Dead Ringer

shape the future. And sometimes separate groups of people with entirely different goals can form a picture of history without even meaning to. This story dates back centuries and brings us to a place where past and future collide. Let's begin. In twenty eleven, underwater archaeologists from Texas State University splashed into the Caribbean Sea near Panama. Magnetic sensors had brought

them to this spot. They were looking for something special, a ship that once belonged to the notorious pirate Captain Henry Morgan. Over four hundred years earlier, Morgan sailed in to ransack Panama City, but a storm sent his ship to the seafloor before he and his crew could touch land. Now, the archaeologists hoped to find it, but the divers returned

with some curious news. There was a ship, but it was full of cargo, and this didn't make any sense if Captain Morgan would have arrived with empty holds to fill in his raid. The team investigated further and realized that this wasn't Morgan's ship at all. It belonged to Spain and it was known as the Incarnacion, which translates to the Incarnation, and it went down eleven years after

Morgan's shipwreck. The discovery of the Incarnacion was a big deal. Yes, it was full of loot for researchers to examine, which is an obvious win, especially since louters used to ransack ships when they sank, But ocean worms and bacteria would also degrade the wood. For these reasons, experts hardly know

anything about seventeenth century Spanish shipwrecks. This one, however, sank about forty feet below the water and its hull was buried in the sand, so it was more protected against these common threats, and because of this, when it was discovered in twenty eleven, it became the first Spanish shipwreck found in the Americas that contained cargo or an intact hull.

This set in motion a whole new line of research that is still ongoing today, and it's possible that whatever answers the Incarnacion provides could effect not just our understanding of the past, but the choices we make in the future, and those revelations may come about in surprising ways. In twenty thirteen, two years after they had stumbled upon the ship, the American dendro Chronology Conference was held in Tucson, Arizona. Like most people who hear the word for the first time,

you might be wondering what dendro chronology is. Luckily, for you, I have googled it. Dendro Chronology is the scientific method for dating tree rings. Dendro Chronologists can determine the exact year a tree ring was formed. This field of work relates closely to another called dendro climatology, which uses tree rings to study past and present climate. And if you're wondering, well,

what about future climate, You're not alone. Three scientists who attended that twenty thirteen conference wondered the same thing, especially when it comes to hurricanes, which are infamously dangerous and destructive. Being able to predict hurricanes could seriously improve emergency planning.

The scientists were Valerie Cherie, and associate professor at the University of Arizona Laboratory of Tree Ring Research, Marta Dominga's Delmasa, a dendro archaeologist from Spain, and great aunt Harley, a paleoclimatologist from the US. It all started when Grant mentioned some research that he'd been conducting on pine trees in Florida. The rings he observed there showed signs of serious trauma, but he couldn't tell what had caused it. He considered

a few possibilities until landing on a theory hurricanes. Hurricanes stunt the growth of trees, and their rings show that trauma. Even hundreds of years later, Grant had tree ring records from Florida dating back to seventeen oh seven that showed when hurricanes occurred, but the US government didn't start logging hurricanes in the Caribbean until eighteen fifty, so he didn't have enough supporting data to prove his theory. That's where

Marta and Valerie came in. As a dendro archaeologist, Marta can figure out when centuries old Spanish ships were built, ships like the Incarnacion. She told Grant that she had access to Spanish ship travel records that had been preserved since the seventeen hundreds. Grant, by the way, happens to be kind of a pirate nerd, so on that night

in twenty thirteen, he and Marta probably clicked. Then Valery suggested that they compare Grant's tree ring records to MARTA's shipwreck data, and between these two data sets and some other relevant ones, the team formed a yearly record of hurricanes in the Caribbean going all the way back to the year fifteen hundred. This helped Grant prove his theory about the Florida Pines, but that wasn't all the team discovered.

The data sets also showed fewer shipwrecks between sixteen forty five and seventeen fifteen, and those dates stuck out to Valerie as a natural scientist, they were extremely familiar dates to her. She realized that this was the exact timeframe of the Maunder Minimum, a well known period of very low visible sun spots. Basically, the Sun's radiation is not constant.

