Unearthed! Year-end 2024, Part 2

Continuing the end of year 2024 edition of Unearthed!, this installment includes these categories: potpourri, edibles and potables, and books and letters

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  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argentix. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You ever show up late to the game and your friends already saved your seat, your drink, even a plate? That's looking out. That's having your back. And that's exactly what AT&T does with the AT&T Guarantee. They know staying connected matters, so they

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  to cancel them, but to understand them. Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. So listen to Health vs. Hype wherever you get your podcasts. The Old Gays are back with Silver Linings, their lovable podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with Veeve Healthcare. Robert, Mick, Bill, and Jessa strut back down memory lane for season two, sharing lessons on life, love, and loss. These are the kind of insights that only come from experience. So tune into Silver Linings with The Old Gays on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Workplace chaos. We've all been there. Headlines are slipping, projects are piling up, and suddenly you realize the

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  Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson. And I'm Holly Frey. This is part two of our year-end unearthed for 2024. Again, that's when we talk about stuff that's been literally or figuratively unearthed in this part two. We have some books and letters. We have some edibles and potables. We are starting out with just an entire section of the show that was stuff that didn't categorize well, but I always call the potpourri. So to kick that off, a shard of pottery from a dig at Mount Zion outside Jerusalem's Old City has found not just a cat print, but claw marks and an imprint from the cat's

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  foreleg, suggesting that a cat hung out and made biscuits on some clay that was drying in the sun. This piece of pottery is probably about 1,200 years old, dating back to the Abbasid period. I love this a lot. I love the cat prints that are randomly in pieces of artwork or manuscripts that a scribe was illuminating. Yeah. But the idea that a kitty cat was like, I'm gonna sit here and purr and flex my claws on this drying piece of pottery. I love it. Sunshine. Yeah. DNA research into walrus ivory dating from the Viking era suggests that the Norse

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  were not hunting walruses around the southern coastal areas of Greenland, which is what was previously thought. Instead, it seems like they were going deep into the high Arctic, way to the north of their more southerly settlements. This means that there was probably ongoing contact between the Norse and the Inuit peoples living in those Arctic regions, including trading relationships that might date back to the 11th century. At the same time, these trading relationships and this contact would have been really seasonal. The Norse probably would have been sailing north during a very short window in the summer before the ice

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  made the seas impassable again. This research, in addition to looking at the DNA of the walruses, it involved sailing along these probable sea routes in a traditional Norwegian boat. I love that, too. Researchers involved in this work characterized it really as a starting point, especially when it comes to the more human side of these interactions, and in particular, from the indigenous point of view. The Morgan Library and Museum in New York has announced the discovery of a previously unknown waltz by Frédéric Chopin. It's a handwritten copy of a piece that's only about a minute long, and it's only about the size of an index card.

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  That one small manuscript contains 24 measures of music that are meant to be played through once. According to the library's press release on the discovery, manuscripts like these were something Chopin used as gifts for people to put in their autograph albums. It's not signed, though, so he may have changed his mind about giving this particular one away. This piece is part of the Arthur Satts collection, which came to the Morgan in 2019. And while it was marked as Chopin's work at that time, it wasn't until a curator started cataloging this whole collection that they realized that the music on the card

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  did not line up with any already known piece by Chopin. So this is the first significant discovery of a previously unknown piece by Chopin since the late 1930s. In 1938, archaeologists in Norway found skeletal remains in a well at the castle of 12th century Norwegian king Sverre Sigurdsson. This work was disrupted by the Second World War, so the remains were not excavated at that time. Archaeologists returned to the site about 10 years ago. And at that time, they said there was a high probability that this body was someone who had been described in the Sverre saga, which relates events

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  from Sverre Sigurdsson's life. One passage is about an attack on the king's castle that took place in 1197, with the attackers getting into the castle through a secret door while its defenders were eating. After pillaging the castle and burning down the houses in the area, the attackers threw the body of someone who had been killed into a well and then filled that well with stones. This past October, researchers announced the results of some work that supports this idea that it was this same person described as being thrown down the well. This includes radiocarbon dating that lines up with when the attack on the castle happened.

