Original subtitles

Is this 5000 year old bullet a

murder weapon it could cause enormous damage

this bizarre invention served

as a Victorian

Viagra with the electric

powder maker chain you become the

epitome of

masculinity and what is this

ancient Egyptian cat mummy all about the

shell is empty there is no cat

in it fascinating mysterious

objects long hidden in museums,

laboratories and

archives, now we can use the latest

technology to reveal their secrets,

we can recreate them,

disassemble and enlarge them,

revealing forgotten, hidden and bizarre things. These are the strangest

things in the

[music]

world

a

stone object thousands of

years ago it was made from dark rock

it is beautiful and aesthetic

almost like a

work of art the ball puzzles archaeologists

it must have a function

research has been speculating for a very long time

but we still don't know what it is

[music]

is the most modern technology,

the horse-like object can now be

examined down to the smallest detail. This is the T

Ball. Archaeologists have been researching

the purpose of the elaborately

decorated

stone ball for more than 160 years. The ball is made of stone,

weighs around 500 g and is about the size

of a ball

Baseball has four bulges,

three of which are decorated with concentric circles

and spirals. A

remarkable

object. You might think that the ball is

a unique product of chance, but

it is

not. We have now found more than 500

such balls. They are of

different sizes and

made of different rocks but

similar enough to count them in the same

category

the to ball is particularly elaborate and

detailed,

who

shaped it for what purpose and

[music]

when around 1860 workers discovered the to

ball while digging a drainage ditch

in the Scottish village of taui, hence

the name

Almost all comparable stone balls

were found in Scotland,

they have been discovered in various

places around 20 on the Oris, two

in England and Ireland and one in

Norway but most were

found in north-east Scotland which suggests

that they are probably

Scottish artefacts -

there are two Groups on the

one hand with a few large bulges

like the

T and on the other hand those with

small humps or elevations that

look like a T with

thorns but it is the T that is the

most elaborately decorated of all the

archaeologists particularly

captivating

but that is not possible with this individual object In

2013, more than 150 years

after the ball was found,

archaeologists found a way to

date it. During excavations at the Ness on

Brod, a stone ball was found

under a

wooden pillar They were

intentionally buried there,

carbon dating showed

2900

BC. The stone balls and thus also

the T ball are around 5000 years old, so

they come from the

[Music]

Neolithic Age. The Stone Age began around

10,000 years ago in the Near East and China,

where people developed new

techniques for growing crops Until

then they were hunters and

gatherers it is the beginning of

agriculture and sedentary

life this time also brought with

it a technical revolution, especially

when it came to the production of polished stone

artifacts and the increasingly

elaborate decoration of objects

during the Neolithic Age changed

the lives of the people People dramatic and

lasting Neolithic literally means

New Stone Age Stone was the most important

tool and material that people

used back then. Stone is used and can be found

in almost every

environment, our image of people in the

Neolithic, especially on stone

remains, to make such stone balls is

needed Time and

craftsmanship that suggests that they

play an important role in Neolithic life but

what are the balls for

[music]

at that time a theory was that they were intended to

demonstrate the skills of the stonemason, so the balls were

like small samples of work that craftsmen

could carry with them as proof of the

quality and versatility of their work

that would explain the elaborate

details that would basically be showing off

the balls

could have served as a stone work sample would

also explain the differences between the around

500 specimens discovered

or at least

not just around a dozen is as

elaborately manufactured as the TWI ball, so that's

not a satisfactory

explanation unless some of the balls were

simply not

finished, it was a lot of work to design them,

the less unusual ones are perhaps

ones where the stonemason

gave up in frustration or lost interest

But for some archaeologists,

this explanation can hardly be reconciled with the

finds.

The theory is not completely

absurd but not completely

convincing either. There is another

surprising explanation for the

possibility that it served as a

Stone Age

story book. Storytelling

has always been

important for humanity However, 5000 years ago in

Stone Age Great Britain there were

only oral

traditions. A theory states that

the T served as a kind of memory aid

and that the narrator

was guided through the story by placing his

fingers over the

or sewing them.

