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Yes, Those Are Corpses in the Diorama · Ridiculous History

0:24
Speaker 1: Hello, Hello, Hello, friends and neighbors. Thank you for tuning in.
0:28
Speaker 1: We'd like to start today's show with a question, what
0:32
Speaker 1: was the first museum you went to? Or, if you prefer,
0:38
Speaker 1: what's the weirdest exhibit you have ever seen in a museum?
0:42
Speaker 1: Are you asking me? Or is this for the are
0:44
Speaker 1: we pulling the audience? Is for everyone? We have to
0:46
Speaker 1: wait for the results to come in. Well, we'll have
0:48
Speaker 1: to wait for you all listening. But i'd like to
0:51
Speaker 1: hear from you now. I'm Ben. You're no Thank you, Ben,
0:54
Speaker 1: Thank you for introducing me. I appreciate it. The first,
0:56
Speaker 1: that's the first, is that first first. I feel like
0:59
Speaker 1: we're getting more organic with with our intros, almost like
1:03
Speaker 1: we're getting a little familiar. It's like it's like we've
1:05
Speaker 1: done a few of these. It's like we're we're becoming veterans.
1:09
Speaker 1: Which funny story, did you notice that in the initial
1:13
Speaker 1: promos for this show we're referred to as veteran podcasters.
1:17
Speaker 1: Veteran podcasters that means we've been to podcast war. That's true.
1:22
Speaker 1: We came out changed. But the only way we got
1:25
Speaker 1: through that, and the only way we get through this show,
1:28
Speaker 1: of course, is with our super producer Casey Pegrom that
1:33
Speaker 1: part of the intro We're always going to keep. I'll
1:35
Speaker 1: never get tired of it, and I mean that with
1:37
Speaker 1: my whole entire heart. Speaking of whole entire hearts, I
1:40
Speaker 1: will answer real quick your question. Um, I recently went
1:43
Speaker 1: to a museum that had that was by far the
1:47
Speaker 1: most bizarre and amazing display of stuff I'd ever experienced.
1:52
Speaker 1: A place called the Museum of Death in Los Angeles,
1:55
Speaker 1: was also one in New Orleans, and it has everything
1:58
Speaker 1: from preserve herved human hearts you know, in glass jars,
2:04
Speaker 1: to fetuses. There's a whole section on um embalming and
2:09
Speaker 1: funereal kind of relics from you know, the way they
2:12
Speaker 1: used to do things back in olden times. Spoiler alert
2:15
Speaker 1: wasn't pretty Anna. An array of grizzly, grizzly crime scene photos,
2:20
Speaker 1: the likes of which I've never seen anywhere in my
2:22
Speaker 1: entire life, just the stuff of nightmares. Follow up question, Yes,
2:26
Speaker 1: do they have a gift shop? Oh? Big time. I
2:28
Speaker 1: bought a coffee mug. And one of the things they
2:31
Speaker 1: also had in this museum was a whole room devoted
2:35
Speaker 1: to taxidermy, in particular a section with beloved pets that
2:40
Speaker 1: had been taxidermized texidermy. That seems better. That seems more
2:45
Speaker 1: right text boom. If you want to be cool, what
2:48
Speaker 1: about you? Ben? Thanks for asking, man. Yeah, I love museums.
2:52
Speaker 1: It's no secret. Anybody who interacts in the world of
2:57
Speaker 1: social media and finds me on there will typically see that.
3:00
Speaker 1: Whenever I travel to a new city, the first thing
3:03
Speaker 1: I want to do is find a museum. And we
3:06
Speaker 1: are very fortunate, you and Casey and I altogether, because
3:11
Speaker 1: the United States is chock full of fantastic museums, just
3:15
Speaker 1: lousy with them, just lousy, rife with them. There should
3:18
Speaker 1: be a museum about museums. That's very that's way too matic.
3:22
Speaker 1: You immediately get swallowed up into some kind of time
3:25
Speaker 1: space wormhole. So what would the gift shops sell? Would
3:28
Speaker 1: they sell gift shops? I can't Even then, nol is
3:31
Speaker 1: shaking his head. Here, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History
3:37
Speaker 1: is the setting for our episode today, or at least
3:40
Speaker 1: our starting point. And have you been to the Carnegie
3:44
Speaker 1: have not? I am shamefully under museum. I've been a
3:49
Speaker 1: handful of cool art museums, but not very many natural
3:52
Speaker 1: history museums. I've been the one in New York. I've
3:54
Speaker 1: been to the mat Obviously. There's a natural history museum
3:56
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta, fern Bank, fern Bank that I have
3:59
Speaker 1: never been to. Spoiler alert. We might take a trip
4:02
Speaker 1: there one day for a little extra credit. Yes, behind
4:06
Speaker 1: the scenes, I have been cajoling Casey and Noll to
4:10
Speaker 1: come check out fern Bank. I have nothing but good
4:13
Speaker 1: things to say about it. Do they have a mammoth?
4:15
Speaker 1: They do not, as far as I know now, I'm
4:19
Speaker 1: not going. Okay, well, I will text you pictures. Great. Great.
4:23
Speaker 1: They also have an im X. I don't want to.