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  One surprising find came from DNA that was extracted from one of the teeth. This person likely came from southern Norway, while Sigurdsson and his castle's defenders would have been from central Norway. The really longstanding assumption has been that if this body really was the one described in the saga, that the invaders had thrown the body of one of the king's men down the well in order to humiliate the king and probably also to contaminate the water supply. But this DNA result means that the body the attackers threw down that well might have actually been one of their own. Some of this is still circumstantial, but if it is all correct,

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  this may be the first time that DNA has been recovered from a specific person described in one of the sagas. Next, back in February, authorities in Athens were in the process of evicting a tenant from a retail space in a building that was managed by the National Gallery Alexandros Soutos Museum. And somebody noticed in that retail space, a hidden trapdoor. The trapdoor led to a storage area, which the museum apparently had not realized was there. And that storage area turned out to be full of artifacts. So a museum representative contacted the Greek Ministry of Culture.

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  The ministry released a statement in October saying that 102 objects dating from between 1100 BCE and 32 BCE had been found there, including figurines, drinking and storage vessels, as well as more than 30 religious pieces and a cache of thousands of coins that also included metals, weights and seals. Many of these objects had been stored wrapped in newspaper, and the newspapers dated back to the 1940s, which is when the building's evicted tenants had first signed their lease. Some of the reporting around this has been kind of vague. Like, I am not really clear on whether these evicted tenants

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  were the ones to put these items in the storage area or whether it was the prior occupants of the space. Whoever it was, why were they still down there decades later? What was going on with that? But authorities have described these objects as illegally acquired. So for now, they're being restored and examined, and there might be more information available on this later. Archaeologists in the Dutch city of Alkmaar, north of Amsterdam, have found a wooden shoe in a 15th century cesspit. This shoe is made of birch wood and birch trees do not grow in the Netherlands.

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  And it is also older than most of the other wooden shoes that have been unearthed so far. Although wooden shoes have a close connection with Dutch culture, only 44 of them have been found at archaeological sites in the Netherlands and Belgium. This shoe was found in pieces, but those pieces had been well preserved and conservators were able to reassemble it. And this seems like it was a really fashionable clog with a double heel, very well made, again, from a wood that wouldn't have been available locally. It's described as equivalent to a size 36 in modern European shoes, which is about a women's 5 and 1/2 in the United States shoe measurement system.

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  I've sort of imagined the wooden shoes as like commonsense footwear that a laboring person might wear, although not necessarily super comfortable. But this seems like, you know, maybe a more wealthier, more affluent person's footwear. Maybe. Hopefully we'll have more info. Lastly, among the potpourri is the headline that annoyed Tracy for this installment of Unearthed. Researchers in Jordan have found a previously undiscovered tomb under a monument called Al-Kazna or the Treasury in Petra. The tomb contains at least 12 human skeletons and artifacts that are believed to be at least 2,000 years old,

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  as well as a ceramic chalice. This followed ground penetrating radar studies done to see if the left and right sides of the monument were similar underground. And tombs had previously been found under the other side in 2003.

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  Where this became annoying to me, so annoying that I almost did not put this in Unearthed at all, was that so many of the headlines made it sound as though Petra's only role in the whole world and all of history was as an Indiana Jones filming location. And it is true, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was filmed in part at the Treasury. Some of the news coverage also focused on that chalice, noting that it had sort of a visual similarity to the Holy Grail from the film. That's obviously interesting. A lot of other movies have also been filmed at Petra besides Indiana Jones.

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  And Petra also, it's an extremely distinctive historical site. It has a whole significant history of its own. So all the coverage just seemingly boiling it down to a 35-year-old movie kind of irritated me, even though I love that movie. Can I help? You can help. My 100% guess is that that is the only thing that most modern people can reference it with. See, I feel like Petra is so visually distinctive that it's memorable on its own. Where would those people have seen it, though? Outside of Indiana Jones? So many other movies have also been filmed there. So anyway, I just, I got

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  sort of frustrated at the boiling down of it to only Indiana Jones. And so now we're just gonna take a sponsor break so I can get over it and we will talk about our foodie finds.

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  First thought is like, wow, how are we gonna do all this?

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  Hey, everybody. It's Tracy from Stuff You Missed in History Class. That's Alan Goya, a planning engineer at AT&T. He's talking about Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, where every seat, screen, phone, and transaction is connected with AT&T fiber and 5G, defining the fan's experience. And Alan's master plan made it all possible.

