August 15, 2024 • 38 mins
The Carnegie Museum of Natural History is one of the most storied institutions of its kind in the United States, and it's chockful of priceless objects from across the span of history and the globe. However... investigators recently discovered a grisly secret hidden within one of the dioramas. Join Ben and Noel as they explore the macabre secret of the Carnegie Museum in today's Classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous historians. Thank you, as always so much for tuning in.
This is a classic episode for you. Some of us
are on the road, some of us are on adventures.
But before we go, you know, we couldn't leave you
without a dope. Beat to step two and been Bullen
joined with our super producer Max Williams. Max, there are
(00:23):
corpses in dioramas, or there were?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
There were?
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Or are they still in dioramas? So when I saw
the title of this one, so a little behind the scenes.
These episodes are from before I worked on the show,
so I'm learning these normally with like you know, the listeners.
But it reminded me of when we did the crash
Test Dummies episode a couple of years back, Yeah, where
it was like, oh, they used corpses in the past
to test them and then the answer was they still
(00:48):
use corpses. Are they still using corpses in dioramas?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Ben, Well, I'm glad you asked, Max, because if they are,
it is not sanctioned today. However, in this classic episode,
we're going to learn how the Carnegie Museum of Natural
History did use corpses in dioramas. If you're interested in
(01:12):
learning about more strange uses for corpses. Check out the
earlier car Stuff episode on the Grizzly history of crash
test dummies, as well as our Ridiculous History episode on
the same subject. For now, folks, if you get squigged
out by things that are a little bit macabre, then
(01:33):
this episode might not be for you, but for everybody else.
Welcome to Ridiculous History. Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Hello. Hello, Hello,
(02:12):
friends and neighbors. Thank you for tuning in. We'd like
to start today's show with a question, what was the
first museum you went to, or, if you prefer, what's
the weirdest exhibit you have ever seen in a museum?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Are you asking me? Or is this for the is that?
Are we pulling the audience?
Speaker 1 (02:31):
This is foreveryone.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Do we have to wait for the results to come in.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
We'll have to wait for you all listening. But I'd
like to hear from you now. I'm Ben your knowing.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Oh, thank you, Ben, Thank you for introducing me. I
appreciate it. The first, that's a first? Is that a first?
Speaker 4 (02:44):
That's a first?
Speaker 1 (02:45):
I feel like we're getting more organic with our intros.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Almost like we're getting a little familiar. It's like we've
done a few of these.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
It's like we're becoming veterans. Which funny story. Did you
notice that in the initial pro for this show we're
referred to as veteran podcasters.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Veteran podcasters, that means we've been to podcast war.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
That's true. We came out changed. But the only way
we got through that, and the only way we get
through this show, of course, is with our super producer,
Casey Pegrom that part of the intro. We're always going
to keep it.
Speaker 5 (03:21):
I'll never get tired of it. And I mean that
with my whole entire heart. Speaking of whole entire hearts,
I will answer real quick your question. I recently went
to a museum that had that was by far the
most bizarre and amazing display of stuff I'd ever experienced.
A place called the Museum of Death in Los Angeles,
(03:42):
was also one in New Orleans, and it has everything
from preserved human hearts, you know, in glass.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Jars, to fetuses. There's a whole section on embalming and
funereal kind of relics from, you know, the way they
used to do things back in in times. Spoiler alert
wasn't pretty and an array of grizzly, grizzly crime scene photos,
the likes of which I've never seen anywhere in my
entire life, just the stuff of nightmares.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Follow up question, Yes, do they have a gift shop? Oh?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Big time. I bought a coffee mug. And one of
the things they also had in this museum was a
whole room devoted to taxidermy, in particular a section with
beloved pets that had been taxidermized.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Taxi dermy, taxidermy.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
That seems better, That seems more right, taxt boom.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
If you want to be cool, what about you?
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Ben?
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Thanks for asking, man. Yeah, I love museums. It's no secret.
Anybody who interacts in the world as social media and
finds me on there will typically see that. Whenever I
travel to a new city, the first thing I want
to do is find a museum. And we are very fortunate,
you and Casey and I altogether, because the United States
(04:59):
is chock full of fantastic museum just lousy with them,
just lousy, rife with them. There should be a museum
about museums. Is that too metal?
Speaker 2 (05:08):
That's way too many.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
You immediately get swallowed up into some kind of time
space wormhole.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
So what would the gift shop sell? Would they sell
gift shops? I can't even then, Noel is shaking his head. Here.
The Carnegie Museum of Natural History is the setting for
our episode today, or at least our starting point. And
have you been to the Carnegie pas?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
I have not. I am a shamefully under museumed. I've
been to a handful of cool art museums, but not
very many natural history museums. I've been the one in
New York. I've been to the matt Obviously, there's a
natural history museum here in Atlanta, Fernbank, fern Bank that
I have never been to. Spoiler alert. We might take
a trip there one day for a little extra credit.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Yes, behind the scenes, I have been cajoling Casey and
Noel to come check out fern Bank. I have nothing
but good thing to say about it.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Do they have a mammoth?
Speaker 1 (06:02):
They do not, as far as I know.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Now, I'm not going.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Okay, well, I will text you pictures.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
I'll go great. Great.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
They also have an IMAX.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
I don't want to. I don't want to experience fomo.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Right right, especially at a museum.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
No museum, fomo is the worst.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
So the Carnegie Museum of Natural History has a wealth
of exhibits, and this is a story prestigious institution. One
of their exhibits is called Lion Attacking a Dromedary.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
Yeah, and you know, it's funny. I've seen they call
them dioramas, which I think is interesting. When I think
of a diorama, I think of the shoe getting out
of a shoe box and cut out little you know,
the baby Jesus or something. But no, these this is
a diorama in that it's posed taxidermid creatures in very
dramatic throes of action. Right, this one is no exception.
(06:59):
It is a dramedary, a camel and a lion that
is just like I mean, it's really quite remarkable.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
There's a dead female lion on the ground.
Speaker 5 (07:08):
Inexplicably, they don't you don't really understand what happened to
the dramedary gnaw it.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
To death because you stomp it, more likely.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Stomp it, I guess, yeah, I guess they they've got
some stomping power.
Speaker 5 (07:18):
But the lion is just on it, just set upon
this dramendary that is, you know, just in these throes
of agony. Its head, you know, rearing back, its teeth exposed,
and it just looks really pained.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
And then on top of this drameddary is a rider,
right ben mm hmm. Absolutely, So this is a snapshot.
It's as though you're viewing a three D photograph, a tableau.
We're entering in media arrests in the middle of the story,
and there is a rider here, a man who is
(07:50):
riding the camel being attacked by this lion, possibly an
act of vengeance on the male lion's part, because you'll
notice when you pull up the photo the man is
holding a knife in his right hand as he leans
away from the attacking male lion. And just to get
(08:10):
this out of the way, we know that taxidermy can
seem a little controversial or even creepy to some people
a little bit, and that's understandable. We know that the
animals in this are taxidermy. They were once living and
now they have been transformed into these sculptures. But there
(08:32):
was a strange, gruesome twist that people discovered after this
diorama was made, and it's the following. It turns out
the rider in this diorama is not entirely artificial. Yeah,
I mean, that's certainly. The implication here is that, okay,
the lion's taxidermy, the lion asksays, the dramedary is, but
(08:55):
the guy on top is, you know, presumed to be
a mannequin of some sort. Mostly, yeah, that's true, except
when you take a good look at this guy's face
very expertly rendered, might I add by French taxidermist and
naturalist Eduard Verreau in the mid eighteen hundreds, very very
amazing attention to detail on this guy's face. But when
(09:18):
you look at the teeth, there's something about it. It's
a little off or maybe a little too on.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Yeah, I like the phrase, a little too on the
teeth give it away. And in the early nineteen nineties,
conservation records indicated that the conservators of the museum and
of the piece said, wait a second, I know my
(09:44):
mannequin teeth, and these teeth are too real.