During the Maunder Minimum, its energy was lower, which meant cooler temperatures, cooler waters, and therefore Valerie realized probably fewer hurricanes. Fewer hurricanes would explain why there were fewer shipwrecks. And then Grant, pirate nerd that he is noticed yet another event that occurred almost simult paneously, the Golden Age of piracy. The team realized that the Golden Age of piracy likely

occurred because of the Mander Minimum. One of the most prolific pirates that that time was Captain Henry Morgan, and even though Morgan did lose some ships to hurricanes, he apparently got lucky. Valerie, Marta, and Grant published their findings, which have helped fine tune hurricane prediction models. As for the Texas State team, they're able to study the incarnacions would and the artifacts that carried to not only glean information about colonial society, but how the Gulf coastline has

changed over time. The Arizona team's discoveries could help uncover more of the Gulf's mysteries. There's no telling what else these teams might find, but I for one look forward to seeing how their revelations collide. When most of us hear the word mummy, our minds go to the Pyramids at Giza, the Nile River, and the Valley of the Kings.

But Egypt doesn't have a monopoly on mummies, and in fact, one of the world's most unique collections can be found almost four thousand miles from Cairo, in the basement of an old church in Dublin, Ireland. And when I say old, I mean really old. Saint Miken's was originally built in ten ninety five, when the area was occupied by the Vikings. The current structure dates back to sixteen eighty six. That's when the basement crypt was constructed and when it gained

its first occupants. And it's not difficult to see them. Just tell the groundskeeper that you're there to see the vaults. He'll lead you past the graveyard to a rusty old cellar door. Watch your head as you descend down the steep flight of stone steps, and you'll find yourself in a medieval crypt. The first thing you notice when you get down there is how dry and dark it is. The stone walls seem to close in around you. You can see why some people think it inspired Brahms Stoker

to write parts of Dracula. Several small rooms break off from the main corridor, each covered with iron bars. Look inside and you'll see old coffins haphazardly stacked on top of one another. Many of them are falling apart, giving

visitors an unobstructed view of the bodies inside. Now, the corpses in the crypt are old enough that they should be severely decayed, but for some reason, possibly a combination of the limestone walls, the dry air inside the crypt, and methane gas from the surrounding swamp soil, they're unusually

well preserved. Strangely, those same conditions are also causing the wood coffins to decompose, and this unusual combination has naturally created the macab viewing gallery that you find inside the crypt today, and it's also the only reason visitors are allowed to view the mummies at all. The Catholic Church doesn't typically go rooting around through its cemeteries in search of tourist attractions. To do so would be sacrilegious right not to mention, kind of dishonest to the people who

paid for those tombs. That's why this isn't really an official tour, and why Saint Miken's doesn't technically charge an entry fee. The only people who pay to be there are the mummies. A space in the crypt would not have been cheap too, so most of the occupants were probably wealthy. The fanciest coffins there belong to the Earls

of Leetram, several generations of them. In fact, there are also some famous Irish revolutionaries down there, including the Sheers brothers, who were executed in seventeen ninety eight for plotting against Britain. Their coffins are in decent condition, so you can't see their bodies. That's probably a good thing, though, considering that the brothers were killed by being drawn and quartered. Now, if you continue far enough down the crypt, you'll eventually

reach a room that contains the Big Four. These are the church's best preserved mummies. They stand in a line of lidless coffins, surrounded by the bone fragments and skulls of their neighbors. Their true identities are unknown, but the tour guides have affectionately given them names. First up is the Unknown. She is a female mummy of no noteworthy qualities, aside from having claimed the name long before the Willy

Wonka experience made it a meme. Next up is the Thief, a man whose hand and leg appeared to have been removed, suggesting that he may have been punished for stealing. The third figure is now a stand in. It used to be a small figure called the Nun, but her body was stolen from the crypt in twenty nineteen. She was eventually recovered, but her head was not. It's the fourth figure, however, that is the most visually arresting. The Crusader stood at six and a half feet tall, making him something of

a giant. When he was alive, he was so tall that his legs had to be broken before he could fit into his coffin, and he's significantly older than the other mummies too, dating back to the Fourth Crusades. That would make him about eight hundred years old, twice as old as the crypt itself. How he got down there is a mystery, but despite his age, he is in remarkable condition, and one of his hands seems to be

reaching out of the coffin toward the viewer. Some people say that he's offering to shake hands or beckoning visitors toward him personally, though I think he looks like he's waiting for you to give him something. Maybe he's there as a reminder that while Saint Miken's does it charge for the tour, donations are always appreciated. 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 Mankey 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 Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.