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  It was gonna rival anything that was already built. And that takes quite a bit of people and different teams to all be on the same page.

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  That includes field services management. Drexel Jones, his team made sure it all came together and held up on game day.

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  To actually see the whole stadium light up and data is flowing is a beautiful thing.

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  What the fans experience is incredible. It gave me a lot of pride.

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  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. Tune in for season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenx. Hosted by public health and policy expert Dr. Martine Hackett, Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition pushes the conversation within the rare disease community forward. Featuring guests living with MG, CIDP, myositis, SMA, and other rare autoimmune conditions, each episode explores hope, progress, and connection. How does research create new opportunities? How do shared experiences help light the way forward? How do we best show up for each other?

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  Tune in to find out. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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  Hey, it's Niall Rogers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by rising star Sienna Spiral.

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  I love the 60s. I feel really jealous that I wasn't alive for it. I'd be interested, like, knowing what that was like and seeing the way culture and art has progressed today. How do you find it?

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  Wait a minute.

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  I'm sorry, I have so many questions. Sorry.

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  You're not nervous, are you?

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  I am nervous.

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  You are?

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  I am. I feel like insecure about my experience. I know I shouldn't, but, you know, I'm 20. I haven't really lived my life yet. And then sitting in front of somebody that has lived an enormous life is intimidating. And sometimes I feel like talking about myself is just not as interesting. So that's why I feel a bit nervous. I'll try and ignore it, though.

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  Please do. Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeart Radio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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  We have so many edibles and potables. First, researchers in Tunisia have found the remains of cooked snails that likely date back more than 7,700 years. And some of these are unique because they have a membrane that can temporarily close off the opening of the shell, called an epiphram, and that epiphram is still intact. This raises some questions. Most land snails produce an epiphram only in specific climatic conditions, when they need to protect themselves from losing too much moisture. Modern people who consume land snails with that epiphram intact have to harvest them

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  from specific places at specific times of year and then preserve them in a specific way to make sure that epiphram does stay intact. In northern Tunisia today, this happens when the snails have burrowed underground and developed an epiphram in preparation to essentially hibernate through the hottest months of the summer. So people have to know where the snails... Snails are and how to dig them up without damaging them and then store them so the epiphrame stays intact until they are prepared. Only 41 of the more than 35,000 snails at this site had an epiphrame, but it's not clear whether others did have them when they were first harvested, but they were either

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  removed or destroyed somehow, or just didn't survive that 7,700 years that has passed since then. But this does suggest that people living more than 7,000 years ago knew how to find, collect, and preserve these snails, and that this may be cultural knowledge that was passed down through hundreds of generations, so that people who are still following those traditional food ways are using knowledge that has been passed down through those centuries. Next, researchers in Australia have worked with the Martsu Aboriginal people to study seed dispersal in non-domesticated plants.

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  They looked at four plants: bush raisin, bush tomato, and love grass, all of which the Martsu people gather and eat, and fanflower, which they do not typically forage. This research involved accompanying Martsu harvesters and seeing how they prepared and consumed the food. This was combined with satellite data and ecological surveys to study humans' impact on the land. So the researchers found that bush raisin, bush tomato, and love grass all rely on people for their seed dispersal, and that this was especially true of the bush tomato. Exactly how that seed dispersal happened really varied from plant to plant.

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  So, for example, people who are harvesting bush tomatoes might taste them out in the field to make sure they're sweet, and discard ones that are not, and scatter those seeds in the process. Bush raisins also only grow where people are using fire as part of their hunting practices for small animals. Researchers involved in this work talked about expanding how we think of agriculture. Typically, when people talk About agriculture, the focus is on sedentary communities who are growing specific domesticated crops in specific places. The Martu are more nomadic, but they are still having a clear impact on the wild plants that they harvest.

