impressed with his ability to
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  Speaker 1: act as different fictional informants, gave him the code name Garbo,
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  Speaker 1: after the famous actress. They worked with Wan to help
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  Speaker 1: him deepen his list of fictional contacts, and soon his
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  Speaker 1: contacts had contacts. There was an entire imaginary web of
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  Speaker 1: fake people, soldiers and civilians alike, who Juan was reporting
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  Speaker 1: on to the Nazis. Soon he transitioned from letters to
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  Speaker 1: radio communication, sending multiple messages with fake intel every single day.
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  Speaker 1: It would have been exhausting keeping it all straight in
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  Speaker 1: his head, and soon the stakes got as high as
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  Speaker 1: they possibly could get. The Allies wanted Wan to start
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  Speaker 1: telling the Nazis that there was a planned Allied invasion
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  Speaker 1: of France, which was true, but they planned to land
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  Speaker 1: at Normandy, and they wanted Wan to tell the Nazis
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  Speaker 1: they were going to land farther north instead. It was
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  Speaker 1: a plan that played to Hitler's ego, as he had
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  Speaker 1: suspected that this was their.
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  Speaker 2: Plan all along. Wan spent days spinning stories over the
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  Speaker 2: radio about how his fictional contacts were seeing all kinds
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  Speaker 2: of information and movement toward a more northern landing in France.
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  Speaker 2: The Nazis were utterly convinced that this is where the
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  Speaker 2: Allies would be headed. They placed the majority of their
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  Speaker 2: forces in the north and so were blindsided when the
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  Speaker 2: Allies attacked Normandy, far their south. It was still a
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  Speaker 2: fierce battle, and had the Nazis not been deceived by Wan,
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  Speaker 2: they might have actually been able to win. After the war,
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  Speaker 2: Jan kept up his covert lifestyle by having Mi five
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  Speaker 2: fake his death. He then went to live in South America,
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  Speaker 2: abandoning his wife and children. His reasons for doing so
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  Speaker 2: were unclear, although he was discovered by a journalist in
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  Speaker 2: the nineteen eighties and reunited with his family. Then clearly
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  Speaker 2: Juan was a curious and enigmatic man from the start.
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  Speaker 2: It may have hurt him in his personal life, but
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  Speaker 2: the entire free world is fortunate that he loved to
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  Speaker 2: play spy games. Ahmed Musa wiped the sweat from his
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  Speaker 2: brow as he stepped from the baking desert into the cool,
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  Speaker 2: dry tomb. It was nineteen sixty four and Ahmed had
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  Speaker 2: just gotten word that the inner sanctum of his latest
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  Speaker 2: discovery was finally clear of debris. The tomb was located
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  Speaker 2: in Sakara, Egypt, in a necropolis full of kings and
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  Speaker 2: powerful advisors. It was time to find out just who
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  Speaker 2: was buried there. The kerosene lamplight played against the walls,
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  Speaker 2: illuminating painted scenes and hieroglyphics. As Ahmed stepped further inside
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  Speaker 2: the tomb. He was one of the first people to
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  Speaker 2: step foot in there in nearly five thousand years. Ahmed
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  Speaker 2: stopped as his torchlight illuminated a striking illustration on a wall.
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  Speaker 2: It was two figures standing nose to know in what
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  Speaker 2: looked like an intimate pose. This wasn't uncommon for ancient
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  Speaker 2: Egyptian tomb art. In fact, Ahmed had seen married couples
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  Speaker 2: pictured like this before. What was unusual was that the
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  Speaker 2: two figures, apparently the residents of the tomb, were both men.
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  Speaker 2: In the sixty years since Ahmed's discovery, Egyptologists have exhaustively
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  Speaker 2: studied the tomb of Numhotep and Neonkanum, examining murals, hieroglyphic records,
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  Speaker 2: and objects left behind. Many of them have come to
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  Speaker 2: share the same conclusion that the two may be one
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  Speaker 2: of the earliest recorded gay couples in history, based on
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  Speaker 2: the historical record inside the tomb. Numhotep and Neankannum were
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  Speaker 2: incredibly important to King NEUSIENI, a pharaoh that ruled during
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  Speaker 2: the Old Kingdom period of ancient Egypt. Their official titles
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  Speaker 2: were head manicurists to the royal family, which was a
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  Speaker 2: high position at the time. The pharaoh had a group
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  Speaker 2: of aids dedicated to dressing and preparing him for public engagements,
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  Speaker 2: all with very specific jobs and titles. Along with the manicurists.
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  Speaker 2: He daily had help from the hairdressers, keepers of the
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  Speaker 2: head dress, and adorners of the king. But beyond being manicurists,
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  Speaker 2: Numhotep and Neonkanum also held a laundry list of other
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  Speaker 2: honorable titles. Between them, they were also guardians of secrets,
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  Speaker 2: confidants of the kings, and priests who purify the king
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  Speaker 2: in life. Both men were married to women, and portions
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  Speaker 2: of the tombs show them with their wives and children,
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  Speaker 2: but the vast majority of the artwork pictured them together,
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  Speaker 2: often with Numhotep in the position that usually indicates a
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  Speaker 2: wife in similar Egyptian tumart. In one banquet scene, it's
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  Speaker 2: clear that while Nyanka NUM's wife was initially part of
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  Speaker 2: the illustration, she was almost completely erased at some point
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  Speaker 2: during the tomb's construction. Because remember, ancient Egyptians were obsessed
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  Speaker 2: with death and the afterlife, so much so that wealthy
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  Speaker 2: Egyptians spent most of their lives building the tomb to
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  Speaker 2: house themselves after they were gone. They believe that the
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  Speaker 2: spirit never died, but would go on into the afterlife, or,
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  Speaker 2: in some versions of belief, would be reborn anew, so
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  Speaker 2: making your tomb a grand reflection of the afterlife you
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  Speaker 2: wanted was a serious business. Judging by the arts and
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  Speaker 2: inscriptions in the tomb, it's clear that Neumhotep and Neonkanum
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  Speaker 2: were very close while alive and didn't intend to be
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  Speaker 2: separated in the afterlife. While it's not entirely clear who
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  Speaker 2: died first, Egyptologists suspect noum Hotep was the first of
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  Speaker 2: the pair to die. Different theories have been offered over
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  Speaker 2: the years for Neumhotep and neonka NUM's relationship. Initially, Egyptologists
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  Speaker 2: believed that they were brothers or maybe even twins. Some
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  Speaker 2: even conjecture that they were father and son who didn't
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  Speaker 2: want to be separated after death. But over years of research,
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  Speaker 2: it's become clear that the two are illustrated using iconography
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  Speaker 2: usually reserved for husband and wife. Most telling is a
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  Speaker 2: carving of Neumhotep smelling a lotus blossom oppose almost exclusively
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  Speaker 2: reserve for women in tomb art. Today, it's accepted by
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  Speaker 2: many Egyptologists that the evidence supports one theory the most
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  Speaker 2: that they were a romantic couple, whether they were lovers, brothers,
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  Speaker 2: or just best friends. Neumhotep and Neonka Num left behind
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  Speaker 2: a legacy that still fascinates us today, and if nothing else,
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  Speaker 2: they prove that sometimes the best thing in life is
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  Speaker 2: finding someone to hold your hand, both in this world
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  Speaker 2: and the next. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour
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  Speaker 2: of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
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  Speaker 2: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
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  Speaker 2: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey
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  Speaker 2: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
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  Speaker 2: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
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  Speaker 2: and television show, and you can learn all about it
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  Speaker 2: over at the Worldolore dot com.
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  Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious. Yes