4:25
Speaker 1: I don't want to experience fomo, right, right, especially at
4:28
Speaker 1: a museum museum. Fomo was the worst. So the Carnegie
4:33
Speaker 1: Museum of Natural History has a wealth of exhibits, and
4:39
Speaker 1: this is a story prestigious institution. One of their exhibits
4:45
Speaker 1: is called Lion Attacking a Dromedary. Yeah, and you know
4:49
Speaker 1: it's funny. I've seen they call him dioramas, which I
4:53
Speaker 1: think is interesting. And I think of a diorama. I
4:55
Speaker 1: think of the out of a shoe box and cut
4:58
Speaker 1: out little you know, the baby Jesus or something. But no,
5:00
Speaker 1: these this is a diorama in that it's posed taxidermy
5:06
Speaker 1: creatures in very dramatic throes of action. Right, this one
5:12
Speaker 1: is no exception. It is a drama dairy, a camel
5:15
Speaker 1: um and a lion that is just like, it's really
5:18
Speaker 1: quite remarkable. There's a dead female lion on the ground
5:22
Speaker 1: inexplicably that don't you don't really understand what happened to
5:24
Speaker 1: the drama dairy, not to death because the stomp it
5:27
Speaker 1: more likely stomp it, I guess, yeah, I guess they
5:30
Speaker 1: know they've got some stomping power. But the lion is
5:32
Speaker 1: just on it just set upon this drama dairy that is,
5:35
Speaker 1: you know, just in these throes of agony, its head
5:37
Speaker 1: you know, rearing back, its teeth exposed, and it just
5:41
Speaker 1: looks really pained. And then on top of this drama
5:44
Speaker 1: dairy is a a rider, right, Ben, Absolutely, so, this
5:49
Speaker 1: is a snapshot. It's as though you're viewing a three
5:54
Speaker 1: D photograph, a tableau. We were entering in media arrests
5:58
Speaker 1: in the middle of the story, and there is a
6:01
Speaker 1: rider here, a man who is riding the camel being
6:04
Speaker 1: attacked by this lion, possibly an act of vengeance on
6:08
Speaker 1: the male lions part because you'll notice when you pull
6:12
Speaker 1: up the photograph the man is holding a knife in
6:16
Speaker 1: his right hand as he leans away from the attacking
6:21
Speaker 1: male lion. And just to get this out of the way,
6:25
Speaker 1: we know that taxidermy can seem a little controversial or
6:29
Speaker 1: even creepy to some people a little bit, and that's understandable.
6:34
Speaker 1: We know that the animals in this are taxidermy. They
6:39
Speaker 1: were once living and now they have been transformed into
6:43
Speaker 1: these sculptures. But there was a strange, gruesome twist that
6:50
Speaker 1: people discovered after this diorama was made, and it's the following.
6:55
Speaker 1: It turns out the rider in this diorama is not
6:59
Speaker 1: entirely artificial. Yeah, I mean, that's certainly. The implication here
7:03
Speaker 1: is that, okay, the lions taxidermy. The lion, as says
7:06
Speaker 1: the dramedary, is, but the guy on top is, you know,
7:10
Speaker 1: presumed to be a mannequin of some sort. Mostly, Yeah,
7:14
Speaker 1: that's true, except when you take a good look at
7:16
Speaker 1: this guy's face. Very expertly rendered, might i add by
7:21
Speaker 1: French taxidermist and naturalist Eduard verreau Um in the mid
7:26
Speaker 1: eight hundreds, very very amazing attention to detail on this
7:30
Speaker 1: guy's face. But when you look at the teeth, it's
7:33
Speaker 1: something about it. It's a little a little off or
7:35
Speaker 1: maybe a little too on. Yeah, and I like I
7:38
Speaker 1: I like the phrase a little too on the teeth
7:43
Speaker 1: give it away. And in the early nineteen nineties, conservation
7:49
Speaker 1: records indicated that the conservators of the museum and of
7:54
Speaker 1: the Peace said, wait a second, I know my mannequin teeth,
7:59
Speaker 1: and these teeth are too real. Yeah, there's an amazing
8:02
Speaker 1: photograph of it up close on a National Geographic article
8:05
Speaker 1: called a hundred and fifty year old Diorama surprises scientists
8:09
Speaker 1: with human remains, because yes, the basis for this mannequin
8:13
Speaker 1: head was in fact a human skull of undetermined or
8:18
Speaker 1: at least quite difficult to determine origins, and they found
8:23
Speaker 1: this out after doing a CT scan of the thing.
8:26
Speaker 1: So basically the skull was the basis. Everything was molded
8:30
Speaker 1: around the skull to get that shape, and then the
8:33
Speaker 1: teeth were laid bare, you know, like those of those
8:36
Speaker 1: are the teeth. And you know, if you look at
8:37
Speaker 1: this close up, you can really tell, Yes, you can
8:40
Speaker 1: really tell, because the face itself, which has been constructed,
8:45
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, from the skull, the face obviously builds
8:48
Speaker 1: on anatomical patterns, muscles, the eyes are clearly fake, right.
