Oh What A Time... - #38 Corpses (Part 1)

Episode Date: April 21, 2024

This week we’re looking at some of the all-time great corpses. We’ll be taking a look at the Tollund Man, a whole bunch of corpses still on display around the world, what the Roman’s did with corpses; plus our bonus bit for the OWAT: Full Timers this week is the yarn of what happened to William The Conquerer’s mortal remains. Plus, Corrections Corner is back and it’s Tom on the naughty step. We also get to hear what Welsh sounds like in a Manchester accent. If you’ve got anything to send our way, feel free to ping it to: [e-mail] If you're impatient and want both parts in one lovely go next time plus a whole lot more(!), why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER? In exchange for your £4.99 per month to support the show, you'll get: - the 4th part of every episode and ad-free listening - episodes a week ahead of everyone else - a bonus episode every month - And first dibs on any live show tickets Subscriptions are available via AnotherSlice, Apple and Spotify. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.com You can also follow us on:  X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepod And Instagram at @ohwhatatimepod Aaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice? Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk). Chris, Elis and Tom x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Savings may vary. Eligibility and member terms apply. Looking for a collaborator for your career? A strong ally to support your next level success? You will find it at York University School of Continuing Studies, where we offer career programs purpose-built for you. Visit continue.yorku.ca Hello and welcome to Oh What A Time, a history podcast that tries to decide if actually it was alright to live in the pre-souda-creme age. And I wouldn't have needed actually neither

would my kids and their bums would just have been fine and uh i think sudocrem is actually it's a sort of a modern affectation and it's a sign of 21st century decadence i'm ellis james cut to next week and we're sponsored by sudocrem and we're happy to backtrack we're so sorry i really hope that i hope the people at Siddha Krim don't listen to this episode. Fingers crossed. I'm Ellis James. I'm Tom Crane. And I'm Chris Gull. Each week on this show we're looking at a new historical subject and today we're going to be discussing corpses. Corpses. More specifically Tolland Man, corpses in Ancient Rome. There's corpses on display. And for the full-timers, the subscribers, we'll be looking at William the Conqueror's corpse. So quite a juicy episode.

I've got a question about this before we get into it, because it's kind of a general thing. Because I'm going to be talking about corpses in ancient Rome. How do you feel about museums displaying corpses, just as a general thing? I think it's obviously quite an ethical question, isn't it? Do you know what? I think we can discuss this in the first section because since doing the research on the first section, kindly provided to us by our brilliant historian,

Dr. Daryl Leaworthy, of course, it's a thing that I've thought about. And it is a difficult issue. So we will be discussing this very soon, I would imagine. But I'm looking forward to the fourth part, the bonus part for A Water Time subscribers, which Chris will be responsible for this week. Because, Chris, there are great benefits to subscribing to A Water Time

and becoming a full-timer, aren't there? Let me tell you about the benefits. A fourth part in every episode. Whoa! The full, complete version of an episode when it gets released

a week ahead of time. No way! You get a bonus episode every month. What? And very soon, we're going to start doing shout-outs as well

to our subscribers, which is a brand new benefit. The benefits just keep on rolling to get the maximum Oh What A Time experience for £4.99 a month, support the show, go to ohwhatatime.com

and you can subscribe via another slice, Apple or Spotify. Whatever you choose. Can I just say, Chris, not just any old shout-out either, I will be taking set subscribers back on a one-day time machine adventure with me. Ooh! Yeah, to the past. I have had shout-outs on commercial radio and BBC Radio 5 Live, and it is such a great feeling.

It is thrilling. It is quite simply thrilling. So this is big. It really is big. Chris, remember that shout-out you got on Crime Watch, Chris? Do you remember that? And they did that reconstruction. It was so flat.

It must have been so exciting watching that at home that's the one place you don't want to shout out in my experience this is

my shout out on Real Radio in Swansea and shout out to Ellis James he's on his way to the Vetch to watch Swansea

City play Yeovil today and he can't wait and I was like yes so the point is £4.99 a month. It's a bargain. Whatever way you enjoy the show,

we really appreciate you being here. And with that in mind, shall we get into some correspondence from our lovely listeners? Let's do it. Let's do that. First one, okay. It's something that needs to be addressed.