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  That has some similarities to research conducted in British Columbia, Canada, involving hazelnuts. This research started with indigenous oral traditions across multiple communities involving the cultivation of the beaked hazelnut and how those hazelnuts are used. And then that combined with DNA research into different hazelnut specimens and then exploration of the words for hazelnut in different indigenous languages. The finding there was that the word for hazelnut was often really similar even in languages that are not themselves similar. They found genetically similar clusters of hazelnut plants growing in areas that were

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  very remote and disconnected from one another. So all of this suggests an intentional cultivation and transplanting of hazelnuts by indigenous peoples going back at least 7,000 years. So that really contradicts descriptions of these parts of North America in terms like, quote, "wild" and, quote, "uncultivated." According to research published in the journal Scientific Reports, Neolithic pans, known as husking trays, which date back to between 7,000 and 5,000 BCE in Mesopotamia, were used to bake a bread that is very like focaccia. This was based on analysis of residues inside the trays, which found that they were used

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  for a range of foods, with some of them being used for a bread that was baked along with lard or oil. The researchers also made experimental replicas of the trays and then used them to bake both plain doughs and dough that had been seasoned with a plant oil or animal fat. The trays were baked in dome-shaped ovens for about two hours at an initial temperature of about 420 degrees Celsius. It's a lot hotter than a typical oven today, but these were ovens that would have been powered by fire, which would then decrease in its temperature over time. We talked about this in our baking interview not long ago.

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  Researchers found that the breads that were seasoned with fat or oil, they were a lot softer and more flavorful, much like focaccia. They also conducted some useware analysis on these experimental replica trays to study what exactly happened to the pans as a result of being used for this baking. And speaking of bread, archaeologists in southern Germany have found the remains of a 2,800-year-old bakery with bread and cooking tools still inside. Most of the food remains found there are grain-based, including oats and spelt, although there were some berries as well. On a similar note, archaeologists working on the island of Funen in Denmark

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  have found evidence of grains and grinding stones there that both date back to about 5,500 years. A lot of the time when archaeologists find both grains and grinding stones at an archaeological site, they conclude that the people there were grinding cereals into flour to make some kind of bread. But after examining the grinding stones, this team came to a different conclusion. The starch granules that they found on the grinding stones were not from cereal grains. They were from some other as-yet unidentified plants. The grinding stones also did not have the kinds of wear marks that usually come from

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  grinding cereals into flour. So the conclusion was that these Neolithic peoples were eating grains. They found charred grains of barley, emmer wheat, and durum wheat, but they were making them into a porridge or a gruel rather than turning them into flour and making them into bread, and the grinding was for some other purpose. Next, in research that- Could also have been filed under shipwrecks. The James R Bentley sank in a storm while crossing Lake Huron in 1878. Its cargo was full of rye and now researchers have recovered some of that rye and they are trying to use it to make whiskey.

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  Unlike the way some of the headlines make it sound, they did not retrieve grain from the shipwreck and then take it right to the distillery. Instead, divers brought up tubes full of rye from the wreck and it's one of the few wrecks in Lake Huron that is privately owned. Otherwise, that move would have been illegal. But they put those tubes on ice to get them to Michigan State University so that researchers could work with them. And once they got there, some of the grain was obviously spoiled, but some of it seemed to still be good. First, botanists tried to get this grain to germinate. That unfortunately did not work. Their next step was DNA research to try to figure out which modern breeds of rye are the most similar to this one.

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  Their eventual plan is to transfer chromosomal segments from this grain into a very similar rye species. And then the ultimate goal is for that to become a plantable, growable seed. And then that is what they plan for Michigan distillers to turn into a unique whiskey. I got very excited at the idea that it was like, we got some rye from a shipwreck and we're making it into whiskey, but it is a more involved process than that. That seems like a way to make a very expensive spirit to me. For sure. That would make a lot of money. This is more like, in addition to the whiskey part, this is also about trying

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  to revive a strain of rye that was important to Michigan at the time that the shipwreck happened. Yeah, I love it. It's very cool. Archaeologists in China have found evidence of rice beer dating back 10,000 years. This came from analysis of the residues on 12 pottery fragments. Rice was present in a lot of the residues and some of them also showed evidence of fermentation. There was also some evidence of yeast that are still used in traditional brewing methods today. The tomb of Western Han Dynasty Emperor Liu He, who ruled for only 27 tumultuous days, was excavated back in 2015.