8:55
Speaker 1: You get that it's supposed to be a person, but
8:57
Speaker 1: you don't think it's a corpse until you see the teeth,
9:00
Speaker 1: which are weathered, there stained, there some gaps in there,
9:05
Speaker 1: their their ground flat in some places. And now that
9:10
Speaker 1: we have the benefit of knowing what we're getting into,
9:14
Speaker 1: it clearly sticks out. But we have to wonder where
9:17
Speaker 1: we strolling through the Carnegie Museum if we would have
9:21
Speaker 1: noticed this, would we be the kind of people who
9:24
Speaker 1: stop and say, whoa, those teeth are too real? I
9:27
Speaker 1: doubt it. It took an expert, And like you mentioned earlier, Ben,
9:30
Speaker 1: it wasn't until the early nineties that conservation records showed
9:34
Speaker 1: that some of the folks involved in you know, preserving
9:37
Speaker 1: these artifacts did suspect that the teeth were in fact real,
9:41
Speaker 1: just the teeth. But it wasn't until just a couple
9:44
Speaker 1: of years ago in when it was taken off exhibit
9:48
Speaker 1: to be you know, cleaned up and restored and also researched,
9:52
Speaker 1: they discovered that it was in fact a human skull
9:55
Speaker 1: and not just human teeth. So, um, there's a really,
9:58
Speaker 1: really problematic us story that led up to this discovery. Um,
10:03
Speaker 1: and it all starts with a family. The Verreau family
10:08
Speaker 1: need a storied taxidermy family. That's a thing. Yeah, that's
10:12
Speaker 1: the real thing. And they formed a family group, you know. No,
10:17
Speaker 1: I think it's time for Casey on the Case. Guys.
10:22
Speaker 1: I mean, I appreciate being called in for these French pronunciations,
10:26
Speaker 1: but you really could have worked this one out yourself.
10:28
Speaker 1: It's just the maison vow and that concludes our episode
10:33
Speaker 1: of Casey on the Case. I would have said the
10:37
Speaker 1: Mason Veras. We are very lucky that Casey is. I know,
10:41
Speaker 1: I know. If only you are an Englishman and could
10:44
Speaker 1: tell us how to pronounce Katesby, Katesby could have saved
10:48
Speaker 1: me an embarrassing email. So you have to wonder also
10:51
Speaker 1: whether the researchers felt embarrassed when they discovered this. You
10:57
Speaker 1: mentioned the CT scan and now we're diving into the
11:02
Speaker 1: history here. So Noel, tell us a little bit more
11:06
Speaker 1: about this strange family. Yeah, I've made fools of ourselves
11:09
Speaker 1: asking Casey to pronounce Maison Verreaux. So I'm gonna go
11:12
Speaker 1: ahead and just go out on a limb and really
11:13
Speaker 1: try my damnedest with these French names. Casey. If you
11:17
Speaker 1: feel the need to chime in and school me, go
11:19
Speaker 1: right ahead. You can call your own Casey on the
11:20
Speaker 1: case segment, the Casey on Nole's case. But the Verreaux family,
11:24
Speaker 1: the Verreau clan, was made up of Jules, Jean Baptiste
11:28
Speaker 1: Eduard and Alexis Verreaux, and they were all how to
11:32
Speaker 1: do casey. I'll allow it. Okay, Casey didn't have to
11:38
Speaker 1: get on Noel's case, so we're good there. Yeah. But
11:40
Speaker 1: they were all the sons of this really well renowned
11:44
Speaker 1: Parisian taxidermist by the name of Jacques Philippe Verreaux, who
11:48
Speaker 1: founded that house of Verreaux, the Mason Verreaux Taxidermy Company,
11:54
Speaker 1: and it was a big deal. Yeah, established in eighteen
11:59
Speaker 1: o three. This is the earliest known company that dealt
12:03
Speaker 1: in objects of natural history. And they funded collection expeditions
12:09
Speaker 1: across the globe, so they would send agents and send,
12:14
Speaker 1: you know, members of the Arreau family out to places
12:17
Speaker 1: that most of Western Europe was unfamiliar with to collect specimens, specimens, specimens. Yeah,
12:25
Speaker 1: and that's going to get really creepy really quick. So
12:29
Speaker 1: trigger warning if you don't like the idea of taxidermy humans,
12:35
Speaker 1: this is probably not the episode for you. This does
12:38
Speaker 1: also involve quite a lot of institutionalized racism. Oh yeah, yeah,
12:42
Speaker 1: that's a trigger warning for that too. So let's set
12:45
Speaker 1: the stage. As we said, they're traveling around the globe.
12:49
Speaker 1: In eighteen thirty, while traveling in what we now today
12:54
Speaker 1: know as Botswana, Jules Viaw witnessed the burial of a warrior. Yeah,
13:02
Speaker 1: he was about twenty seven years old presumably when he died.
13:06
Speaker 1: I wasn't able to find a cause of death, but
13:09
Speaker 1: he did die around eighteen thirty, UM, and the Arrow
13:13
Speaker 1: brothers attended his burial. And you see, you might say
13:16
Speaker 1: to yourself, oh that's nice. You know, they're they're participating
13:19
Speaker 1: in the culture that there trying to capitalize on. But wait, yeah,
13:25
Speaker 1: because what happened later that night They stole the body.