The Baluba are common in other cultures In Central Africa there is

a practical

memory aid: the so-called lcasa

or

memory board is made of wood and

carved large beads that serve as clues to be able to

retell epic stories,

but this theory has a flaw.

Only a few stone balls are really

detailed and even they

only fit into the

picture itself to a limited extent With elaborately designed

objects like the T, the patterns are too

repetitive and too simple to be used as a

memory aid.

Maybe the to is

n't about stories or art at all

but about

[music]

destruction. One theory is that

it could be a kind of weapon

that waves bullets

Hitting someone with about half a kilogram

hurts and leaves

injuries. The stone ball as a

temporal murder weapon. After all, there is increasing

evidence that things weren't exactly peaceful back then.

Neolithic graves have been

researched for more than 100 years, but it is only with the advent of

advanced osteoarchaeology that

we gradually get the idea after a picture

of how people died in the Neolithic Age,

armed conflicts apparently occurred more frequently

than

previously

thought, there was not always a

joy of peace,

pancakes, head injuries caused by weapons

often leave clear

[music]

fractures. Recently, when

examining 350 Neolithic

skulls from Great Britain, it was found

that up to 7 % showed traces of blunt

injuries

the advent of

agriculture made a

sedentary

life possible, many people settled in the same place

and, as human nature

is, this inevitably led to

hierarchies and ultimately to

conflicts - what kind of weapon could

the tall

possibly be? The balls

as

club heads with the help of the bulges

can be stringed or

wrapped with strings to attach them to a stick. They

become a club,

but why decorate a stone club

so elaborately?

There are other examples of

similar objects from that time, such as a

club head with a mouth

It is carefully decorated but there is something to be said against

this

theory. It consists of metamorphic

rock called

hornfels, when it hits something hard

and splinters in a similar way to

glass. With the help of the most modern 3D representation,

the to can be examined in great detail for the

smallest traces of breakage.

Such traces cannot be found

either on the T or on one In addition to the other

stone balls, weapons were

often placed in graves in the Neolithic period,

but the many other

stone balls come from a grave. There is

a lot that speaks against the fact that this is

a weapon. There is

another explanation that

justifies how elaborately the stone

was made Is it a message to the

gods? If you look closely, you will notice

that the decoration of these objects is similar to that

of religious cities

that were built at the same time. What

comes to

mind in particular is a burial mound in

Ireland that provides a religious

background for this stone ball.

Archaeologists are close to it I am convinced that the

symbols on the balls are closely linked to

religion and life in the

Neolithic Age, which tells

us about the beliefs

of the people in the Neolithic Age in

Europe, the winter solstice, the

equinox waters, offerings to

higher powers, there are traces of

rituals but it is difficult

To understand the overall picture and

to understand the full belief system but it

existed what is a

stonemason's tolwieitenkarte weapon

or stone age

story book

there are many possibilities and no

definitive answer perhaps we have to

accept that there are several plausible

explanations for the purpose of the

stone balls

the toall remains one unsolved,

beautiful mystery and a window into the

lives of our ancestors around 5,000

[Music]

years ago Antique collectors in the USA

find a strange metal device

from the 19th

century - one of the most

shocking medical devices

of all

time - with the help of the most modern technology,

we are now taking a close look at this bizarre device

The electric

powder maker chain was created as a

revolution in medicine.

The chain is made up of 120 perforated

metal links.

Each link consists of

a copper-coated zinc rod that is wrapped in

fabric soaked in vinegar.

The handles at the ends are made of

metal and wood.