Speaker 5 (09:48):
Yeah, there's an amazing photograph of it up close on
a National Geographic article called one hundred and fifty year
old Diorama surprises scientists with human remains, Because yes, the
basis for this, this mannequin head was in fact a
human skull of undetermined or at least quite difficult to
determine origins. And they found this out after doing a
(10:11):
CT scan of the thing. So basically, the skull was
the basis. Everything was molded around the skull to get
that shape, and then the teeth were laid bare, you know,
like those are.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
The teeth and it. You know, if you look at
this close up, you can really tell.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Yes, you can really tell because the face itself, which
has been constructed, as you mentioned, from the skull, the
face obviously builds on anatomical patterns. Muscles, the eyes are
clearly fake.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
You get that it's supposed to be a person, but
you don't think it's a corpse until you see the teeth,
which are weathered, they're stained, there's some gaps in there,
they're ground flat in some places. And now that we
have the benefit of knowing what we're getting into two,
it clearly sticks out. But we have to wonder, were
(11:03):
we strolling through the Carnegie Museum if we would have
noticed this, would we be the kind of people who
stop and say, whoa, those teeth are too real? I
doubt it.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
It took an expert, and like you mentioned earlier, Ben,
it wasn't until the early nineties that conservation records showed
that some of the folks involved in, you know, preserving
these artifacts, did suspect that the teeth were in fact real,
just the teeth. But it wasn't until just a couple
of years ago in twenty sixteen, when it was taken
off exhibit to be cleaned up and restored and also researched,
(11:38):
they discovered that it was in fact a human skull
and not just human teeth. So there's a really really
problematic story that led up to this discovery, and it
all starts with a family, the Verreaux family, a storied
taxidermy family. That's the thing.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Yeah, that's a real thing. They formed a family group. No,
I think it's time for Casey on the case. Guys.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
I mean, I appreciate being called in for these French pronunciations,
but you really could have worked this one out yourself.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
It's just the Maison vero.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Oh okay, and that concludes our episode of Casey on
the Case.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
I would have said the Mason veras. We are very
lucky that Casey is.
Speaker 5 (12:28):
I know, I know, if only he were an Englishman
and could tell us how to pronounce Kate's by. Kates
By could have saved me an embarrassing email.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
So you have to wonder also whether the researchers felt
embarrassed when they discovered this. You mentioned the ct scan
and now we're diving into the history here, So Noel,
tell us a little bit more about this strange family.
Speaker 5 (12:54):
Yeah, I've made fools of ourselves asking Casey to pronounce
Mason Vera. So I'm gonna go ahead and just go
out on a limit. Really triumdamnitist with these French names. Casey,
if you feel the need to chime in and school me,
go right ahead. You can call your own Casey on
the case segment, be Casey on Noles case. But the
Verreau family, the Verreaux clan, was made up of Jules,
Jean Baptiste Duard, and Alexis Verreaux, and they were all
(13:18):
how to do Casey, I'll allow it, okay, case He
didn't have to get on Nole's case, so we're good there.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Yeah, but they were all.
Speaker 5 (13:27):
The sons of this really well renowned Parisian taxidermist by
the name of Jacques Philippe Verreau, who founded that house
of Verreau, the Maison Verreau.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Taxidermy company, and it was a big deal.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Yeah. Established in eighteen oh three, this is the earliest
known company that dealt in objects of natural history and
the funded collection expeditions across the globe. So they would
send agents and send, you know, members of the Verreaux
family out to places that most of Western Europe was
(14:06):
unfamiliar with to collect specimens, specimens, specimens.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah, and that's going to get really creepy really quick.
So trigger warning. If you don't like the idea of
taxidermid humans, this is probably not the episode for you.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
This does also involve quite a lot of institutionalized racism.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Oh yeah, yeah, that's a trigger warning for that too.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
So so let's set the stage. As we said, they're
traveling around the globe. In eighteen thirty, while traveling in
what we now today know as Botswana, Jules Verreau witnessed
the burial of a warrior.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah, he was about twenty seven years old presumably when
he died. I wasn't able to find a cause of death,
but he did die around eighteen thirty, and the Roe
brothers attended his burial. And you see, you might say
to yourself, oh that's nice, you know, they're they're participating
in the culture that they're trying to capitalize on.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
But wait, yeah, because what happened later that night.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Basically they stole the body. They they grave dug.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Yeah, they functioned as resurrection men, you know.
Speaker 5 (15:20):
Which is such a That was actually a trivia question
last night where we played trivia resurrection man. The question was, actually,
what is the less pleasant name for the old timey
practice of resurrection men that would be frowned upon today
because resurrection men implies that you're it's like a profession,
(15:42):
You're like doing a service of some kind.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
You're right. It sounds a lot better than grave.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Robberts or a professional defiler.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yes, yes, So when Jules sneaks in the burial site,
he steals the skin, the skull, and several bones. He
intended to ship this body back to France. He prepared
(16:11):
and preserved it using the tricks of his trade, his craft,
and he augmented it with metal wire, wooden boards, and
he also stuffed it.
Speaker 5 (16:21):
Yeah, there's a really grizzly quote from this fantastic New
York Times article called Africa Rejoices as a wandering soul
finds rest. That's sort of a prelude to a happy
ending that we'll talk about a little bit. But apparently,
according to a guide, a taxidermy guide published in the
eighteen thirties, in order to properly preserve a dead human quote,
(16:45):
it is necessary to make a circular incision around the
fingertips and peel back the skin as if it were
a glove.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Right, And that is a genuine thing. This is a
very nuts and bolts, step by step process. And so
they bring this corpse, the stolen corpse, back to France,
to Paris specifically, and they also bring a lot of
other stuff with them, like.
Speaker 5 (17:14):
A metric crap ton of specimens from some estimates in
the neighborhood of you know, several thousand individual creatures.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Right right, mostly animals. Oh yeah, except for this one
stolen body. And when they brought it back, they didn't
immediately showcase this. This was just included in their package.
And actually, as we found, they left it in their
shop for a while. Isn't that correct? That is absolutely correct.
Speaker 5 (17:45):
Been they had it propped up as some kind of
macabre display. It fitted with feathers and you know, made
out to be this sort of example of this native
kind of like a weird trophy or something.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
It's really pretty.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Vile, right, And there was a lot of othering that
was very common in scientific circles of the day. So
to them, taking and preserving the corpse of a human
being was essentially no different from taking and preserving the
corpse of an exotic animal. The weird thing about this
(18:21):
is that it was pretty common, almost a status symbol
at the time, to have taxidermied animals.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Of course, you've.
Speaker 5 (18:29):
Seen like the hunting lodges of the rich and powerful
with you know, just dozens of zebra heads and elephant
heads and all this kind of I mean, I'm not
gonna like dang anybody's hobby or whatever, but there does
come a point where it feels a little gross to
me personally.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
And inhuman a little bit.
Speaker 5 (18:48):
I'm all about hunting for meat and feeding your family
and using every part of the animal that stuff. But
when you see pictures of these CEOs, you know, holding
up elephant tusks and given the thumbs up that all
right now, I'm grandstand right, let me get off my soapbox.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
But they were celebrated, these Vero brothers, right the climate
in France when they returned was one of jubilation. They
were welcome back with open arms. In fact, there was
a report in La Constitutional from November fifteenth of eighteen
thirty one that described their return in glowing detail, calling
them young compatriots of France, and you know, just really
(19:22):
a lot of patriotic fervor surrounding their return.
Speaker 5 (19:25):
And the the La Constitutional article described their most shall
we say, rare specimen as such, and this is hang
on to your hats, folks, but their greatest curiosity is
an individual of the nation of Bejuanas. This man preserved
by the means by which naturalists prepare their specimens and
(19:46):
reconstitute their form and so to speak, their inert life.