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  And one of the things that was unearthed was a bronze distilling vessel. We talked in our recent episode on hangovers about how the earliest stills probably were used to make medicines and perfumes rather than alcoholic beverages. And it's believed that distilled wine dates back to the 12th or 13th century in China specifically. This still was a lot older than that known distilling of wine, dating back to about 2,000 years ago. And the team wanted to see if it could have been used to distill wine. Remnants of taro root and various fruits had been found in the original vessel. So the team tried to work out a wine recipe

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  that would have included those ingredients. And that worked. Their successful attempt to distill wine suggests that it was at least possible that the vessel was used for that purpose. Next up, peaches. Peaches are really associated with the American South. They are native to China, though. They were introduced to the Americas by the Spanish in the 16th century. But according to new research published in the journal Nature Communications, the spread of peach trees across the Americas did not just come from European colonists. Radiocarbon dating of peach pits found at sites in what's now North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, and Arkansas,

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  suggests that peaches were widespread around indigenous settlements in the Southeast by the year 1620. The origin point of a lot of these trees probably was the Spanish settlements, but then indigenous peoples carried and cultivated them well beyond those settlements. This included finding peach pits in post holes at a Muskogyan farm site that predated the founding of the city of St. Augustine, Florida. St. Augustine is, of course, considered to be the oldest Spanish city in what's now the United States. Archaeologists working In Ireland have found the charred remains of a 2,000 year old fig at a

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  trading post at which trade was carried out with the Roman Empire. Although fig seeds have been found at Irish archaeological sites before, this is the earliest example of the actual fruit, which survived because it had been burned. In our last food find, archaeologists working at the site of Oriole College in Oxford, founded in 1326, have found its original kitchen. And the finds there include a roasting hearth and an oven base. And now we'll take a break and then come back for some books and letters. A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  Tune in for season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenx. Hosted by public health and policy expert Dr. Martine Hackett, Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition pushes the conversation within the rare disease community forward. Featuring guests living with MG, CIDP, myositis, SMA, and other rare autoimmune conditions, each episode explores hope, progress, and connection. How does research create new opportunities? How do shared experiences help light the way forward? How do we best show up for each other? Tune in to find out.

• 32:06Speaker 01

  Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 32:16Speaker 04

  Hey, it's Niall Rogers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by my friend, John Ledge. So you're helping Will.i.am write hooks. What made "Ordinary People" become the one song from those sound checks you knew you had to make your own? I was just writing for the Black Eyed Peas. I wasn't expecting to write something for myself in that session, but I wrote the hook for "Ordinary People." And I recorded a demo and I'm like, I would rather keep "Ordinary People" for myself. This station in Chicago, WGCI, they start playing it.

• 32:58Speaker 04

  Or we're promoting it. The song spoke for itself. It became the defining song for my first album. I knew it was special, but you never know how special it's going to be and how much impact it's going to have in people's lives. And you never believe that you're going to actually change people's lives with a song. Experience before the moment. A Lincoln original series on the iHeart Radio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello? Hey, it's me, your wallet. Oh, hey. I was just wondering if we could maybe take it easy this week? Absolutely. Really? Yep. I'm shopping at Food Lion. Wait, you mean low prices? And MVP savings. Oh, you do care.

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  Now, we have got quite a few fines to file under books and letters. Archaeologists in the Turkish port city of Annemiriam have found a complete 13-line inscription honoring a wrestler named Kekilianos. This is believed to be about 2,000 years old, and it's inscribed into a stone that weighs an estimated half a ton. So it's possible that this stone was originally the base of a statue that was meant to honor this wrestler. This Greek inscription praises him for winning a recent tournament.

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  Bram Stoker has a new short story out, kind of. This story is called Gibbet Hill, and it ran in the Dublin Daily Express on December 17, 1890, seven years before Stoker published his famous novel Dracula. But that short story didn't make its way into collections of Stoker's known work or his archival papers. It was sort of forgotten about until a modern day pharmacist named Brian Cleary spotted a reference to it in an ad that ran in the Daily Express a couple of weeks after its publication while he was going through some old newspapers. The newly rediscovered book was reissued at the Bram Stoker Festival in Dublin in October.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  This one also could have gone in the update section since we have an episode on Bram Stoker that we just ran as a Saturday classic this past November. Next, the British Library has an exhibition called Medieval Women in Their Own Words, which is running until March 2nd of 2025, which is mind bogglingly enough this year. Very soon.