13:28
Speaker 1: They they they grave Doug. Yeah, they functioned as resurrection men,
13:33
Speaker 1: you know, which is such a That was actually a
13:35
Speaker 1: trivia question last night, UM, where we played trivia resurrection
13:39
Speaker 1: man that the question was actually what is the less
13:44
Speaker 1: pleasant name for the old timing practice of resurrection men
13:50
Speaker 1: that would be frowned upon today because resurrection men implies
13:53
Speaker 1: that year it's like a profession. You're like doing a
13:56
Speaker 1: service of some kind. You're right, it sounds a lot
13:59
Speaker 1: better than Grave Robert professional defiler. Yes. Yes, So when
14:10
Speaker 1: Jules sneaks in to the burial site, he steals the skin,
14:16
Speaker 1: the skull, and several bones. He intended to ship this
14:21
Speaker 1: body back to France. He prepared and preserved it using
14:26
Speaker 1: the tricks of his trade, his craft h and he
14:30
Speaker 1: augmented it with metal wire, wooden boards, and he also
14:34
Speaker 1: stuffed it. Yeah, there's a really grizzly quote from this
14:38
Speaker 1: fantastic New York Times article called Africa rejoices as a
14:42
Speaker 1: wandering soul finds rest. That's sort of a prelude to
14:46
Speaker 1: a happy ending that we'll talk about a little bit.
14:48
Speaker 1: But apparently, um according to a guide, a taxidermy guide
14:53
Speaker 1: published in the eighteen thirties, in order to properly preserve
14:56
Speaker 1: a dead human quote, it is necessary to make a
15:00
Speaker 1: circular incision around the fingertips and peel back the skin
15:05
Speaker 1: as if it were a glove. Right m hm. And
15:09
Speaker 1: that's uh, that is a genuine thing. This is a
15:14
Speaker 1: very nuts and bolts, step by step process. And so
15:18
Speaker 1: they bring this corpse, the stolen corpse, back to France,
15:22
Speaker 1: to Paris specifically, and they also bring a lot of
15:25
Speaker 1: other stuff with them, like a metric crab, ton of
15:29
Speaker 1: specimens um from some estimates in the neighborhood of you know,
15:33
Speaker 1: several thousand individual creatures right right, mostly animals except for this, uh,
15:41
Speaker 1: this one stolen body. And when they brought it back,
15:47
Speaker 1: they didn't immediately showcase this. This was just included in
15:52
Speaker 1: their package. And actually, as we found, they left it
15:55
Speaker 1: in their shop for a while. Isn't that correct? That
15:58
Speaker 1: is absolutely correct. Then they had it propped up as
16:00
Speaker 1: some kind of maccabre display um. It fitted with feathers
16:05
Speaker 1: and you know, made out to be this sort of
16:07
Speaker 1: example of this native kind of like a weird trophy
16:12
Speaker 1: or something. It's really pretty vile, right, And there was
16:16
Speaker 1: a lot of othering that was very common in scientific
16:19
Speaker 1: circles of the day, So to them, taking and preserving
16:24
Speaker 1: the corpse of a human being was essentially no different
16:28
Speaker 1: from taking and preserving the corpse of an exotic animal.
16:33
Speaker 1: The weird thing about this is that it was pretty common,
16:37
Speaker 1: almost a status symbol at the time, to have taxidermied
16:41
Speaker 1: animals of course you've seen like the hunting lodges of
16:44
Speaker 1: the rich and powerful with you know, just dozens of
16:47
Speaker 1: zebra heads and elephant heads and all this kind of
16:51
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not gonna like dang anybody's hobby or whatever,
16:55
Speaker 1: but there does come a point where it feels a
16:57
Speaker 1: little gross to me personally and in a little bit.
17:01
Speaker 1: I'm all about hunting for meat and feeding your family
17:03
Speaker 1: and using every part of the animal that stuff. But
17:05
Speaker 1: when you see pictures of these CEOs, you know, holding
17:08
Speaker 1: up elephant tusks and given the thumbs up that all right,
17:12
Speaker 1: now I'm grandstanding, all right, let me get off my soapbox.
17:15
Speaker 1: But they were celebrated, these Verroe brothers, right. The climate
17:19
Speaker 1: in France when they returned was one of jubilation. They
17:21
Speaker 1: were welcome back with open arms. In fact, there was
17:24
Speaker 1: a report in La Constitutional from November fifte eighteen thirty
17:29
Speaker 1: one that described their return in glowing detail, calling them
17:33
Speaker 1: young compatriots of France, and you know, just really a
17:36
Speaker 1: lot of patriotic fervor surrounding their return. And the the
17:40
Speaker 1: La Constitutional article described their most shall we say, rare
17:45
Speaker 1: specimen as such and this is hang onto your hats folks,
17:50
Speaker 1: but their greatest curiosity is an individual of the nation
17:54
Speaker 1: of be Juanas. This man preserved by the means by
17:57
Speaker 1: which naturalists prepare their specimens and re constitute their form,
18:01
Speaker 1: and so to speak, their inert life. He is of
18:04
Speaker 1: small stature, black of skin, his head covered by short,
18:08
Speaker 1: wooly and curly hair, armed with arrows and a lance,
18:12
Speaker 1: clothes and antelope skin with a bag mark, but the
18:16
Speaker 1: bad question mark made of bush pig, full of small
18:19
Speaker 1: glass beads, seeds, and of small bones. So with great acclaim,
18:26
Speaker 1: the Verreaux outfit returns to Paris. They display this body
18:30
Speaker 1: in their shop and eventually someone says, you know what,
18:36
Speaker 1: I like this so much that I'm going to buy it.