He is of small stature, black of skin, his head
covered by short, wooly and curly hair, armed with arrows
and a lance. Clothes in antelope skin with a bag
made question mark. Yeah, but the bad question mark made
of bush pig, full of small glass beads, seeds and
(20:08):
of small bones.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
So with great acclaim, the Ureau outfit returns to Paris.
They display this body in their shop and eventually someone says,
you know what, I like this so much that I'm
going to buy it, And that was a Spanish nationalist
named Fransec Darter, and we don't have the exact amount
(20:33):
that he paid for this, but we do know we
do have a pretty solid timeline of what happened afterwards,
because this naturalist said, you know what, I'm not going
to take this and just set it up in my
living room. I'm going to take it to the global stage.
And that is how this poor unfortunate soul ended up
(20:55):
being displayed at the eighteen eighty eight Barcelona World Exhibition.
I say, Barthalona, you should Ibitha. Yes, yes, we were
making some jokes, but this is very, very troubling.
Speaker 5 (21:08):
Yeah, It's all I can do is not be completely
bummed out by this.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
But again, there is a happy ending, wait for it.
We're getting there.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
It's on the way. So Darter didn't just buy this
one corpse. He had an extensive natural history collection and
when he passed away, his collection was sent to a museum.
Speaker 5 (21:29):
That's right, It was the Museum of Natural History in Baniols, Spain.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
So it was on display from nineteen sixteen at this
museum to nineteen ninety seven, when a controversy finally arose.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Yeah, I mean one that had been brewing for some time.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
I don't know if we mentioned this, but I read
somewhere that they actually painted the skin of this person
a darker shade of black.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Right, Yeah, that is unfortunately absolutely true.
Speaker 5 (21:57):
And it was it kind of became this sign of
you know, there's a history of Spanish people exploiting and
enslaving Africans.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
I mean Western Europe of course, of course, of course.
Speaker 5 (22:11):
But I'm just saying like this was a problematic thing
on many levels, on a humanitarian level, but also on
a ideological level, and what it represented and just was
not a good look. And yet this museum constantly fought
back against giving up this individual's remains to its home
(22:32):
country for a proper burial.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Yeah. There's an excellent article on the BBC that traces this,
titled the Man Stuffed and Displayed like a wild animal,
And in this they detail how, after, Asnol said, incredibly
strong resistance from the museum, this body was finally returned.
(22:54):
And this didn't happen until what was October fifth, two
thousand or so, child And when this warrior was returned,
they were to lay in state for a day in
the capital, and ten thousand people visited to pay their
last respects. Interesting side note here, nol it was a
(23:18):
Christian burial.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Really, I didn't catch you that tell me.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
More so, the priest who was conducting this said, in
the spirit of Jesus Christ, who also suffered, you know,
we're going to lay this man to rest finally, And
the Foreign minister at the time said quote, we are
prepared to forgive, but we must not forget the crimes
(23:42):
of the past so that we don't repeat them.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
That is interesting.
Speaker 5 (23:47):
How do you feel about that though, being a Christian burial,
given the background, and given the brutal nature of this
uprooting of this person's remains, and then to ultimately have
their bare it'll be something completely unrelated to what they
likely believed in their in life.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Yeah, we have to ask ourselves these questions. You know,
was that in part a political play by the government
of the time. Was that a true, sincere effort, And
you know, if it was, if it was a true
and sincere and genuine effort to pay respects, then I'm
all for it. Although it is riddled with problems. And
(24:28):
here's what happened though, So you may have thought that
we already got to the good ending the light at
the end of the tunnel.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Oh, I thought we had did You got a twist?
You got a Shimolean twist. There's a little bit shamala
amnon twist.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
There's a little bit, yeah, I'm talking about. Yeah, there's
a little bit of an Act three twist here. After
the burial and after laden state, the grave was neglected
for several years and the field that was around it
was being used as a football pitch. I'm sorry, come again,
as people were playing football. Oh okay, gotcha, football pitch.
And the Botswanan government later thankfully went back and restored
(25:07):
the site and enhanced it. They built a visitors center
and explanatory signs. As of now, it is still not
known what this man's name was, exactly where he came from,
or what his life was like.
Speaker 5 (25:22):
Yeah, and to get back to what started the story
with the diorama of the drama Dairy right in the
Carnegie Museum.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
The diorama Drama.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Yeah, this all comes.
Speaker 5 (25:31):
Back to something that you mentioned been an interesting angle,
which is museum ethics. There are still struggles between the
governments of the places of origin of many artifacts and
the museums that hold them in their collections, and it's
not cut and dry. It's not always like a matter
of just saying, hey, we should have that in our
country instead, you know, mister Carnegie or whatever.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
You know. But with the remains, that is probably a
little more cut and dry. And you know, the museum
would certainly have been willing to return that skull if
they knew where to send it. But that's the rub right, right,
that's the problem. That's the heart of the matter, or
should we say the skull of the matter. Other than
(26:16):
knowing that this diorama was built by Edward Vrow in
the mid eighteen hundreds, we don't know the origin of
the skull. We don't know who it came from. We
don't know where they lived. We know very very little
about them. I tell you one thing we do know
is those of a rose were not cool. Oh creepy, creepy.
(26:39):
Have you seen the movie Taxidermia, Ben?
Speaker 1 (26:42):
I have not. Should I check it out?
Speaker 2 (26:43):
I think you should. It's really it's quite disturbing. It's
a have you seen it, Casey.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
It's like a Hungarian movie.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
It's a Hungarian movie. There's one character who shoots flames
out of his penis and different you know, odd characters.
Over time, it traces the lineage of this family, and
one of them becomes a taxidermist. And I'm gonna spoiler
alert real quick. See it. This isn't really it doesn't
really matter. It's more just a tableaux.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
The guy builds a machine that allows him to taxidermy himself.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Finally, Yeah, this is fiction, right, I established this, folks.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
What gave it away? Was it the flames out of them?
Speaker 1 (27:20):
I don't know, man, It's a It's a wild and
fascinating world in which we live.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
So check out taxidermy if you want to.
Speaker 5 (27:31):
You know, if this got wet your appetite for creepy things,
it's it's worth a look.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
It's worth a look. And most importantly, this controversy continues
to date and museums across the planet. We're going to
wrap it up, we hope to wan't oh so close.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
Nooll, it's time, gentlemen.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
What time is it.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
For the coolist?
Speaker 5 (27:56):
Of course, the mischievous, mirthful, and that is the Quista.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Oh my goodness, you were you were in high spirits
stead I've.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
Won so many times I do not freaking know what
to do.
Speaker 6 (28:08):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, Quist So this is the This
is the segment where our long standing nemesis of the show,
the Quist, Jonathan Strickland, comes to test our knowledge of
real versus fake history?
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Are they the same person? Jonathan Strickland and the Quist
is a sort of a Superman Clark can It's a
ven diagram that has a lot of overlap. I got you, okay,
good enough, good to know who to hate.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
It's just well, Noel, it's clear you've been sending me
little messages on our messaging system the entire day, and
it was very clear that I need to I need
to maybe ease off a bit, is what. That's the
message you're getting now?
Speaker 1 (28:47):
This is news to me. What are you doing? Man?
Speaker 2 (28:49):
I just you know, I just uh, I just told him.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
It just things like, hey, you got a nice podcast
over there. It sure would be a shame if someone.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
I don't know set fire to it something like that.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Yeah, wow, yeah, no, are you okay? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (29:01):
I'm just really fed up with this Quiztor segment, but
people seem to like it, so I guess we have
to keep doing it forever.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
Now. For those who do not know what the heck
is happening, I will explain so I come on the
show and has been alluded to earlier. I present a scenario.
