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Cave of Wonders · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
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  Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
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  Speaker 1: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. War changes everything, the economy,
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  Speaker 1: the landscape, the people in and around it. War is
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  Speaker 1: uh stampede of wild elephants, leaving nothing but rubble in
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  Speaker 1: their wake. The costs are unfathomable. Some countries never recover,
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  Speaker 1: while others take years to get back even a piece
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  Speaker 1: of what they lost, and the soldiers who fight often
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  Speaker 1: lose a piece of themselves as well. But then there
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  Speaker 1: are the wars that don't change much. It's true, it
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  Speaker 1: does happen. In eighteen fifty nine, for example, a British
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  Speaker 1: owned black boar was shot by an American farmer on
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  Speaker 1: an island off the coast of Washington State. The dispute
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  Speaker 1: that ensued resulted in a war lasting a matter of
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  Speaker 1: weeks between the United States and Great Britain. Eventually, a
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  Speaker 1: deal was worked out and the conflict, known today as
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  Speaker 1: the Pig War, ended without a single lost life, well
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  Speaker 1: except the boars, that is. The Napoleonic Wars, however, changed
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  Speaker 1: a whole lot. Millions were killed over a span of
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  Speaker 1: twelve years as Napoleon worked his way across Europe. The
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  Speaker 1: United Kingdom, Austria, Sweden, and other countries worked to fight
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  Speaker 1: off the invading French Empire, eventually defeating Napoleon in eighteen
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  Speaker 1: fifteen at Waterloo. Spain was also heavily involved in the conflict.
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  Speaker 1: Its leaders had lost control of the country around eighteen
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  Speaker 1: o eight, and for six years they fought alongside the
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  Speaker 1: British and we're finally able to push the French forces
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  Speaker 1: out by eighteen fourteen. But one town had been ready
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  Speaker 1: to get its hands dirty from day one. The small
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  Speaker 1: town of west Car, the province of Granada didn't have
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  Speaker 1: much They didn't even have an army, only about eight
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  Speaker 1: guards to protect the town. But they wanted to help
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  Speaker 1: Spain put Ferdinand the Seventh back on the throne, so
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  Speaker 1: in eighteen o nine they declared war on Napoleon and
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  Speaker 1: his allies, specifically Denmark. Napoleon eventually lost no thanks to
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  Speaker 1: west Car and his brother, the acting king was banished
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  Speaker 1: from the Spanish throne. Spain and Denmark went on to
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  Speaker 1: sign the Treaty of Paris in eighteen fourteen. Which established
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  Speaker 1: France's borders and gave other countries their land back, thus
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  Speaker 1: ending Spain's fraught battle with the Emperor. West Car, however,
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  Speaker 1: never backed down. Even though Spain had found peace with France,
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  Speaker 1: the people of the small Spanish town remained at war
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  Speaker 1: with the Danes for years on seventy two in fact,
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  Speaker 1: and yet no shots were fired and neither side suffered
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  Speaker 1: a single casualty. So how could an entire country and
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  Speaker 1: a small Spanish town be at war with each other
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  Speaker 1: for that long without anyone dying or hearing about it?
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  Speaker 1: For that we can thank for Sente Gonzalez. Vicente was
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  Speaker 1: an official from west Car who found the original declaration
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty one. As it turned out, after the
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  Speaker 1: treaty had been signed, the town simply forgot about the war.
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  Speaker 1: For one seventy two years, the two sides were engaged
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  Speaker 1: in a conflict neither was aware of. Once the declaration
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  Speaker 1: was discovered and made public, a Danish ambassador traveled to
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  Speaker 1: the small town on Armistice Day in nineteen one and
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  Speaker 1: signed a treaty, officially bringing an end to their war.