18:39
Speaker 1: And that was a Spanish nationalist named Fransic Darter. And
18:43
Speaker 1: we don't have the exact amount that he paid for this,
18:48
Speaker 1: but we do know we do have a pretty solid
18:51
Speaker 1: timeline of what happened afterwards, because this naturalist said, you
18:56
Speaker 1: know what, I'm not going to take this and just
18:58
Speaker 1: set it up in my living room. I'm going to
19:01
Speaker 1: take it to the global stage. And that is how
19:05
Speaker 1: this poor unfortunate soul ended up being displayed at the
19:11
Speaker 1: Barcelona World Exhibition. Or should I say Bathlona you should? Yes, yes, Uh,
19:17
Speaker 1: we're making some jokes, but this is very, very troubly.
19:22
Speaker 1: It's all I can do does not be completely bummed
19:25
Speaker 1: out by this. But again, there is a happy ending,
19:27
Speaker 1: wait for it. We're getting there, it's on the way.
19:29
Speaker 1: So Darter didn't just buy this one corpse. He had
19:33
Speaker 1: an extensive natural history collection, and when he passed away,
19:40
Speaker 1: his collection was sent to a museum. That's right. It
19:43
Speaker 1: was the Museum of Natural History in Banjols, Spain. So
19:47
Speaker 1: it was on display from nineteen sixteen at this museum
19:51
Speaker 1: to nineteen nine seven, when a controversy finally arose. Yeah,
19:56
Speaker 1: I mean one that had been brewing for some time.
19:59
Speaker 1: I don't know if we mentioned this, but I read
20:00
Speaker 1: somewhere that they actually painted the skin of this person
20:04
Speaker 1: a darker shade of black. Right, Yeah, it is unfortunately,
20:09
Speaker 1: absolutely true, and it was. It kind of became this
20:12
Speaker 1: sign of you know, there's a history of Spanish people
20:17
Speaker 1: exploiting and enslaving Africans I mean Western Europe of course,
20:24
Speaker 1: of course, of course, But I'm just saying like this
20:26
Speaker 1: was a problematic thing on many levels, on a humanitarian level,
20:30
Speaker 1: but also on a ideological level and what it represented,
20:34
Speaker 1: and it just was not a good look. And yet
20:35
Speaker 1: this museum constantly fought back against giving up this individuals
20:43
Speaker 1: remains to its home country for a proper burial. Yeah,
20:47
Speaker 1: there's an excellent article on the BBC the traces this
20:50
Speaker 1: titled the Man Stuffed and displayed like a wild animal,
20:54
Speaker 1: and in this they detail how, after Asnell said, incredibly
21:00
Speaker 1: strong resistance from the museum, this body was finally returned.
21:07
Speaker 1: And this didn't happen until what was October five, two
21:11
Speaker 1: thousand or so. And when this warrior was returned, they
21:17
Speaker 1: were to lay in state for a day in the
21:21
Speaker 1: capital and ten thousand people visited to pay their last respects.
21:28
Speaker 1: Interesting side note here, Noel, it was a Christian burial. Really,
21:33
Speaker 1: I didn't get to that tell me. More so, the
21:36
Speaker 1: priest who was conducting this said, in the spirit of
21:40
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, who also suffered, you know, we're gonna lay
21:44
Speaker 1: this man to rest finally, And the Foreign minister at
21:50
Speaker 1: the time said quote, we are prepared to forgive, but
21:53
Speaker 1: we must not forget the crimes of the past so
21:56
Speaker 1: that we don't repeat them. That is interesting, how do
22:00
Speaker 1: you feel about that though being a Christian burial, given
22:04
Speaker 1: the background, and given the brutal nature of of this
22:09
Speaker 1: uprooting of this person's remains, and then to ultimately have
22:12
Speaker 1: their burial will be something completely unrelated to what they
22:15
Speaker 1: likely believed in their in life. Yeah, we have to
22:19
Speaker 1: ask ourselves these questions. You know, was that in part
22:23
Speaker 1: of political play by the government of the time. Was
22:27
Speaker 1: that a true, sincere effort, And you know, if it was,
22:33
Speaker 1: if it was a true and sincere and genuine effort
22:35
Speaker 1: to pay respects, then I'm all for it, although it
22:39
Speaker 1: is riddled with problems. And here's what happened though, So
22:44
Speaker 1: you may have thought that we already got to the
22:46
Speaker 1: the good ending, the light at the end of the tunnel.
22:49
Speaker 1: I thought we had, did you you gotta twist, you
22:50
Speaker 1: gotta Chamolean twist. There's a little Shamalaman Malonian twist. There's
22:55
Speaker 1: a little bit I'm talking about. Yeah, there's a little
22:57
Speaker 1: bit of an Act three twist here a to the burial.