The gentlemen here have three minutes to determine whether or
not said scenario represents an actual historical fact or if
I made's it up seas. I also create an arbitrary
(29:28):
rule that you have to follow if you wish to
ask any questions of yours truly the quizt this case,
because we're talking about dead people, your rule is going
to be a little little Tricksye. Before you could ask
a question, you must quote at least some portion of
the wonderful, wonderful song dead Man's Party by Oingo Boingo.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
You could ask for more.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
There you go, perfect, Danny Eefman vehicle Oingo Boingo.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Can I quote the horn part?
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Absolutely?
Speaker 4 (30:01):
You can, absolutely, Yeah, we can do the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
You know what.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
We're just throwing the segment out. We're just gonna jam
get out.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Oh no, we've already set it up, so lay.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
It, lay it on us. And also I'm noticing that
your accents are a bit more dynamic today. You have
a lot of pep.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
I drink like ten five hour energy drinks. Because I
got a lot of stuff coming up.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
You're fifty hours deep.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
That's right, all right, I can see next week.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Man.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Well, let's hope we can see through your deception, right
nol oh, man, I hope.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
So here's your scenario. You will start the timer when
I give you the signal, which will be start the
timer here.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
It is good good.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
Italian artist Giovanni Balducci in the early seventeenth century got
a peculiar commission. He was hired to paint the portraits
of the upper crust of Naples. But these were very
special portraits, for they were missing important feature the subject's heads. See.
He was painting these portraits in the catacombs of San Guadioso,
(31:09):
where the decapitated heads of deceased hoity toitis were placed
in alcoves in the walls. Balducci painted frescoes of rich
people in their finery around these heads, which I must
stress still had flesh on them. Oh, and he did
it for free, because he considered it an honor. A
(31:31):
start the timer.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Don't run away, it's only me, yes, mister belin. Okay,
so is this still on display? Like? Could people still
go see it?
Speaker 4 (31:41):
For a long time? It was not on display. But
in two thousand and six, some people who were trying
to attract more visitors to this particular part of Naples
got together and commissioned an entire fundraising event, and now
it is in fact open for you to tour.
Speaker 5 (31:56):
So, Ben, do you picture this as being sort of
like those catacombs and pro or like the ostuary?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
You know, it's like a church made of bones and
stuff like that. Obviously there's no more flesh.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
That's the part that throws at me, sticking with me,
because flesh decomposed. Unless it's treated and preserved, flesh will
decompose or desiccate at some point.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
I feel it.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
Only necessary to say that when I said still had
flesh upon them, I meant at the time he was
painting the first.
Speaker 5 (32:21):
Yeah, you know, but that's gross. He's that's gonna smell.
That's not gonna be fun painting around decomposing heads.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
It was a different time, no old people were used
to different smells.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
I don't know, I'm just I'm all bugaboo.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
You could go either way. Yeah, do you have a question?
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Not really, I don't want to speak to this man.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
All right, I'm all dressed up with nowhere to go.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
Yes, mister Bolin.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
So two thousand and six, he said, is when this
went back on display. Has this artist done any other
work that we would be familiar with?
Speaker 4 (32:57):
Not recently.
Speaker 7 (32:58):
He's been dead for four hundred years. Come on, man,
Yes he's done. He's done other works. He was a
student of a Sorry Va Sorry, being a sixteenth century
Italian artist, mostly known for his biographies of other Italian artists.
But he has done other works. Most of them were
be considered uninspired.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
You might say, don't be afraid.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Yes, no, I just wanted to do it. I don't
really have anything that's fair. All right, well I'm gonna
say false.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
I am feeling true. You want to rochambeos? Okay, here
we go one, two, three?
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Shoot? Oh now I want to go with yours?
Speaker 4 (33:35):
Okay, yeah, So no wins. But he made the decision
to go with Ben's decision, which was the opposite of his.
What was your decision.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Again, Ben, we're locking it in?
Speaker 4 (33:42):
Yes, yes, true, you have lucked in else God, I.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Know, Shelby, that's my again.
Speaker 5 (33:57):
So this was that was I'm pretty from my seat
and did it dance?
Speaker 4 (34:01):
I'm pretty sure you spiked the mic on that one buddy,
all right. So yes, in fact this is true. The
catacombs were closed to the public until two thousand and six.
These days there are not even skulls in those alcoves.
They have crumbled to dust. Now they're just frescoes with
around a hole essentially where the head would be. But
(34:22):
at one point there were the actual recently deceased heads
of these rich people, including people who were described as princesses,
in those walls. It is under the basilica of Santa
Maria della Sanita. If you are ever in Naples, that
is the one you go to, and there are about
twenty frescoes in total.
Speaker 5 (34:44):
So he painted these frescoes for free, surrounded by rotting,
decapitated heads, because it was an honor.
Speaker 4 (34:52):
Yes, he thought, because this was this was supposed to
be a celebration of a person. The head was supposed
to be the center of the person's being, and that
he was there to to glorify that. That it was
such a great honor. He refused the fee that the
(35:13):
church tried to pay him in return for his work.
He said, no, no, no, I do this for them,
And so he refused payment, just.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Like You're out here doing this segment.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
And I don't get paid for it.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
You're exactly you're doing God's work.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
You're you're paid at a shod and Floyd and Spite.
Speaker 4 (35:32):
Came up short this one.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Well, you know what, man, you can't win them all.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
I mean you you said today you literally won, you
literally won Rochambeau and you went with the other, you know,
because it was my gut.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
I may have won the Roe Shambau, but my gut
said Ben was right, and.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
You're getting a lot better at Rock Paper Sis right,
So not fair, man.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
I'm starting to like this segment again.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
This has been an emotional roller coaster on many counts. Whizzard,
thank you, I am required to say for coming onto
the show.
Speaker 4 (36:06):
Pretty sure, I'm still ahead by one, you know what,
what's a.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Couple numbers between friends? So I have a feeling that
I have a feeling that Jonathan and Noel are a
bit more competitive than I am. So please, I.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Really did leap out of my seat and do a
hammer dancer.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
And that really is absolutely true.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Yeah, but we may have won the battle, we have
not won the war.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
The war still rages.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
The war still rages, and something tells me that something
probably being super producer Casey pegrim that this is not
the last we've seen of the quister.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yeah, I'm cool with that. I've got my dignity back. Now.
How about you, Ben, You never really lost it. You
weren't as invested in this as I was.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
I don't think I'm invested, but it's just because I
find so many things fascinating. I look at it as
a learning experience.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Oh excuse me, guys, that's that's my chauffeur, he says,
this room for maybe just.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
One more.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Well flat. And on that note, we'd like to thank
Jonathan Strickland, we'd like to thank Casey Pegrin, we'd like
to thank Alex Williams, who composed this track.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
And most importantly, we'd like to thank you Ben.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Oh no, thank thank you, Nolan.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
The pleasure was.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
More, it's shared, it's mutual pleasure, all right.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Well, before this bromance goes off the rails, we.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
Are really uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Well it's too bad. It's too bad man. You chose
to sit in the middle.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
So we're gonna head out. Tune in next time when
we explore the strange story of a flying aircraft carrier.
Speaker 5 (37:48):
It's sort of a sequel, kind of sort of Zeppelin too,
the Zeppelining Electric Zeppel.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
I love it. And you know, Ben, you're you're quite
fond of airships. I know you're about this one.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Oh, I am thrilled, my friend. Why you might ask
not to tune in and find out. In the meantime,
you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
How's your vision board coming, dude?
Speaker 1 (38:10):
It's going really well.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
I had a moment where I just decided to take
off the Christopher Walking pictures.
Speaker 5 (38:18):
I have a whole section online it's nothing but Christopher
walkin pictures, but with Steve Bushemi's eyes. I know you
keep texting me, you know, but hey, if you don't
want to do any of that stuff, you can just
write us an email directly. We're ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot com.