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  This includes material related to several women we have covered on the show before, including Julianne of Norwich and Christine de Puzan. While preparing for this exhibition, staff at the library found an unknown leaf made by the Poor Clairs of Cologne. The Poor Clairs were a branch of the Franciscan Order, and the convent of the Poor Clairs in Cologne was founded in 1304. This convent produced a lot of manuscripts in the 14th century. The leaf was originally the first page of a manuscript that contained "all the chants to be sung at Mass, arranged chronologically, beginning with the first Sunday and Advent."

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  This particular leaf has a small figure of a nun down at the bottom corner, along with an inscription crediting Sister Isabella of Gilders with giving 20 marks to complete the book. Other leaves from the same manuscript are housed in the Walrav Rickards Museum in Cologne, and the staff there also didn't know that there was a leaf in the British Library. This leaf was part of a folio that had come from the convent of St. Clair, but it had not previously been mentioned in scholarship on the convent. Depictions of nuns kind of kneeling in the margins are a pretty common feature in the manuscripts that were produced at this convent. Usually, they would name the nun and detail how she had contributed to the production of the manuscript.

• 37:50Speaker 01

  Coming up, just a heads up, we are doing a guesstimated pronunciation because we cannot find a guide. So, research published in the journal Yawapacha, Journal of the Institute of Andean Studies, has found a connection between two quipus. These are the sets of knotted strings and cords that Andean people used to record and share information for more than 1,000 years, but which people today no longer know how to interpret. They were particularly important to the Inca Empire. Today, much of this work is happening through digitized data that is available at the Open Quipu Repository and the Quipu Field Guide.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  This research looked specifically at two quipus found in northern Chile. One is the largest one of them ever found, containing more than 1,800 cords. The other is a lot smaller, containing about 600 cords, but with really complex arrangements. It appears that these two quipus contain the same information, but that information is presented differently. The smaller quipu is essentially a summary and reallocation of the information contained in the bigger one. It's not yet known exactly what that information is, or why quipu makers chose to make two quipus that presented the same information in two ways.

• 39:13Speaker 01

  Next, in our autumn installment of Unearthed last year, we talked about a message in a bottle that had been left by archaeologist PJ Theray at a site where he worked in 1825, and we have a similar find this time. It is a bottle containing coins, a business card, and a note written by Norwegian archaeologist Anders Laurent at the site of a 100-foot-long Viking ship that had been burned as part of a funeral ritual roughly 1,000 years ago. Archaeologists found this bottle while re-excavating the same ship, which had only been partially excavated back in the 19th century. The note gives an overview of the excavation, although not everything in it

• 39:58Speaker 01

  matches up to what archaeologists found in this re-excavation. The project's release on this find doesn't frame this as carelessness or inaccuracy on LaRange's part, though. More that he was overseeing the entire site rather than doing the actual excavating, with that hands-on work being done by locally hired laborers. I kind of love that he left his sort of research notes as a message in a bottle for future archaeologists. Another message in a bottle was found in the walls of Corswall Lighthouse in Scotland. This was dated September 4th, 1892, and it was left by the engineers who had just installed a new lens at the lighthouse.

• 40:43Speaker 01

  This bottle was found by accident by engineers who were working on repairs to that same lens. Lighthouse keeper Barry Miller gave a statement to the New York Times saying it felt like those earlier engineers were communicating directly with them. According to research published in the journal Cadmos, historian Mark Munn of Penn State University believes he has decoded an inscription on a carved piece of volcanic rock in eastern Turkey known as Arselenkaia. This inscription has been previously described as indecipherable. It's written in the ancient Phrygian language, which is not well-understood today.

• 41:23Speaker 01

  The inscription is also more than 2,500 years old, so it has weathered over time. It was also originally part of a larger monument, and it's not really known what other context the rest of the monument might have provided for interpreting it. Mun was working from photos that he took of the inscription back in April during ideal lighting conditions and then cross-referenced that with other work on the inscription, including earlier photographs. He came to the conclusion that this monument honored the Phrygian mother goddess Maderon, who was also worshiped by the Greeks and Romans, and there are other monuments to her in this region.