23:00
Speaker 1: And after Latian state, the grave was neglected for several
23:04
Speaker 1: years and the field that was around it was being
23:07
Speaker 1: used as a football pitch. I'm sorry, coming again as
23:10
Speaker 1: the people were playing football. Okay, I got you football
23:13
Speaker 1: pitch and the botswan In government later thankfully went back
23:19
Speaker 1: and restored the site and enhanced it. They built a
23:23
Speaker 1: visitors center and explanatory signs. As of now, it is
23:27
Speaker 1: still not known what this man's name was, exactly where
23:33
Speaker 1: he came from, what his life was like. Yeah, and
23:36
Speaker 1: and to get back to what started the story with
23:38
Speaker 1: the the diorama of the drama dairy right in the
23:42
Speaker 1: Carnegie Museum, the diorama Drama. Yeah. This this all comes
23:45
Speaker 1: back to something that you mentioned been an interesting angle,
23:47
Speaker 1: which is museum ethics. There are still struggles between the
23:51
Speaker 1: governments of the places of origin of many artifacts and
23:54
Speaker 1: the museums that hold them in their collections. And it's
23:58
Speaker 1: not cut and dry. It's not all is like a
24:00
Speaker 1: matter of just saying, hey that we should have that
24:03
Speaker 1: in our country and instead you know, mr Mr Carnegie
24:07
Speaker 1: or whatever, you know. But with the remains, that is
24:12
Speaker 1: probably a little more cut and dry, and um, you know,
24:15
Speaker 1: the museum will certainly have been willing to return that
24:18
Speaker 1: skull if they knew where to send it. But that's
24:22
Speaker 1: the rob right right, That's that's the problem, that's the
24:25
Speaker 1: heart of the matter. Where should we say the skull
24:27
Speaker 1: of the matter. Other than knowing that this diorama was
24:31
Speaker 1: built by Edward Arrow in the mid eight hundreds, we
24:35
Speaker 1: don't know the origin of the skull. We don't know
24:39
Speaker 1: who it came from. We don't know where they lived.
24:42
Speaker 1: We know very very little about them. I would tell
24:45
Speaker 1: you one thing we do know is those of a
24:47
Speaker 1: rose we're not cool. Oh creepy, creepy. Have you seen
24:53
Speaker 1: the movie Taxidermia, Ben? I have not. Should I check
24:56
Speaker 1: it out? I think you should. It's it's really it's
24:58
Speaker 1: quite disturbing. It's it's a dif seen it, Casey. It's
25:01
Speaker 1: like a Hungarian movie. It's a Hungarian movie. There's one
25:04
Speaker 1: character who shoots flames out of his penis, and um,
25:06
Speaker 1: different you know, odd characters. Over time, it's it traces
25:10
Speaker 1: the lineage of this family um and one of them
25:13
Speaker 1: becomes a taxidermist. And I'm gonna spoiler alert real quick.
25:17
Speaker 1: See it. This isn't really doesn't really matter. It's more
25:19
Speaker 1: just a to blow. The guy builds a machine that
25:23
Speaker 1: allows him to taxidermy himself. Finally, yeah, this is fiction,
25:27
Speaker 1: right established this, folks. What gave it away was that
25:31
Speaker 1: the flames out of them. I don't know, man, It's
25:34
Speaker 1: a it's a wild and fascinating world in which we live.
25:42
Speaker 1: So check out taxidermy if you want to. You know,
25:45
Speaker 1: if this got wet your appetite for creepy things, it's
25:48
Speaker 1: it's it's worth a look. It's worth a look. And
25:52
Speaker 1: most importantly, this controversy continues to date in museums across
25:56
Speaker 1: the planet. We're going to wrap it up. We hope
25:59
Speaker 1: you into Oh so close. No, it's time, gentlemen. What
26:06
Speaker 1: time is for the quizter? Of course, the mischievous, mirthful
26:13
Speaker 1: man that is the Quister. Oh my goodness, you were.
26:16
Speaker 1: You were in high spirits. I've won so many times.
26:19
Speaker 1: I do not freaking know what to do. Yes, yes, Quister.
26:24
Speaker 1: So this is the This is the segment where our
26:27
Speaker 1: long standing nemesis of the show, the Quister, Jonathan Strickland,
26:31
Speaker 1: comes to test our knowledge of real versus fake history?
26:35
Speaker 1: Are they the same person? Jonathan Strickland and the Quister
26:38
Speaker 1: is a sort of a Superman Clark can It's a
26:40
Speaker 1: vent diagram that has a lot of overlap. I got you, yes,
26:43
Speaker 1: good enough? Good to know who to hate? It's just No,
26:47
Speaker 1: it's clear You've been sending me little messages on on
26:50
Speaker 1: our messaging system the entire day, and this was very
26:54
Speaker 1: clear that I need to I need to maybe ease
26:57
Speaker 1: off a bit. That's the message getting. Now, this is
27:01
Speaker 1: news to me. What are you doing? Man? I just
27:03
Speaker 1: you know, I just I just told him. It just
27:06
Speaker 1: things like, hey, you get a nice podcast over there.
27:08
Speaker 1: It sure would be a shame if someone I don't
27:10
Speaker 1: know set fire to something like that. Yeah, yeah, I'm
27:15
Speaker 1: just really fed up with this Quister segment. But people
27:18
Speaker 1: seem to like it, so I guess we have to
27:19
Speaker 1: keep doing it forever. Now for those who do not
27:21
Speaker 1: know what the heck is happening, I will explain. So
27:25
Speaker 1: I come on the show, and has been alluded to earlier,
27:28
Speaker 1: I present a scenario. The gentleman here have three minutes
27:32
Speaker 1: to determine whether or not said scenario represents an actual
27:35
Speaker 1: historical fact or if I made sit up seas. I
27:38
Speaker 1: also create an arbitrary rule that you have to follow
27:43
Speaker 1: if you wish to ask any questions of yours truly
27:46
Speaker 1: the Quister this case, because we're talking about dead people,
27:51
Speaker 1: your rule is going to be a little, uh, little tricksy.