And yeah, thanks to you already, thank Ben the debate
and switch there. But thanks to you folks for tuning
in joining us for another episode of ridiculous history.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
We'll see you next time.
Speaker 5 (38:50):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Ridiculous historians. Thank you, as always so much for tuning in.
This is a classic episode for you. Some of us
are on the road, some of us are on adventures.
But before we go, you know, we couldn't leave you
without a dope. Beat to step two and been Bullen
joined with our super producer Max Williams. Max, there are
(00:23):
corpses in dioramas, or there were?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
There were?
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Or are they still in dioramas? So when I saw
the title of this one, so a little behind the scenes.
These episodes are from before I worked on the show,
so I'm learning these normally with like you know, the listeners.
But it reminded me of when we did the crash
Test Dummies episode a couple of years back, Yeah, where
it was like, oh, they used corpses in the past
to test them and then the answer was they still
(00:48):
use corpses. Are they still using corpses in dioramas?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Ben, Well, I'm glad you asked, Max, because if they are,
it is not sanctioned today. However, in this classic episode,
we're going to learn how the Carnegie Museum of Natural
History did use corpses in dioramas. If you're interested in
(01:12):
learning about more strange uses for corpses. Check out the
earlier car Stuff episode on the Grizzly history of crash
test dummies, as well as our Ridiculous History episode on
the same subject. For now, folks, if you get squigged
out by things that are a little bit macabre, then
(01:33):
this episode might not be for you, but for everybody else.
Welcome to Ridiculous History. Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Hello. Hello, Hello,
(02:12):
friends and neighbors. Thank you for tuning in. We'd like
to start today's show with a question, what was the
first museum you went to, or, if you prefer, what's
the weirdest exhibit you have ever seen in a museum?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Are you asking me? Or is this for the is that?
Are we pulling the audience?
Speaker 1 (02:31):
This is foreveryone.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Do we have to wait for the results to come in.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
We'll have to wait for you all listening. But I'd
like to hear from you now. I'm Ben your knowing.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Oh, thank you, Ben, Thank you for introducing me. I
appreciate it. The first, that's a first? Is that a first?
Speaker 4 (02:44):
That's a first?
Speaker 1 (02:45):
I feel like we're getting more organic with our intros.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Almost like we're getting a little familiar. It's like we've
done a few of these.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
It's like we're becoming veterans. Which funny story. Did you
notice that in the initial pro for this show we're
referred to as veteran podcasters.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Veteran podcasters, that means we've been to podcast war.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
That's true. We came out changed. But the only way
we got through that, and the only way we get
through this show, of course, is with our super producer,
Casey Pegrom that part of the intro. We're always going
to keep it.
Speaker 5 (03:21):
I'll never get tired of it. And I mean that
with my whole entire heart. Speaking of whole entire hearts,
I will answer real quick your question. I recently went
to a museum that had that was by far the
most bizarre and amazing display of stuff I'd ever experienced.
A place called the Museum of Death in Los Angeles,
(03:42):
was also one in New Orleans, and it has everything
from preserved human hearts, you know, in glass.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Jars, to fetuses. There's a whole section on embalming and
funereal kind of relics from, you know, the way they
used to do things back in in times. Spoiler alert
wasn't pretty and an array of grizzly, grizzly crime scene photos,
the likes of which I've never seen anywhere in my
entire life, just the stuff of nightmares.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Follow up question, Yes, do they have a gift shop? Oh?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Big time. I bought a coffee mug. And one of
the things they also had in this museum was a
whole room devoted to taxidermy, in particular a section with
beloved pets that had been taxidermized.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Taxi dermy, taxidermy.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
That seems better, That seems more right, taxt boom.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
If you want to be cool, what about you?
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Ben?
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Thanks for asking, man. Yeah, I love museums. It's no secret.
Anybody who interacts in the world as social media and
finds me on there will typically see that. Whenever I
travel to a new city, the first thing I want
to do is find a museum. And we are very fortunate,
you and Casey and I altogether, because the United States
(04:59):
is chock full of fantastic museum just lousy with them,
just lousy, rife with them. There should be a museum
about museums. Is that too metal?
Speaker 2 (05:08):
That's way too many.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
You immediately get swallowed up into some kind of time
space wormhole.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
So what would the gift shop sell? Would they sell
gift shops? I can't even then, Noel is shaking his head. Here.
The Carnegie Museum of Natural History is the setting for
our episode today, or at least our starting point. And
have you been to the Carnegie pas?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
I have not. I am a shamefully under museumed. I've
been to a handful of cool art museums, but not
very many natural history museums. I've been the one in
New York. I've been to the matt Obviously, there's a
natural history museum here in Atlanta, Fernbank, fern Bank that
I have never been to. Spoiler alert. We might take
a trip there one day for a little extra credit.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Yes, behind the scenes, I have been cajoling Casey and
Noel to come check out fern Bank. I have nothing
but good thing to say about it.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Do they have a mammoth?
Speaker 1 (06:02):
They do not, as far as I know.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Now, I'm not going.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Okay, well, I will text you pictures.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
I'll go great. Great.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
They also have an IMAX.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
I don't want to. I don't want to experience fomo.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Right right, especially at a museum.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
No museum, fomo is the worst.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
So the Carnegie Museum of Natural History has a wealth
of exhibits, and this is a story prestigious institution. One
of their exhibits is called Lion Attacking a Dromedary.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
Yeah, and you know, it's funny. I've seen they call
them dioramas, which I think is interesting. When I think
of a diorama, I think of the shoe getting out
of a shoe box and cut out little you know,
the baby Jesus or something. But no, these this is
a diorama in that it's posed taxidermid creatures in very
dramatic throes of action. Right, this one is no exception.
(06:59):
It is a dramedary, a camel and a lion that
is just like I mean, it's really quite remarkable.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
There's a dead female lion on the ground.
Speaker 5 (07:08):
Inexplicably, they don't you don't really understand what happened to
the dramedary gnaw it.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
To death because you stomp it, more likely.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Stomp it, I guess, yeah, I guess they they've got
some stomping power.
Speaker 5 (07:18):
But the lion is just on it, just set upon
this dramendary that is, you know, just in these throes
of agony. Its head, you know, rearing back, its teeth exposed,
and it just looks really pained.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
And then on top of this drameddary is a rider,
right ben mm hmm. Absolutely, So this is a snapshot.
It's as though you're viewing a three D photograph, a tableau.
We're entering in media arrests in the middle of the story,
and there is a rider here, a man who is
(07:50):
riding the camel being attacked by this lion, possibly an
act of vengeance on the male lion's part, because you'll
notice when you pull up the photo the man is
holding a knife in his right hand as he leans
away from the attacking male lion. And just to get
(08:10):
this out of the way, we know that taxidermy can
seem a little controversial or even creepy to some people
a little bit, and that's understandable. We know that the
animals in this are taxidermy. They were once living and
now they have been transformed into these sculptures. But there
(08:32):
was a strange, gruesome twist that people discovered after this
diorama was made, and it's the following. It turns out
the rider in this diorama is not entirely artificial. Yeah,
I mean, that's certainly. The implication here is that, okay,
the lion's taxidermy, the lion asksays, the dramedary is, but
(08:55):
the guy on top is, you know, presumed to be
a mannequin of some sort. Mostly, yeah, that's true, except
when you take a good look at this guy's face
very expertly rendered, might I add by French taxidermist and
naturalist Eduard Verreau in the mid eighteen hundreds, very very
amazing attention to detail on this guy's face. But when
(09:18):
you look at the teeth, there's something about it. It's
a little off or maybe a little too on.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Yeah, I like the phrase, a little too on the
teeth give it away. And in the early nineteen nineties,
conservation records indicated that the conservators of the museum and
of the piece said, wait a second, I know my
(09:44):
mannequin teeth, and these teeth are too real.