Okay. Chris Jessup has got in contact. The subject is, hello from Wyoming. Hi, American listener. So cool. Hi, boys. Full-timer from Wyoming here. has got in contact the subject is hello from wyoming hi american wow so cool um hi boys full timer from wyoming here i just want to thank you guys for bringing historical levity to my day and regularly making my belly laugh i'm a genealogist and a historian specializing in the mass incarceration of japanese americans during world war ii i help families track their

ancestors immigration history where they lived before the war, what camps their family was sent to, how long they stayed, and where they went after they left the camps. Needless to say, as a Japanese-American who also had family in the camps, the work can get heavy at times, so your podcast brings some much-needed laughter to our days. What an interesting job that is. That's incredible, isn't it? Now, this isn't the reason Chris was getting in contact, though. Chris has then said, onto business. Now, the tone has changed. First of all, Chris, cool job, but the tone has got very serious here. I hate to offer a correction, but in your President's episode,

Tom said that Theodore Roosevelt was the only president to win the Nobel Peace Prize, where there has actually been, now this is, I'd say it's too many for me, this is so, I'm so wrong. There's been three other presidents. Oh, dear. Okay. Three. Who've been awarded the prize, including Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, and Barack Obama.

Now, let me explain. The mistake I've made there, which is completely inexcusable, correction section, you're quite right to get in contact, was he's actually the first president to win the Nobel Prize, and I got a little bit confused. Not the only one. Not the only one. Can I just say. That was the mistake I wrote when writing up my confused. Not the only one. Not the only one. Can I just say... That was the mistake I wrote when writing up my notes. I love the corrections.

And it's an absolutely integral part of this podcast. If we get things wrong, we have to apologise and correct ourselves. However, whenever it's anyone else, I get such a wave of relief that I'm not possibly involved. I think as well. I'm not the person being bollocked. I think as well. I'm not suggesting we create a corrections league table, but I think I would be top of it at this point. So it's just great to hear Tom.

It's the best feeling being around someone who's being corrected and bollocked, but not being that person. If I could bottle this. Is it on the edge of sexual, would you say? I wouldn't say on the edge On the outskirts It's in the bullseye of sexual Yeah

Were you in school then? Did you quite like seeing a friend getting told off? Were you that friend? Were you the grass? Yeah yeah yeah Oh I bet you were Tom's wrong about that, sir. Sir, sir, if you look to your right,

Mark is carving something into a desk. I'm not going to give you any more details, but he will deserve a bollocking at the end of the lesson. You and me have an understanding of this. You'd leave an apple on the teacher's desk, and on that apple you'd also have written tip-offs about other things that other kids have been doing in biro. So, read the apple, sir, read the apple.

Read the apple, and at the end of the week, because they'd worked so hard, I'd give them all a bottle of wine. It's the least you can do. It's a hard job being a teacher. You see the clink of my school bag every Friday morning. Teachers! Teachers! You've all worked so hard. Did you give gifts at the end of term and stuff,

or end of the school year, to teachers? Not in secondary school. In primary school, yes. End of every term in primary school, from what I remember. And then at the end, the Christmas term in secondary school. In primary school, yes. Yes. End of every term in primary school, from what I remember. And then at the end, the Christmas term in secondary school in the first year, my friend brought in a bottle of wine for a maths teacher or a box of chocolates or something. And we absolutely destroyed him. And I'm so glad that's not me.

So that's Chris quite rightly telling me off for that mistake. I apologise. On to lighter ground allison waterfield has got in contact and the title is re welsh speaking community in manchester oh hello i'm absolutely loving the podcast and taking in far more history than i ever did at school same here allison same here regarding the second prime minister's episode ellis mentioned david lloyd Lloyd George being from a Welsh-speaking community in Manchester. Can you remember that, Elle? If anyone in the world could give us an audio idea of how the Welsh would sound in a Manc accent, it is Ellis James.

Would you mind giving us a few sentences of how a modern-day Manc Welsh speaker would sound? Ta very much, Alison Wigan. Thanks for the email, Alison. Over to you, Al. Yes, I'm Al. I live in Stockport. And I live in a town called Arndale. Yes, yes.

In Arndale, I live in a town called Arndale. Saolín, or Gwsmerion in Dormewn, I live in Gwerthy, better than you. It's really hard to do to speak Welsh in a Manc accent. I need to give you some more options now. Liverpool, Liam? What would that be? I dwi'n dod o Butel yn Lerpwl.

Rwyn rhan o'r gymuned Cymraeg yn Lerpwl. Dw i wrth fy modd, ie. Much harder. It's so hard. Because I'm like, I can do a Liverpool accent, I can speak Welsh. Why can I not seem to combine the two? What I find interesting, right, is that Izzy went to night school and she learnt Welsh there. And she did Duolingo and she did Say Something in Welsh, which is a really good app that helps you learn Welsh.