• 42:03Speaker 01

  Speaking of indecipherable inscriptions, some of the graffiti at the Tower of London previously described as illegible has now been deciphered. This work also allowed researchers to identify far more examples of graffiti than were previously known to exist in this part of the tower, 354, compared to the earlier number of 79. This work included X-ray analysis, laser scanning, and a technique called ranking light that involves illuminating a surface only from the side, giving a much more detailed view of the graffiti than was possible before. Most of these inscriptions are by prisoners who were essentially leaving evidence that

• 42:45Speaker 01

  they had been there, and work to decipher those marks is still ongoing.

• 42:51Speaker 01

  A small silver amulet has yet one more indecipherable thing. It was discovered in a grave in Germany in 2018, and it contained a tiny, tiny scroll made of silver foil. This amulet and its contents were about 1,800 years old, and there was really no way to try to unroll that scroll and read it without destroying it. But now, thanks to high-resolution CT scanning, it's been read. It turns out it contains a prayer for protection that may actually be the oldest evidence of Christianity in Europe north of the Alps. It dates back to about 50 years before other known references to Christianity.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  At that time, Christianity was not widely practiced in the region, and it was also viewed with some suspicion. So it's likely that this scroll was hidden in the amulet and then kept secret. It's also unusual that the scroll only references Christianity, because these kinds of protective amulets, often instead of being sort of a one specifically Christian thing, they often had references to multiple different faiths and traditions. Research published in the European Journal of Archaeology suggests that engraved slate plaques dating back to 3200 to 2200 BCE may contain genealogical records.

• 44:16Speaker 01

  The engravings on these plaques look very geometric and abstract, and more than 1,600 of them have been found at Iberian tombs and burial sites. A number of different explanations have been put forth about what these might mean. And this one is that they might represent a person's ancestry in a symbolic way, kind of like a heraldic emblem. And this conclusion is based in part on a plaque that seems like it has a rough draft on one side and the final and corrected version on the other side. That process of seeming to correct something makes it seem like the details of this have a specific meaning.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  This led to some analysis of more than 650 of these plaques and a conclusion that the number of lines or motifs on a plaque might represent how far a person is away from a specific ancestor. And lastly, archaeologists in Syria may have found the oldest known example of an alphabet. This writing was etched into clay cylinders approximately the size of a finger, which have been dated to about 2,400 BCE. This is about 500 years older than the previous earliest known alphabetic writing. Who knows if it will change Epcot?

• 45:40Speaker 01

  Lastly, we will finish our 2024 Unearthed with three projects that are all about my new favorite thing, which is researchers trying to figure stuff out about ancient weapons by making replicas of them and then using them. Uh, first, researchers who wanted to figure out how prehistoric spears were used made replicas of spears and of shields, and they got those into the hands of human fighters. And the results of this were published as "Multi-Stage Experiments in Bronze Age Spear Combat: Insights on Wear, Formation, Trauma, and Combat Contexts." That was published in the journal Archaeological Science.

• 46:23Speaker 01

  Uh, I found the findings of this one kinda hard to just sum up. They basically analyzed the wear and tear on the spears and the shields, and they also did some tests where they used animal tissues to replicate the human body. Next, research led by Kent State University and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History looked at the question of whether having the high ground would make thrown weapons more accurate. They did this by putting people on a scissor lift, raising it to various heights, and having them throw javelins or use an adalatal to throw darts. Their research suggested that throwing from a height made javelins more effective, but adalatal thrown darts somewhat less effective.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  This may mean that prehistoric peoples chose one weapon over the other based on the terrain they were going to be using them in, or that they sought out specific terrain based on which weapon they had on hand. This was published in the journal of Archaeological Science Reports as "The Gravity of Paleolithic Hunting." And this last one was initially part of a TV show that aired in Australia called "First Weapons." This show was created by First Nations-owned production company Blackfella Films, and it explored a number of weapons developed and used by Aboriginal peoples, including returning boomerangs, spear throwers, and clubs and shields.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  Research related to the Lianggo Club and parrying shield, and related to the koich, which is a type of axe, uh, that came out of this show and was published as "Aboriginal Australian Weapons and Human Efficiency" in the journal Scientific Reports.