Speaker 5 (09:48):
Yeah, there's an amazing photograph of it up close on
a National Geographic article called one hundred and fifty year
old Diorama surprises scientists with human remains, Because yes, the
basis for this, this mannequin head was in fact a
human skull of undetermined or at least quite difficult to
determine origins. And they found this out after doing a
(10:11):
CT scan of the thing. So basically, the skull was
the basis. Everything was molded around the skull to get
that shape, and then the teeth were laid bare, you know,
like those are.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
The teeth and it. You know, if you look at
this close up, you can really tell.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Yes, you can really tell because the face itself, which
has been constructed, as you mentioned, from the skull, the
face obviously builds on anatomical patterns. Muscles, the eyes are
clearly fake.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
You get that it's supposed to be a person, but
you don't think it's a corpse until you see the teeth,
which are weathered, they're stained, there's some gaps in there,
they're ground flat in some places. And now that we
have the benefit of knowing what we're getting into two,
it clearly sticks out. But we have to wonder, were
(11:03):
we strolling through the Carnegie Museum if we would have
noticed this, would we be the kind of people who
stop and say, whoa, those teeth are too real? I
doubt it.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
It took an expert, and like you mentioned earlier, Ben,
it wasn't until the early nineties that conservation records showed
that some of the folks involved in, you know, preserving
these artifacts, did suspect that the teeth were in fact real,
just the teeth. But it wasn't until just a couple
of years ago in twenty sixteen, when it was taken
off exhibit to be cleaned up and restored and also researched,
(11:38):
they discovered that it was in fact a human skull
and not just human teeth. So there's a really really
problematic story that led up to this discovery, and it
all starts with a family, the Verreaux family, a storied
taxidermy family. That's the thing.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Yeah, that's a real thing. They formed a family group. No,
I think it's time for Casey on the case. Guys.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
I mean, I appreciate being called in for these French pronunciations,
but you really could have worked this one out yourself.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
It's just the Maison vero.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Oh okay, and that concludes our episode of Casey on
the Case.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
I would have said the Mason veras. We are very
lucky that Casey is.
Speaker 5 (12:28):
I know, I know, if only he were an Englishman
and could tell us how to pronounce Kate's by. Kates
By could have saved me an embarrassing email.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
So you have to wonder also whether the researchers felt
embarrassed when they discovered this. You mentioned the ct scan
and now we're diving into the history here, So Noel,
tell us a little bit more about this strange family.
Speaker 5 (12:54):
Yeah, I've made fools of ourselves asking Casey to pronounce
Mason Vera. So I'm gonna go ahead and just go
out on a limit. Really triumdamnitist with these French names. Casey,
if you feel the need to chime in and school me,
go right ahead. You can call your own Casey on
the case segment, be Casey on Noles case. But the
Verreau family, the Verreaux clan, was made up of Jules,
Jean Baptiste Duard, and Alexis Verreaux, and they were all
(13:18):
how to do Casey, I'll allow it, okay, case He
didn't have to get on Nole's case, so we're good there.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Yeah, but they were all.
Speaker 5 (13:27):
The sons of this really well renowned Parisian taxidermist by
the name of Jacques Philippe Verreau, who founded that house
of Verreau, the Maison Verreau.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Taxidermy company, and it was a big deal.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Yeah. Established in eighteen oh three, this is the earliest
known company that dealt in objects of natural history and
the funded collection expeditions across the globe. So they would
send agents and send, you know, members of the Verreaux
family out to places that most of Western Europe was
(14:06):
unfamiliar with to collect specimens, specimens, specimens.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah, and that's going to get really creepy really quick.
So trigger warning. If you don't like the idea of
taxidermid humans, this is probably not the episode for you.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
This does also involve quite a lot of institutionalized racism.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Oh yeah, yeah, that's a trigger warning for that too.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
So so let's set the stage. As we said, they're
traveling around the globe. In eighteen thirty, while traveling in
what we now today know as Botswana, Jules Verreau witnessed
the burial of a warrior.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah, he was about twenty seven years old presumably when
he died. I wasn't able to find a cause of death,
but he did die around eighteen thirty, and the Roe
brothers attended his burial. And you see, you might say
to yourself, oh that's nice, you know, they're they're participating
in the culture that they're trying to capitalize on.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
But wait, yeah, because what happened later that night.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Basically they stole the body. They they grave dug.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Yeah, they functioned as resurrection men, you know.
Speaker 5 (15:20):
Which is such a That was actually a trivia question
last night where we played trivia resurrection man. The question was, actually,
what is the less pleasant name for the old timey
practice of resurrection men that would be frowned upon today
because resurrection men implies that you're it's like a profession,
(15:42):
You're like doing a service of some kind.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
You're right. It sounds a lot better than grave.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Robberts or a professional defiler.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yes, yes, So when Jules sneaks in the burial site,
he steals the skin, the skull, and several bones. He
intended to ship this body back to France. He prepared
(16:11):
and preserved it using the tricks of his trade, his craft,
and he augmented it with metal wire, wooden boards, and
he also stuffed it.
Speaker 5 (16:21):
Yeah, there's a really grizzly quote from this fantastic New
York Times article called Africa Rejoices as a wandering soul
finds rest. That's sort of a prelude to a happy
ending that we'll talk about a little bit. But apparently,
according to a guide, a taxidermy guide published in the
eighteen thirties, in order to properly preserve a dead human quote,
(16:45):
it is necessary to make a circular incision around the
fingertips and peel back the skin as if it were
a glove.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Right, And that is a genuine thing. This is a
very nuts and bolts, step by step process. And so
they bring this corpse, the stolen corpse, back to France,
to Paris specifically, and they also bring a lot of
other stuff with them, like.
Speaker 5 (17:14):
A metric crap ton of specimens from some estimates in
the neighborhood of you know, several thousand individual creatures.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Right right, mostly animals. Oh yeah, except for this one
stolen body. And when they brought it back, they didn't
immediately showcase this. This was just included in their package.
And actually, as we found, they left it in their
shop for a while. Isn't that correct? That is absolutely correct.
Speaker 5 (17:45):
Been they had it propped up as some kind of
macabre display. It fitted with feathers and you know, made
out to be this sort of example of this native
kind of like a weird trophy or something.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
It's really pretty.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Vile, right, And there was a lot of othering that
was very common in scientific circles of the day. So
to them, taking and preserving the corpse of a human
being was essentially no different from taking and preserving the
corpse of an exotic animal. The weird thing about this
(18:21):
is that it was pretty common, almost a status symbol
at the time, to have taxidermied animals.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Of course, you've.
Speaker 5 (18:29):
Seen like the hunting lodges of the rich and powerful
with you know, just dozens of zebra heads and elephant
heads and all this kind of I mean, I'm not
gonna like dang anybody's hobby or whatever, but there does
come a point where it feels a little gross to
me personally.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
And inhuman a little bit.
Speaker 5 (18:48):
I'm all about hunting for meat and feeding your family
and using every part of the animal that stuff. But
when you see pictures of these CEOs, you know, holding
up elephant tusks and given the thumbs up that all
right now, I'm grandstand right, let me get off my soapbox.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
But they were celebrated, these Vero brothers, right the climate
in France when they returned was one of jubilation. They
were welcome back with open arms. In fact, there was
a report in La Constitutional from November fifteenth of eighteen
thirty one that described their return in glowing detail, calling
them young compatriots of France, and you know, just really
(19:22):
a lot of patriotic fervor surrounding their return.
Speaker 5 (19:25):
And the the La Constitutional article described their most shall
we say, rare specimen as such, and this is hang
on to your hats, folks, but their greatest curiosity is
an individual of the nation of Bejuanas. This man preserved
by the means by which naturalists prepare their specimens and
(19:46):
reconstitute their form and so to speak, their inert life.