And it sounds like a criticism, but it's not a criticism. It's an observation. rhywbeth yn Gymraeg sy'n gwych iawn sy'n helpu i chi ddysgu Cymraeg ac mae'n sain fel critisiwm ond nid yw'n critisiwm mae'n ystyried nid yw hi'n ceisio newid ei ystyr Derbysaeth arno pan fydd hi'n siarad Cymraeg ac rwy'n ei ffodd oherwydd mae'n sain yn dda iawn chi'n gwybod mae'n effeithiol unigol mae hi'n sain fel ei fod o'r distriwm cyntaf ond mae hi'n siarad Cymraeg ac rwy'n amlwg dwi ddim yn ddweud hynny oherwydd nid yw'n hynod o gyngor rwy'n amlwg yn gwneud Pete Distrup, she's speaking Welsh. And I probably shouldn't because it's not really encouraging. I often do impressions of Izzy's speak Welsh because I find it so funny because there's no concession to change her accent at all. I think that's always a nice thing to do if you're a native speaker

and someone else is trying to learn the language. Oh, yeah. Do impressions and come back. Just take the piss. Yeah, just take the piss. It's so helpful, isn't it? Well, look, if you've got any more on languages, any more on anything we've touched on,

do get in touch with the show, and here's how. All right, you horrible lot. Here's how you can stay in touch with the show. You can email us at hello at ohwhattatime.com Email us at hello at oh, what a time dot com. And you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at oh, what a time pod. Now clear off. Are you Dave, a claims-free hybrid driving university grad who signed up online?

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Ready for you. Breaking news coming in from bet 365 where every nail-biting overtime win breakaway pick six three-point shot underdog win buzzer beater shootout walk off and absolutely every play in between is amazing from football to basketball and hockey to baseball whatever the moment it's never ordinary at bet 365 must be 19 or older ontario only please play responsibly if you or someone you know has concerns about gambling visit connects ontario.ca okay so this week i'll be talking about famous leaders a lot of them are dictators around the world whose corpses are on display and the oh what a time full-timers you're getting william the conqueror's corpse as a little gift just be clear you're going to be talking

about that as opposed to no i'm giving no sending william the conqueror's corpse to full-timers okay i'm going to be talking to you this is one of my favorite subjects um i've read up on uh corpses in ancient rome it's just absolutely fascinating and mad. Today I'm discussing Tolland Man. Now I first became aware of Tolland Man in the late 80s. My parents bought The Observer on a Sunday and there was an article about Tolland Man in the magazine and I was probably eight or nine and I found it absolutely fascinating, mesmerising, and I still find it absolutely fascinating. I told myself before we started recording today that I kind of need to dial down my glee lest it sound, well dial down my fascination lest it sound like glee because ultimately we are talking about a body and you know a real person who existed.

So on the 8th of May 1950 a pair of peat cutters from the Jutland Peninsula in Denmark happened across a corpse buried in the ground where they were working. And its state of preservation was so high that they immediately rang the police thinking it was the victim of a recent murder but obviously it wasn't. So as the body emerged to the ground it became

clear, or did it, that something else had caused the individual's death a noose was found around his neck and when the remains were taken away for analysis it emerged that the corpse was naked but he had a little small head cap on and a belt around his waist the incredible thing is right that pete has got such amazing preservative qualities that even though the bones the skeleton dissolve in the soil because the soil is very acidic. The human skin doesn't. So he looks, I mean, it looks really, really real.

I think you should both Google image him now. Yeah, I've had a look at him. A tall and man. So you can see his face. You can see his hair. It's almost like a bronze statue, isn't it? Yeah, you can see his closed eyes, his lips. The fact he's got stubble.

Yeah. I mean, he hadn't had a shave. It just brings the whole thing to life. Wow. You can see the length of his lips. The fact he's got stubble. Yeah. I mean, he hadn't had a shave. It just brings the whole thing to life. Wow. You can see the length of his fingers and his toes. And I've had a real bog body, because that's what he is. Because there's plenty of these in that part of the world, in Denmark especially. I've had a real bog body phase, because there's more of them.

So if you just Google bog bodies, there's lots of different ones. Yeah. So the Danish police were able to take his fingerprints in 1976, so they're amongst the oldest fingerprints ever recorded. Most other fingerprints of antiquity were captured from impressions left on bowls or other eating utensils. Now, this is, I just, you don't want to sound too excited because you don't want to be disrespectful,

but they worked out, they can work out what his final meal was. So his final meal was porridge because they could look in his stomach and they could look at his intestines. So his final meal was porridge with flax seeds, which is what I had for my breakfast this morning. Are you the Tolland man? I am the Tolland man. Do you in the future use a one-day time machine and have a nap in a bog?