27:55
Speaker 1: Before you can ask a question, you must quote at
27:59
Speaker 1: least some portion of the wonderful, wonderful song dead Man's
28:03
Speaker 1: Party by Oingo Boingo. You could ask for more like
28:07
Speaker 1: there you go, perfect Dannie Lpan Vehicle Ongo Boingo. Can
28:10
Speaker 1: I quote the horn part? But absolutely you can. Absolutely, Yeah,
28:17
Speaker 1: we can do the whole thing, you know. Yeah, that's it.
28:20
Speaker 1: We're just throwing the segment out. We're just gonna jam. Guy. No,
28:22
Speaker 1: we've already set it up right, so lay it, lay
28:26
Speaker 1: it on us. And also I'm noticing that your accents
28:30
Speaker 1: are a bit more dynamic today. You have a lot
28:32
Speaker 1: of pep I uh drink like ten five hour energy
28:36
Speaker 1: drinks because I got a lot of stuff coming up.
28:39
Speaker 1: You're fifty deep. That's right, all right, I can see
28:44
Speaker 1: next week. Man. Well, let's hope we can see through
28:47
Speaker 1: your deception right now. No, man, I hope. So here's
28:50
Speaker 1: your scenario. You will start the timer win. I give
28:53
Speaker 1: you the the the signal which would be uh, start
28:56
Speaker 1: the timer. Here it is Italian artist Giovanni Balducci in
29:02
Speaker 1: the early seventeenth century got a peculiar commission. He was
29:05
Speaker 1: hired to paint the portraits of the upper crust of Naples.
29:10
Speaker 1: But these were very special portraits, for they were missing
29:13
Speaker 1: one important feature, the subject's heads. See, he was painting
29:18
Speaker 1: these portraits in the catacombs of San Guadio, so where
29:22
Speaker 1: the decapitated heads of deceased hoity toities were placed in
29:26
Speaker 1: alcoves in the walls. Balducci painted frescoes of rich people
29:31
Speaker 1: in their finery around these heads, which I must stress
29:37
Speaker 1: still had flesh on them. Oh and he did it
29:41
Speaker 1: for free because he considered it an honor. Start the timer,
29:46
Speaker 1: don't run away, It's only me, yes, Mr Berlin. Okay,
29:49
Speaker 1: So is this still on display? Like could people still
29:53
Speaker 1: go see it? For a long time it was not
29:55
Speaker 1: on display. But in two thousand and six some people
29:58
Speaker 1: who were trying to attract more visitors to this particular
30:02
Speaker 1: part of Naples got together and commissioned UH an entire
30:06
Speaker 1: fundraising event, and now it is in fact open for
30:08
Speaker 1: you to tour. So, Ben, do you picture this is
30:11
Speaker 1: being sort of like those catacombs and Prague or like
30:14
Speaker 1: the ostuary. You know, it's like a church made of
30:16
Speaker 1: bones and stuff like that. Obviously there's no more flesh.
30:19
Speaker 1: That's the part throws man because flesh decomposed. Unless it's
30:24
Speaker 1: treated and preserved, flesh will decompose or desiccated at some point.
30:29
Speaker 1: I feel it only necessary to say that when I
30:31
Speaker 1: said still had flesh upon them, I meant at the
30:33
Speaker 1: time he was painting. You know, but that's gross, he's
30:36
Speaker 1: that's gonna smell. That's not gonna be fun painting around
30:40
Speaker 1: decomposing heads. It was a different time, no, old people
30:43
Speaker 1: were used to different smells. I don't know. I'm just
30:46
Speaker 1: I'm all bugaboo. You could go either way. Yeah, do
30:50
Speaker 1: you have a question? Not really, I don't want to
30:53
Speaker 1: speak to this man, all right, I'm all dressed up
30:56
Speaker 1: with nowhere to go. Yes, Mr Bolin. So two thousand
31:01
Speaker 1: six you said, is when this went back on display.
31:07
Speaker 1: Has this artist done any other work that we would
31:10
Speaker 1: be familiar with? Not recently. He's been dead for four
31:12
Speaker 1: hundred years, right man, Come on, man, Yes he's done.
31:15
Speaker 1: He's done other works. He was a student of a
31:17
Speaker 1: sorry sorry, being a sixteenth century Italian artists, mostly known
31:22
Speaker 1: for his biographies of other Italian artists. But he has
31:26
Speaker 1: done other works. Most of them would be considered an
31:28
Speaker 1: uninspired you might say, don't be afraid yes, No, I
31:34
Speaker 1: just wanted to do I don't really have anything that's fair.
31:37
Speaker 1: All right, well I'm gonna say false. I am feeling true.
31:40
Speaker 1: You want to rochampions, Okay, there we go one to three. Shoot. Oh,
31:47
Speaker 1: now I want to go with yours. Okay, so no,
31:49
Speaker 1: no wins. But he made the decision to go with
31:51
Speaker 1: Ben's decision, which was the opposite of his. What was
31:53
Speaker 1: your decision again, Ben, we're locking it in? Yes, yes, true,
31:57
Speaker 1: you have locked in. Yes, she'll be that's my again.
32:10
Speaker 1: So this was that was I'm pretty sure from my
32:14
Speaker 1: seat and did it dance? Pretty sure you spiked the
32:17
Speaker 1: mica on that one, buddy, all right? So yes, In fact,
32:20
Speaker 1: this is true. The catacombs were closed to the public
32:24
Speaker 1: until two thousand six. These days there are not even
32:26
Speaker 1: skulls in those alcoves. They have crumbled to dust. Now
32:30
Speaker 1: they're just frescoes with around a hole essentially where the
32:34
Speaker 1: head would be. But at one point there were the
32:37
Speaker 1: actual recently deceased heads of these rich people, including people
32:43
Speaker 1: who were described as princesses. Uh in those walls. It
32:48
Speaker 1: is under the basilica of Santa Maria della s Anita.