He is of small stature, black of skin, his head
covered by short, wooly and curly hair, armed with arrows
and a lance. Clothes in antelope skin with a bag
made question mark. Yeah, but the bad question mark made
of bush pig, full of small glass beads, seeds and
(20:08):
of small bones.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
So with great acclaim, the Ureau outfit returns to Paris.
They display this body in their shop and eventually someone says,
you know what, I like this so much that I'm
going to buy it, And that was a Spanish nationalist
named Fransec Darter, and we don't have the exact amount
(20:33):
that he paid for this, but we do know we
do have a pretty solid timeline of what happened afterwards,
because this naturalist said, you know what, I'm not going
to take this and just set it up in my
living room. I'm going to take it to the global stage.
And that is how this poor unfortunate soul ended up
(20:55):
being displayed at the eighteen eighty eight Barcelona World Exhibition.
I say, Barthalona, you should Ibitha. Yes, yes, we were
making some jokes, but this is very, very troubling.
Speaker 5 (21:08):
Yeah, It's all I can do is not be completely
bummed out by this.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
But again, there is a happy ending, wait for it.
We're getting there.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
It's on the way. So Darter didn't just buy this
one corpse. He had an extensive natural history collection and
when he passed away, his collection was sent to a museum.
Speaker 5 (21:29):
That's right, It was the Museum of Natural History in Baniols, Spain.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
So it was on display from nineteen sixteen at this
museum to nineteen ninety seven, when a controversy finally arose.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Yeah, I mean one that had been brewing for some time.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
I don't know if we mentioned this, but I read
somewhere that they actually painted the skin of this person
a darker shade of black.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Right, Yeah, that is unfortunately absolutely true.
Speaker 5 (21:57):
And it was it kind of became this sign of
you know, there's a history of Spanish people exploiting and
enslaving Africans.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
I mean Western Europe of course, of course, of course.
Speaker 5 (22:11):
But I'm just saying like this was a problematic thing
on many levels, on a humanitarian level, but also on
a ideological level, and what it represented and just was
not a good look. And yet this museum constantly fought
back against giving up this individual's remains to its home
(22:32):
country for a proper burial.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Yeah. There's an excellent article on the BBC that traces this,
titled the Man Stuffed and Displayed like a wild animal,
And in this they detail how, after, Asnol said, incredibly
strong resistance from the museum, this body was finally returned.
(22:54):
And this didn't happen until what was October fifth, two
thousand or so, child And when this warrior was returned,
they were to lay in state for a day in
the capital, and ten thousand people visited to pay their
last respects. Interesting side note here, nol it was a
(23:18):
Christian burial.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Really, I didn't catch you that tell me.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
More so, the priest who was conducting this said, in
the spirit of Jesus Christ, who also suffered, you know,
we're going to lay this man to rest finally, And
the Foreign minister at the time said quote, we are
prepared to forgive, but we must not forget the crimes
(23:42):
of the past so that we don't repeat them.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
That is interesting.
Speaker 5 (23:47):
How do you feel about that though, being a Christian burial,
given the background, and given the brutal nature of this
uprooting of this person's remains, and then to ultimately have
their bare it'll be something completely unrelated to what they
likely believed in their in life.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Yeah, we have to ask ourselves these questions. You know,
was that in part a political play by the government
of the time. Was that a true, sincere effort, And
you know, if it was, if it was a true
and sincere and genuine effort to pay respects, then I'm
all for it. Although it is riddled with problems. And
(24:28):
here's what happened though, So you may have thought that
we already got to the good ending the light at
the end of the tunnel.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Oh, I thought we had did You got a twist?
You got a Shimolean twist. There's a little bit shamala
amnon twist.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
There's a little bit, yeah, I'm talking about. Yeah, there's
a little bit of an Act three twist here. After
the burial and after laden state, the grave was neglected
for several years and the field that was around it
was being used as a football pitch. I'm sorry, come again,
as people were playing football. Oh okay, gotcha, football pitch.
And the Botswanan government later thankfully went back and restored
(25:07):
the site and enhanced it. They built a visitors center
and explanatory signs. As of now, it is still not
known what this man's name was, exactly where he came from,
or what his life was like.
Speaker 5 (25:22):
Yeah, and to get back to what started the story
with the diorama of the drama Dairy right in the
Carnegie Museum.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
The diorama Drama.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Yeah, this all comes.
Speaker 5 (25:31):
Back to something that you mentioned been an interesting angle,
which is museum ethics. There are still struggles between the
governments of the places of origin of many artifacts and
the museums that hold them in their collections, and it's
not cut and dry. It's not always like a matter
of just saying, hey, we should have that in our
country instead, you know, mister Carnegie or whatever.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
You know. But with the remains, that is probably a
little more cut and dry. And you know, the museum
would certainly have been willing to return that skull if
they knew where to send it. But that's the rub right, right,
that's the problem. That's the heart of the matter, or
should we say the skull of the matter. Other than
(26:16):
knowing that this diorama was built by Edward Vrow in
the mid eighteen hundreds, we don't know the origin of
the skull. We don't know who it came from. We
don't know where they lived. We know very very little
about them. I tell you one thing we do know
is those of a rose were not cool. Oh creepy, creepy.
(26:39):
Have you seen the movie Taxidermia, Ben?
Speaker 1 (26:42):
I have not. Should I check it out?
Speaker 2 (26:43):
I think you should. It's really it's quite disturbing. It's
a have you seen it, Casey.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
It's like a Hungarian movie.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
It's a Hungarian movie. There's one character who shoots flames
out of his penis and different you know, odd characters.
Over time, it traces the lineage of this family, and
one of them becomes a taxidermist. And I'm gonna spoiler
alert real quick. See it. This isn't really it doesn't
really matter. It's more just a tableaux.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
The guy builds a machine that allows him to taxidermy himself.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Finally, Yeah, this is fiction, right, I established this, folks.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
What gave it away? Was it the flames out of them?
Speaker 1 (27:20):
I don't know, man, It's a It's a wild and
fascinating world in which we live.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
So check out taxidermy if you want to.
Speaker 5 (27:31):
You know, if this got wet your appetite for creepy things,
it's it's worth a look.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
It's worth a look. And most importantly, this controversy continues
to date and museums across the planet. We're going to
wrap it up, we hope to wan't oh so close.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
Nooll, it's time, gentlemen.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
What time is it.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
For the coolist?
Speaker 5 (27:56):
Of course, the mischievous, mirthful, and that is the Quista.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Oh my goodness, you were you were in high spirits
stead I've.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
Won so many times I do not freaking know what
to do.
Speaker 6 (28:08):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, Quist So this is the This
is the segment where our long standing nemesis of the show,
the Quist, Jonathan Strickland, comes to test our knowledge of
real versus fake history?
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Are they the same person? Jonathan Strickland and the Quist
is a sort of a Superman Clark can It's a
ven diagram that has a lot of overlap. I got you, okay,
good enough, good to know who to hate.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
It's just well, Noel, it's clear you've been sending me
little messages on our messaging system the entire day, and
it was very clear that I need to I need
to maybe ease off a bit, is what. That's the
message you're getting now?
Speaker 1 (28:47):
This is news to me. What are you doing? Man?
Speaker 2 (28:49):
I just you know, I just uh, I just told him.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
It just things like, hey, you got a nice podcast
over there. It sure would be a shame if someone.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
I don't know set fire to it something like that.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Yeah, wow, yeah, no, are you okay? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (29:01):
I'm just really fed up with this Quiztor segment, but
people seem to like it, so I guess we have
to keep doing it forever.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
Now. For those who do not know what the heck
is happening, I will explain so I come on the
show and has been alluded to earlier. I present a scenario.