If I did the one-day time machine, I'd go back, see what Tolland man was eating for his breakfast and go, yeah, I like that. I had a cocoa box phase as a kid. You're not going to eat all of that. Was that a sort of sweet tribute, knowing that you'd be talking about him today? No. On some level, did you think, I'm going to eat what he had?

No, I eat porridge because I'm a health freak. I eat porridge and flaxseed every morning. And when I was doing my research, I was like, oh my God, I'm literally eating this now. And there was fish in there as well. So it was porridge and flaxseed, a few other seeds and fish. Yeah. It's your old fishy porridge. We all love fishy porridge.

Yeah. It's everyone's favourite breakfast. So the porridge was made of grains that could be stored over winter. Okay. And he was about 40 years of age and he was quite small, but they think he might have shrunk in the bog. He was about five foot three. And the fact is, if you look at the pictures of Tolland Man or any of the bog bodies, and he's one of the best preserved ones, he just becomes alive. You know, you can see his fingernails and things and now it's

not clear where it's not clear where tolin man originally came from so studies have shown that he spent at least the last year of his life living in what we now call denmark and that he traveled a radius of no more than 20 miles in that time but there's a lack of evidence from his earlier life so it makes his point of origin quite inconclusive but we do understand far more about how and why o'i bywyd yn y bryd cyntaf, felly mae'n gwneud ei bwynt o ddodd yn eithaf nesaf. Ond rydyn ni'n deall llawer mwy am sut a phwy a deallai'r ffordd. Felly, y rhan fwyaf o'r rhai a bywyd yn Ewrop Cymru yn y 3, 4 a 5 ddegolion yn y DU wedi cael eu cremio ar ôl marwch. Dim ond nifer bach oedd wedi cael eu cadw mewn y bog,

ac mae'r rhai a oedd yn eu cadw'n teimlo fel ddwyloedd. Nawr, y testau mwyaf diweddaraf ar ei ddau yn ddangos bod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi deall ei fod wedi. Yn y ddyn oed oed y sacrifice. Now, the most recent tests on his remains reveal that he died around the turn of the 4th century BC, which is about 50 years before the birth of Alexander the Great. That's crazy. He is so well preserved in that kind of timeline. So it's a belief that he would have been, well, obviously he had a noose around his neck, that that would have been some kind of sacrifice. Well, it seems that he was sacrificed to gain the favour of the goddess of spring or fertility. So he was, as was first thought, hanged.

But because of the ritual involved in his death, his eyes and mouth were closed. Hence the absence of terror on his face, because he looks quite peaceful. If sacrifice is part of your culture, though, and you feel that what is going to happen to you is of a greater importance, maybe your relationship with that moment and your impending death is different oh absolutely i don't know whether you whether you're you're approaching it as almost a an honor yeah we've read back there is a sort of historical honor attached to that i think we looked at um some inca examples uh in previous episodes yeah i think i'd still probably have a drink beforehand though absolutely porridge is a weird choice for your

final meal though because porridge is the sort of meal that keeps you going isn't it it's the idea of porridge to sort of see you through to the end of the day yeah have you got any slow burning carbs please finally i don't think you really need that just have a quick release have some chocolate have a burger modern scanning methods have shown that his tongue was descended which is typical in that kind of death so they just know so much about him. Now, the body was cut down from its gallows, which was almost certainly a tree adapted for this purpose, restored to calm and placed with loads of care in a grave near the water of the bog, where the spectators would await the gods claiming their due. Amazingly, Tollan Mann is not the only corpse

to have been found in the bogs of Europe. So for centuries, the bodies of bog people have emerged occasionally, either through active digging in peat or through the process of climate change. And several are now preserved in museums, either in Ireland, Britain, Germany, or across Scandinavia. So two years after Tollerman was found, another body emerged from the peats of Jutland on the 26th of April, 1952,

the best preserved bog person ever found in Denmark. He used to be given the name Graubalman after the village near the site of his discovery. And the story was much the same. It was very similar to his more famous counterpart. I would say Tollandman's probably the most famous one. So he'd been placed in the bog with great care on his death. His last meal consisted mainly of porridge,

although small bones hinted that meat had been included this time. He was naked, although this time his hair was long. There was no indication of a skull cap, and his fingerprints could be taken. That's incredible, isn't it? That fingerprints can still be taken after this time is just mad. You can see his hair. It's crazy.