• 48:08Speaker 01

  There are still Aboriginal master weapon makers who are making and using these weapons today, but the ones in this research were described as replicas. This paper looked specifically at the biomechanics of these two weapons, concluding that the Liangol was more effective at delivering powerful blows, while the Koich, which is a multipurpose tool, was more maneuverable, but still very potentially lethal. And that cool story ends unearthed for this round.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  Uh, hooray, we'll be back in three months. Do you have listener mail? I do have listener mail. This is from Janelle and Janelle wrote, hello, Holly and Tracy. It's a rare moment when I hear something where I can come in. So I got excited during the Sarah Winamaka, part one, when it was mentioned that Truckee, that was her grandfather, may have died of a tarantula bite. There have been no recorded deaths due to tarantula venom anywhere. There are exceptionally rare occasions where a tarantula bite turns gangrenous and someone dies of the infection. Also, none of the species native to North America have medically significant venom. There is one genus in Central America who has more potent venom, but in general, significant

• 49:22Speaker 01

  bites from Old World, that's Asia, Africa, Middle East species. For pet tax, I've included two of my 15 species of tarantula that I keep. First is Mosey, a hydra. I'm laughing at Holly's excitement about this. I love tarantulas. We can talk about this in a second. First is Mosey, a Honduran curly hair who looks like she struck one of her tiny paws in a light socket. The second is Veris, an Indian ornamental, who is one of those with medically significant venom, but who is also one of my shyest and most beautiful spiders. Many thanks for all you do, Janelle. Hey, Janelle, first, thanks for this email. Second, thanks for these tarantula pictures. Holly, as I have said, is very excited.

• 50:10Speaker 01

  We, for a time at my house when I was a child, we had a tarantula. My brother, this was a classroom tarantula that somehow my brother became. It's steward. The steward of, and this involved raising crickets to feed the tarantula in a cricket enclosure in the basement. I don't know if the crickets in my parents' basement now are descendants of the crickets that we farmed to feed the tarantula.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  But, boy, there are still.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  Crickets about. Down there. Yeah. Yeah. My brother and I had a conversation one time, talking hypothetically about like, what if I needed to record podcasts for my parents' basement? And he sent me a text that just said, "crickets." Like, oh, that's definitely would not work. Be great. It could be ambient noise. It'd be beautiful. Yeah. I had a lot of tarantulas as a kid. Oh, yeah? Because when I was very tiny, I lived in Arizona. Oh, right. And before I had the sense to have fear, I had no hesitation to just pick them up. Sure. Much to my mother's chagrin. Yeah. And would put them in a coffee can and take them home and be like, "This is my tarantula now." And sometimes I would get to have a setup and sometimes not. Yeah. And for some reason, I named every single one of them Bill.

• 51:35Speaker 01

  I don't know why. They can cause some skin irritation, you know, handling them, walking on you. That is a thing that can happen with some of them. Anyway, I don't actually know the details of Tracy's death. It's described in a number of sources as possibly after a tarantula bite. The idea of a wound becoming infected way more likely than it necessarily would have been today. But, yeah, I don't know for sure where that comes from, whether that came from her writing, other people's writing, what exactly. But thank you so much, Janelle, for, number one, that information about tarantulas.

• 52:19Speaker 01

  Number two, these great tarantula pictures, uh, looking like she stuck a paw in a light socket is a great description of this tarantula.

• 52:30Speaker 01

  So cute. Uh, tarantula is, is black, but has these white, very sticky outy hairs. Uh, there's probably a specific name for what those hairs on a tarantula are called. Would those be considered guard hairs? I don't know. I was gonna say celia, and that's not right, I'm sure. That undercoat that sticks out is called a guard hair, but I don't know if that applies to tarantulas. Yeah. I still love them. I'm a little scared to handle them now, not out of fear for myself, but because now I know enough to know that they are delicate and I could accidentally hurt them. And that's, I, I'm worried that I will Elmyra Duff and be so excited that I will accidentally hurt them.

• 53:09Speaker 01

  Yes. So thank you again. Uh, also come back on Friday because we're gonna talk some more on behind the scenes. We'll be talking more about Petra. We've already determined this.

• 53:21Speaker 01

  If you'd like to send us a note, we're at [email protected]. And we're, you know, in every podcast player that you can find, including the iHeartRadio app and anywhere else you like to get your podcasts.

• 53:40Speaker 01

  Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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  What's that? My fresh detector. Uh, your what? There it is. What is it detecting? Fresh produce, fresh meat. Okay, what happens if it detects something really fresh?

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  Apparently, we celebrate.

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