The gentlemen here have three minutes to determine whether or
not said scenario represents an actual historical fact or if
I made's it up seas. I also create an arbitrary
(29:28):
rule that you have to follow if you wish to
ask any questions of yours truly the quizt this case,
because we're talking about dead people, your rule is going
to be a little little Tricksye. Before you could ask
a question, you must quote at least some portion of
the wonderful, wonderful song dead Man's Party by Oingo Boingo.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
You could ask for more.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
There you go, perfect, Danny Eefman vehicle Oingo Boingo.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Can I quote the horn part?
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Absolutely?
Speaker 4 (30:01):
You can, absolutely, Yeah, we can do the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
You know what.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
We're just throwing the segment out. We're just gonna jam
get out.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Oh no, we've already set it up, so lay.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
It, lay it on us. And also I'm noticing that
your accents are a bit more dynamic today. You have
a lot of pep.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
I drink like ten five hour energy drinks. Because I
got a lot of stuff coming up.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
You're fifty hours deep.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
That's right, all right, I can see next week.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Man.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Well, let's hope we can see through your deception, right
nol oh, man, I hope.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
So here's your scenario. You will start the timer when
I give you the signal, which will be start the
timer here.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
It is good good.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
Italian artist Giovanni Balducci in the early seventeenth century got
a peculiar commission. He was hired to paint the portraits
of the upper crust of Naples. But these were very
special portraits, for they were missing important feature the subject's heads. See.
He was painting these portraits in the catacombs of San Guadioso,
(31:09):
where the decapitated heads of deceased hoity toitis were placed
in alcoves in the walls. Balducci painted frescoes of rich
people in their finery around these heads, which I must
stress still had flesh on them. Oh, and he did
it for free, because he considered it an honor. A
(31:31):
start the timer.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Don't run away, it's only me, yes, mister belin. Okay,
so is this still on display? Like? Could people still
go see it?
Speaker 4 (31:41):
For a long time? It was not on display. But
in two thousand and six, some people who were trying
to attract more visitors to this particular part of Naples
got together and commissioned an entire fundraising event, and now
it is in fact open for you to tour.
Speaker 5 (31:56):
So, Ben, do you picture this as being sort of
like those catacombs and pro or like the ostuary?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
You know, it's like a church made of bones and
stuff like that. Obviously there's no more flesh.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
That's the part that throws at me, sticking with me,
because flesh decomposed. Unless it's treated and preserved, flesh will
decompose or desiccate at some point.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
I feel it.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
Only necessary to say that when I said still had
flesh upon them, I meant at the time he was
painting the first.
Speaker 5 (32:21):
Yeah, you know, but that's gross. He's that's gonna smell.
That's not gonna be fun painting around decomposing heads.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
It was a different time, no old people were used
to different smells.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
I don't know, I'm just I'm all bugaboo.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
You could go either way. Yeah, do you have a question?
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Not really, I don't want to speak to this man.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
All right, I'm all dressed up with nowhere to go.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
Yes, mister Bolin.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
So two thousand and six, he said, is when this
went back on display. Has this artist done any other
work that we would be familiar with?
Speaker 4 (32:57):
Not recently.
Speaker 7 (32:58):
He's been dead for four hundred years. Come on, man,
Yes he's done. He's done other works. He was a
student of a Sorry Va Sorry, being a sixteenth century
Italian artist, mostly known for his biographies of other Italian artists.
But he has done other works. Most of them were
be considered uninspired.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
You might say, don't be afraid.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Yes, no, I just wanted to do it. I don't
really have anything that's fair. All right, well I'm gonna
say false.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
I am feeling true. You want to rochambeos? Okay, here
we go one, two, three?
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Shoot? Oh now I want to go with yours?
Speaker 4 (33:35):
Okay, yeah, So no wins. But he made the decision
to go with Ben's decision, which was the opposite of his.
What was your decision.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Again, Ben, we're locking it in?
Speaker 4 (33:42):
Yes, yes, true, you have lucked in else God, I.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Know, Shelby, that's my again.
Speaker 5 (33:57):
So this was that was I'm pretty from my seat
and did it dance?
Speaker 4 (34:01):
I'm pretty sure you spiked the mic on that one buddy,
all right. So yes, in fact this is true. The
catacombs were closed to the public until two thousand and six.
These days there are not even skulls in those alcoves.
They have crumbled to dust. Now they're just frescoes with
around a hole essentially where the head would be. But
(34:22):
at one point there were the actual recently deceased heads
of these rich people, including people who were described as princesses,
in those walls. It is under the basilica of Santa
Maria della Sanita. If you are ever in Naples, that
is the one you go to, and there are about
twenty frescoes in total.
Speaker 5 (34:44):
So he painted these frescoes for free, surrounded by rotting,
decapitated heads, because it was an honor.
Speaker 4 (34:52):
Yes, he thought, because this was this was supposed to
be a celebration of a person. The head was supposed
to be the center of the person's being, and that
he was there to to glorify that. That it was
such a great honor. He refused the fee that the
(35:13):
church tried to pay him in return for his work.
He said, no, no, no, I do this for them,
And so he refused payment, just.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Like You're out here doing this segment.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
And I don't get paid for it.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
You're exactly you're doing God's work.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
You're you're paid at a shod and Floyd and Spite.
Speaker 4 (35:32):
Came up short this one.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Well, you know what, man, you can't win them all.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
I mean you you said today you literally won, you
literally won Rochambeau and you went with the other, you know,
because it was my gut.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
I may have won the Roe Shambau, but my gut
said Ben was right, and.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
You're getting a lot better at Rock Paper Sis right,
So not fair, man.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
I'm starting to like this segment again.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
This has been an emotional roller coaster on many counts. Whizzard,
thank you, I am required to say for coming onto
the show.
Speaker 4 (36:06):
Pretty sure, I'm still ahead by one, you know what,
what's a.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Couple numbers between friends? So I have a feeling that
I have a feeling that Jonathan and Noel are a
bit more competitive than I am. So please, I.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Really did leap out of my seat and do a
hammer dancer.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
And that really is absolutely true.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Yeah, but we may have won the battle, we have
not won the war.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
The war still rages.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
The war still rages, and something tells me that something
probably being super producer Casey pegrim that this is not
the last we've seen of the quister.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yeah, I'm cool with that. I've got my dignity back. Now.
How about you, Ben, You never really lost it. You
weren't as invested in this as I was.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
I don't think I'm invested, but it's just because I
find so many things fascinating. I look at it as
a learning experience.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Oh excuse me, guys, that's that's my chauffeur, he says,
this room for maybe just.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
One more.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Well flat. And on that note, we'd like to thank
Jonathan Strickland, we'd like to thank Casey Pegrin, we'd like
to thank Alex Williams, who composed this track.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
And most importantly, we'd like to thank you Ben.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Oh no, thank thank you, Nolan.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
The pleasure was.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
More, it's shared, it's mutual pleasure, all right.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Well, before this bromance goes off the rails, we.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
Are really uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Well it's too bad. It's too bad man. You chose
to sit in the middle.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
So we're gonna head out. Tune in next time when
we explore the strange story of a flying aircraft carrier.
Speaker 5 (37:48):
It's sort of a sequel, kind of sort of Zeppelin too,
the Zeppelining Electric Zeppel.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
I love it. And you know, Ben, you're you're quite
fond of airships. I know you're about this one.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Oh, I am thrilled, my friend. Why you might ask
not to tune in and find out. In the meantime,
you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
How's your vision board coming, dude?
Speaker 1 (38:10):
It's going really well.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
I had a moment where I just decided to take
off the Christopher Walking pictures.
Speaker 5 (38:18):
I have a whole section online it's nothing but Christopher
walkin pictures, but with Steve Bushemi's eyes. I know you
keep texting me, you know, but hey, if you don't
want to do any of that stuff, you can just
write us an email directly. We're ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot com.
And yeah, thanks to you already, thank Ben the debate
and switch there. But thanks to you folks for tuning
in joining us for another episode of ridiculous history.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
We'll see you next time.
Speaker 5 (38:50):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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