Wow. And his hair now looks reddish, but they reckon it was much darker, and it's that the bog has changed the colour of his hair. Because now it looks like he's ginger now, but they don't think that was the hair colour he had when he was alive. So there are distinctions between the two, not least the method of sacrifice and Graubelmann's age. He was 34 years old at death,

so five or six years younger than Toleman. And he lived around the turn of the third century BC, but his throat had been cut from ear to ear, so it's a far more violent death. That's a bit more, yeah. His teeth had survived, right? So they can determine, the scientists can determine that he had a poor diet, he'd lost several teeth,

and he was suffering from severe dental pain at the end of his life, which really brings him to life. Like, the guy needed a paracetamol on a trip to the dentist yeah i think in that situation you might be going if we're going to sacrifice him i'll just sacrifice me i've got such a headache i need root canal now these days tolerman and graubalman are on display at silkborg museum and uh moissgard museum respectively where visitors can come face-to-face with corpses that are thousands of years old.

Now, few have ever seen the preserved remains of bog people, whether in the National Museum of Ireland or in Denmark or indeed elsewhere, are unmoved by the experience because we're used to statues from the ancient world or cases of Egyptian mummies or skeletons, but not the faces of our ancestors. Yes. It's really different.

Seamus Heaney, he wrote poems about bog bodies. So he wrote this about Ptolemy. Someday I'll go to Argos to see his peat brown head, the mild pods of his eyelids, his pointed skin cap. I will stand a long time bridegroom to the goddess. It really moves people. Now, can I say just something I've just realised? I said at the start I haven't seen corpses,

but I've been to museums and seen old bodies. So that's actually, so I have seen. Well, this is both the ethical discussion, isn't it? And how do you feel about that? Because I think that is quite an important thing, isn't it, really? It is a complicated issue, that. There is something. I went to the British Museum with my son recently.

We went to see the Egyptian exhibition. And there is something uncomfortable about it, isn't it? With Tolland Man, because... Taking him as an example, because he's so well-preserved and you can tell so much about his and his people's way of life from studying him him that absolutely has incredible academic intellectual value and i was reading about elling woman and they could you know they they can recreate because her clothes were perfectly preserved so she was wearing a sort of

plaid skirt and a shawl they can tell what the pattern was they can tell what the colors were amazing that's fascinating stuff and you know a tolerant man discovered in 1952 obviously scientific methods have improved so much in the last 70 years and they will continue to improve and so they'll be able to work out even more stuff about him in a hundred years time because they're preserving the body so perfectly but whether these people should be on display i I think that's what I'm comfortable with. How would you feel about that? Exactly in 2,500 years' time.

Let's say in 2,000 years' time at the, let's say, the British Museum, as you come into the main foyer, the main thing that you are. Well, not the foyer. Well, whatever the main sort of... The canteen? The gift shop. As long as they're making

slightly wild claims about me and my lifestyle, he was clearly exceptionally attractive. Here lies the bodies of one of the 21st century's most popular podcasters. The distended tongue. I didn't know whether I should tell you this little story

just as you were telling us about the distended tongue, but I once strained my tongue for a fortnight by trying to get the yoghurt out the bottom of a petit filou. We can tell one of his last meal was the remnants of a petit filou. Well, look at this, right? Information about the Grauball man's life has been ascertained from his remains. His hands were smooth

and did not show evidence of hard work, indicating that Grauball man was not employed in hard labour, such as farming. He was a podcaster. His ears sort of show the indentation of headphones. Of headphones. Yeah, the indentation of a microphone on his lips.

Like his skeleton showed signs of calcium deficiency and his spine also was, he was suffering from the early stages of spondylosis deformans, which is a generalised ageing disease. And it's normally a dark hair, although this too was altered in the bog and it now appears really, really reddish. They can work out from a study of his teeth and jaws

that he had periods of starvation or a poor state of health during his early childhood. Wow. It's just amazing what they can work out. Staggering, isn't it? I don't know whether they should be on display. It makes me feel slightly uncomfortable. I don't know.

I don't know. One for ethics pod. That said, we will be putting their images on our Instagram. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, we're part of the problem. All right. That's the end of part one.

Join us tomorrow for part two, where you'll be getting corpses on display and a whole lot more. But if you want all that good stuff right now, plus a bonus episode every month, tomorrow for part two where you'll be getting corpses on display and a whole lot more but if you want all that good stuff right now plus a bonus episode every month plus a fourth part which this week is william the conqueror's corpse you can go and become a know what a time full timer to sign up go to owattotime.com where your options are another slice apple or spotify support the show become a know what a time full Otherwise, we'll see you tomorrow. Bye. Bye. Thank you.