Dancing Queen

time is frozen in an instant. The camera doesn't editorialize, It doesn't care what's in front of it or what the subject's beliefs are. The camera simply captures a moment. Whatever happens to cross its path is then preserved forever. One set of photographs, though, are important not because of what they captured, but because of what they lost. The incident occurred in October of n seven on the island

of celon what is known today as Sri Lanka. That's when four men had made their way through the jungle to the Cataraguma Temple. An artist Mr Brooke Farrar was accompanied by three others. There was the photographer G. A. Smith, his assistant Mr Di Zoa and a Sri Lankan government official who oversaw the expedition. The group had come to photograph and film what was going on at the temple as part of a detailed account they were writing of

their travels. The temple stood behind a massive stone gateway boasting three tall arches, and it was surrounded by ancient ruins dating back as far as the first century b c. E. However, while it may have been the architecture that originally brought the men there that day, it was something else that shifted their focus. As they stepped inside, Brooke farr spotted a woman participating in a solitary yet animated prayer. He

described her movements as complete religious ecstasy. Music filled the room, and as it played, the woman used her whole body to express herself. Brook Farrar moved out of the way to a staircase nearby and set up his camera. He filmed her as she danced throughout the temple. Smith and the government official wandered off to photograph the rest of the area, but de Zilwa stayed behind with brook Farrar

to capture pictures of the woman as she danced. After taking almost a dozen photographs and shooting several feet of film. The woman disappeared. Because Desilwa knew how to speak the language, brook Farrar told him to ask around about the woman's identity, Who was she, where had she gone? It was as if she had evaporated into thin air, but nobody would answer. They kept silent, refusing to speak about her at all. Whenever brook Farrar or de Zilwah got close to someone,

they would run away. But one man finally spoke up in private, telling them that the dancer was known as the death Woman and she only came to the temple once a year, and anyone who looked at her was cursed. Brook Farrar and his team weren't too worried about the hecks brought on by their fascination, but the group of worshippers had them spooked. They watched the men with fear and anger boiling in their eyes, forcing the explorers to

leave the temple before things escalated. Almost immediately after their return home, a party was thrown in their honor. Brooke Farrar, Smith, and the others talked about their travels with the other guests, especially about the woman they saw dancing at the temple. Upon mention of the photographs they took. It was suggested that the men develop everything right away to share with the other partygoers, so they obliged, assembling a makeshift dark room in a coat closet. But as they developed each

of the photographs, they noticed something peculiar. The temple was there, as was the group of worshippers, but something was missing. Well, someone, The woman who had danced with such unbridled joy, was not present in a single photograph, nor on any of the film they had shut Brook, Farrar, and Smith chucked the equipment again, but everything appeared to be working properly. I have the young man they'd spoken to been hiding

the truth about the woman. Perhaps it wasn't that she came from another village to visit the temple once a year. Maybe she appeared out of nowhere to dance and pray before vanishing once more. Whatever her true story was, the team vowed to go back the same time the following year to try and catch her on camera again. It's unclear if they ever made it, though let alone succeeded. Some moments in time are impossible to capture, even if they are a little curious. We find the most surprising

things when we're not looking for them. George Demestrel, for example, had returned home from a hike in nineteen forty one when he noticed strange things attached to his clothes. They were little balls with pointy spines all around them, seeds from the burdock plant. George was inspired by how the hooks on the ends of those spines dug into the fabric, making them hard to remove. His discovery led to the creation of a popular, fascinating system that we still used today,

Bill grow for two brothers in nineteen seventy two in Greenland. However, their discovery was less lucrative, yet what they found was a breakthrough for archaeologists and scientists all over the world. Hants and Yakum were on a grouse hunt when they came upon two strange piles of stones. The stones had been arranged to cover two deep holes. Their curiosity peaked, the men started moving some of the rocks out of the way. Within minutes, they realized what they had on

earthed a grave site. They put the stones back the way they had found them and called the police, assuming that they had stumbled into a crime scene. The authorities, though took one look at the bodies and knew that they were not the final resting places of recent murder victims. These bodies in each grave were old, very old. Director of the Greenland National Museum, Against Rossing, eventually saw pictures of the graves and put together a team to exhume

the bodies several years later. The area had at one time been home to an Inuit population that left hundreds of years earlier. Rossing dated the remains to be around five hundred years old. In one grave, his team found three women buried on top of each other. In the other, they uncovered six women arranged in a similar fashion on top of the women. They also found the body of a young boy and the remains of a six month

old baby. The clothes the corpses had been buried in were made of animal skins, like those of reindeer and seal. In total, seventy eight items of clothing were removed from the graves, but there was something unique about them as well as the people wearing them. Due to the frigid Arctic climate and the frozen ground, everything had been in peccably well preserved. There was fur on the coats and skin on the people's bones. They had hair on the tops of their heads as well as on their eyebrows.

Even their tattoos were still visible. Inside, their organs were still intact, and scientists were able to determine the last thing they had eaten. In short, the bodies had been freeze dried, turning them into mummies. As for their clothing, the bodies had been bundled up as though they were being prepared for a wilderness expedition to their people. Even after someone had died, it was expected that they would

continue to hunt. On the other side, it was believed that the baby had been buried alive with its mother in order to spare it a troubled life of starvation. It's impossible to know the social situation this took place in, but knowing how difficult life was so long ago, perhaps there simply was no one else to bear the burden of one more mouth to feed. Instead, the Inuit of the Kilicate Socks Settlement chose to send their child into

the afterlife with its mother. Near the first grave site, archaeologist unearthed more bodies, as well as remnants of the homes they lived in. It was a discovery that shed new light on the ancient native population that used to live there. Sadly, the mummies were not placed back in their original tombs after the examination, but in two thousand seven a d n A test proved that the six

women and two young children were all directly related. Today they can be seen at the National Museum in Greenland, where they continue to draw quite a crowd. Now that's what i'd call a family reunion. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works.

I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.