32:51
Speaker 1: If you are ever in Naples, that is the one
32:53
Speaker 1: you go to, and they're about twenty frescoes in total.
32:57
Speaker 1: So he painted these frescoes four surrounded by rotting decapitated heads,
33:03
Speaker 1: because it was an honor, yes, he he thought, because
33:08
Speaker 1: this was this was supposed to be a celebration of
33:13
Speaker 1: a person. The head was supposed to be the center
33:15
Speaker 1: of the person's being, and that he was there too
33:19
Speaker 1: to glorify that. That it was such a great honor.
33:23
Speaker 1: He refused the fee that the church tried to pay
33:28
Speaker 1: him in return for his work. He said, no, no, no,
33:31
Speaker 1: I do this for them, And so he refused payment,
33:35
Speaker 1: just like you're out here doing this segment and I
33:39
Speaker 1: don't get paid for it because you're exactly you're you're
33:43
Speaker 1: you're paid at a shot in floud in spite came
33:46
Speaker 1: up short this one. You know what, man, you can't
33:48
Speaker 1: win them all. I mean you you said today you
33:51
Speaker 1: literally won, you literally won ro shambo and you went
33:54
Speaker 1: with the other, you know, because it was my gut.
33:56
Speaker 1: I may have won the rochambo, but my gut said,
33:59
Speaker 1: Ben was right, and you're getting a lot better rock
34:01
Speaker 1: paper scissors. And now I want to that man, I'm
34:06
Speaker 1: starting to like this segment again, this has been an
34:09
Speaker 1: emotional roller coaster on many counts. Quister, thank you, I
34:15
Speaker 1: am required to say for coming onto the show. Pretty sure,
34:20
Speaker 1: I'm still ahead by one. You know what? What what?
34:23
Speaker 1: What's a couple of numbers between friends? So I have
34:27
Speaker 1: a feeling that I have a feeling that Jonathan and
34:31
Speaker 1: Noel are a bit more competitive than I am. So please,
34:35
Speaker 1: I really did leap out of my seat and do
34:38
Speaker 1: a hammer dance, and it really is a true. Yeah,
34:41
Speaker 1: but we may have won the battle, we have not
34:46
Speaker 1: won the war. The war still rages. The war still rages.
34:51
Speaker 1: And something tells me that something, probably being super producer
34:55
Speaker 1: Casey Pegrham, that this is not the last we've seen
34:59
Speaker 1: of the Quister. Yeah, I'm cool with that. I've got
35:02
Speaker 1: my dignity back now. How much you've been, you never
35:05
Speaker 1: really lost it. You weren't as invested in this as
35:07
Speaker 1: I was. I don't think I'm invested, but it's just
35:09
Speaker 1: because I find so many things fascinating. I look at
35:12
Speaker 1: it as a learning experience. Excuse me, guys, that's that's
35:17
Speaker 1: my chauffeur. He says, that's roomful. Maybe just one more, well,
35:24
Speaker 1: flat and on that and on that note, we'd like
35:27
Speaker 1: to thank Jonathan Strickland, we'd like to thank Casey Pegram,
35:31
Speaker 1: we'd like to thank Alex Williams who composed this track.
35:34
Speaker 1: And most importantly, we'd like to thank you Ben. Oh no,
35:40
Speaker 1: thank thank you. No, You're welcome. The pleasure was more.
35:44
Speaker 1: It's shared, it's mutual pleasure, all right. Well, before this
35:47
Speaker 1: bromance goes off the rails, we are really uncomfortable. It's
35:51
Speaker 1: too but it's too bad man. You chose to sit
35:53
Speaker 1: in the middle. So we're gonna head out. Tune in
35:57
Speaker 1: next time when we explore the strange story of a
36:00
Speaker 1: flying aircraft carrier. It's sort of a sequel, kind of
36:04
Speaker 1: sort of Zeppelin to the Zeppelin ngan electric zeppel Loop.
36:09
Speaker 1: I love it. And you know, Ben, you're you're quite
36:11
Speaker 1: fond of airships, so I know you're happy about this one.
36:14
Speaker 1: Oh I am thrilled, my friend. Why you might ask
36:17
Speaker 1: not to tune in and find out In the meantime,
36:19
Speaker 1: you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. How's your
36:22
Speaker 1: vision board coming, dude? It's going really well. Yeah. I
36:26
Speaker 1: had ahead of moment where I just decided to take
36:28
Speaker 1: off the Christopher Walking Pictures. I have a whole section online.
36:32
Speaker 1: It's nothing but Christopher walkin pictures, but with Steve Bushemi's eyes.
36:36
Speaker 1: I know you keep texting you, but hey, if you
36:40
Speaker 1: don't want to do any of that stuff, you can
36:41
Speaker 1: just write us an email directly. We're ridiculous at how
36:43
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. And uh yeah, thanks to you.
36:45
Speaker 1: I already thank Ben did debate and switch there. But
36:48
Speaker 1: thanks to you folks for tuning in joining us for
36:50
Speaker 1: another episode of ridiculous history. You'll see you next time.
37:00
Speaker 1: Free eight