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  Speaker 1: Gifts were exchanged, with a mayor of west Car receiving
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  Speaker 1: a photo of the Danish queen, as well as books
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  Speaker 1: by the famous Danish children's author Hans Christian Anderson. In return,
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  Speaker 1: West Car renamed one of its streets Kaye Dina Marca
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  Speaker 1: or Denmark Street. Townspeople got the day off from work
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  Speaker 1: to celebrate and drink free wine while thousands of tourists
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  Speaker 1: flooded into town. Word has it a bus full of
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  Speaker 1: scandinavi and women even showed up dressed as Vikings. Two
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  Speaker 1: years later, the village of Lehar, about seventy miles away
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  Speaker 1: from West Car, also declared peace with France, and it
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  Speaker 1: only took them one d years. The king of Lehar
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  Speaker 1: had been offended during the visit to Paris in three
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  Speaker 1: and retaliated with a formal declaration of war, but neither
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  Speaker 1: side made a move and sold the declaration, just like
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  Speaker 1: West Cars, was lost to time. We're often reminded after
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  Speaker 1: major conflicts to never forget so that we don't repeat
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  Speaker 1: the mistakes of the past. Unfortunately, for West Car and Lehar,
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  Speaker 1: somebody did forget and the conflict almost never stopped. Imagine
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  Speaker 1: going to work and while shuffling papers and updating spread sheets,
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  Speaker 1: you uncover a conspiracy or a scandal or some earth
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  Speaker 1: shattering information that sheds light on the customs and capabilities
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  Speaker 1: of past cultures. And when I say earth shattering, I
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  Speaker 1: mean it literally. In nineteen o two, construction workers had
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  Speaker 1: been building cisterns for an upcoming housing development when they
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  Speaker 1: accidentally stumbled upon a piece of history. It had remained
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  Speaker 1: hidden beneath the island of Malta undisturbed. They originally tried
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  Speaker 1: to hide their discovery, but doing so proved futile. The
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  Speaker 1: Mediterranean site was too big to conceal, and eventually one father,
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  Speaker 1: Emmanuel Margery, took on the task of digging a little
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  Speaker 1: deeper to see what exactly the workers had found. Margery
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  Speaker 1: began excavating in November of nineteen o three and worked
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  Speaker 1: for four years, slowly peeling back the layers of a
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  Speaker 1: place that had not been seen for over six thousand years. Bodies,
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  Speaker 1: hundreds of them, were hauled out along with other artifacts
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  Speaker 1: and tossed away because workers had no idea of the
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  Speaker 1: importance of the location, nor did they inventory anything that
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  Speaker 1: they found. Sadly, Father Maggrey had to stop the excavation
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  Speaker 1: to attend to submissionary work in Tunisia, where he ultimately died,
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  Speaker 1: but his excavation had not been forgotten. The dig was
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  Speaker 1: restarted a few years later by a Maltese archaeologist named
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  Speaker 1: Sir Domestically Zammitt, who did his best to pick up
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  Speaker 1: where Magrey left off. If only Magarey had taken better notes,
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  Speaker 1: he left behind a mess, lacking any kind of catalog
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  Speaker 1: of what had been discovered. Zammitt worked hard to continue
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  Speaker 1: the dig while also keeping detailed records for both himself
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  Speaker 1: and future historians who came after him. Excavation was completed
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen eleven, though visitors had been allowed inside during
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  Speaker 1: the process. Today it's called the hell sof ly Any Hypogeum,
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  Speaker 1: and it's home to pottery, jewelry, carvings, and almost seven
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  Speaker 1: thousand bodies dating back to about b C. It's a necropolis,
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  Speaker 1: part crypt, parts of mattery designed for large cities of
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  Speaker 1: the time. The hypogem itself consists of three levels, each
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  Speaker 1: bearing numerous chambers carved out of limestone. Holes were cut
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  Speaker 1: in the ceilings to allow light in as low as
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  Speaker 1: the middle level, and certain openings were designed for sunlight
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  Speaker 1: to pour in at specific times of the year, like
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  Speaker 1: the winter solstice. The chambers themselves had also been styled
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  Speaker 1: after the temples on the surface. Builders had included stone
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  Speaker 1: features on the ceilings, as well as spiral designs painted
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  Speaker 1: in red ochre. Since many of the temples above ground
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  Speaker 1: have degraded over time and lost their roofs, the preservation
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  Speaker 1: of the hypo gem has given historians a greater glimpse
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  Speaker 1: into the architectural prowess of the ancient Maltese. One room,
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  Speaker 1: known as the Oracle Room, is small and rectangular, and
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  Speaker 1: yet when someone speaks inside it, the acoustics amplify the
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  Speaker 1: sounds so it can be heard throughout much of the level.
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  Speaker 1: The Hypogeum also helps researchers understand how the islands and
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  Speaker 1: set Ster has handled death. It's believed that the burial
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  Speaker 1: process occurred in stages. Bodies were left out to decay
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  Speaker 1: until they were nothing more than bones. Those bones, along
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  Speaker 1: with their belongings, were then stacked with other remains and
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  Speaker 1: painted with red ochre to symbolize the blood in life
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  Speaker 1: that once ran through their veins. Unfortunately, the hypo gems
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  Speaker 1: preservation is the exact thing that's killing it. The presence
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  Speaker 1: of visitors to the site has altered carbon dioxide levels,
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  Speaker 1: temperature and humidity, as well as introduced micro organisms that
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  Speaker 1: are slowly devouring the temple from the inside out. Measures
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  Speaker 1: have been taken to restrict access to only eighty tourists
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  Speaker 1: per day, and designated pathways have been installed so that
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  Speaker 1: wandering feet don't trample the hypo gem's history out of existence.
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  Speaker 1: It's not certain how long the structure will last given
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  Speaker 1: its exposure to the rest of the world, but there's
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  Speaker 1: no telling what other secrets Malta has living just beneath
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  Speaker 1: the surface. There could be another crypt, or a secret city,
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  Speaker 1: or a vast treasurer waiting to be found. All it
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  Speaker 1: would take is a shovel and a bit of luck.
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  Speaker 1: Of that, I'm certain, make no bones about it. I
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  Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
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  Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
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  Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how
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  Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
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  Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
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  Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World
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  Speaker 1: of Lore dot com and until next time, stay curious,