The device looks high-quality and

professional people went crazy for

it thousands strapped these

things on

which is surprising since their function

is to

conduct 132 volts of electricity directly into the body similar to what

electrical outlets in the US

carry so you could

electrocute yourself why would anyone

willingly

do something like that Does the belt really produce

electricity and why people

electrocute themselves in the name of

health In the middle of the 19th century,

the British Empire is growing

rapidly The country is experiencing a real

explosion of innovations and

groundbreaking

inventions During this time the

pulvermacher chain is created Its inventor Isa

Pulvermacher is quite a mystery There

are none Photos of children from

Prussia in the 1850s,

Pulvermacher travels through Europe to

gain supporters for his project a portable cure for

almost every human ailment as he

says the electric chain belt for

self-treatment of nervous diseases

and chronic illnesses without

medication what a

name it should all be

cure liver problems, fatigue,

headaches, dizziness and exhaustion,

even sexual

disorders, all thanks to the magic of

electricity. At least

Pulvermacher claimed that the inner workings of the belt

reveal that it can definitely deliver electric shocks

is two different metals with a

conductive liquid like vinegar

between them generate

electricity that's simple physics so

every link in the belt becomes a

battery the nice thing about it is that with

the number of links the voltage also

increases

Pulvermacher offered different

models the one with 120 links

supplied whole ones 132

volts the inventor recommends various types of

application. The shock method

requires users to hold the metal handles with

wet hands and

hit the chain links together.

Each time they are touched, an electric shock goes through them. In

addition, there is a

metal PIN to electrically stimulate the mouth and ears

as well as an

interval device that is connected to the A belt

connected to the belt sends electrical shocks into the

region of the body to be treated.

Pulvermacher did

not develop the belt, but he did not develop the concept of

electrotherapy. Where does this extraordinary thing come from?

5,000 years before the

Victorian belt, people used

electricity for therapeutic purposes. The

ancient Egyptians treated migraines and

gout with the help of zitterwilsen From the 11th

century and around two and a half years ago,

the Greeks discovered the power of

amber. During an experiment, I found

that I put up the fur of cats when they smelled

amber on it.

With the help of animals, they discovered

the attractive effect of static

electricity, which is where the

name for electricity comes from Electron

is the Greek word for

amber. The ancient Greeks wrote about

the mysterious power that it has a healing

effect. They

treated people with it because

they believed they could remove pain from the

body.

The ancient Greeks are on to something.

Pulvermacher is right, it

seems a long way away From amber on a

cat's fur to pulvermacher's

medical

belt, electricity can

bring about miraculous healings. The idea of

electrotherapy finally became established in the 18th

century with the

search for a so-called life force,

a life substance, and after a

chance experiment with a

frog, the concept of vitalism goes

back to the ancient Egyptians the

question was what makes living beings alive

what force distinguishes the living

from the

dead an Italian researcher believes

he has found it Luigi

Galvani his experiment is

unusual he experimented with

electrifying machines and zzed

the frogs because

one of his assistants probably touched the

nerve on a frog's leg with a

scalpel that was statically charged and

the frog's leg twitched the incident showed

that electricity was somehow

connected to what

moved muscles Galvani is convinced he has

found the life force he calls it

animal electricity an energy that comes from

the tissue itself

when Galvani published his report

the whole world was

literally

electrified Galvani sees enormous medical potential in his

theory on

animal electricity

but it took more than the

twitch of a dead frog to convince the world

Galvani died in 1798 and

his research was continued by his nephew

and assistant Giovanni Aldini

Aldini carries the theories

his uncle into the world and provides

the inspiration for the

powder making chain with his work

he wants to prove that electricity

is the life force he carries out one of the

literally most shocking

experiments of the 19th century

[music]

he toured Europe with a voltaic

column and used it to

conduct electricity through dogs and sheep carcasses so that they

began to twitch. Then he decided to go one step

further and no longer just experiment on

animals

but on

people.

The most famous experiment took place in 1803 at the

Royal College of surgeons in London in

front of a large audience.

Aldini recently concluded the experiment Hanged murderer

George Foster connects his device to his device. He

directs 132 volts into the corpse of the

condemned man, who immediately begins to twitch.

The spectators were

murderers,

but he assured them that

the device could only

save other people, such as those who had

recently drowned.

Aldini's performance had been changed how

electricity is seen in the 19th century

Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, for example, is

directly inspired by the electrified George Foster

with his sensational reg

experiment Aldini demonstrates that the

nervous system controls a body with the help of

electricity

Muscles move thanks to

electrical signals that reach them via

nerve pathways Electricity is

vital but

There is no source of

electricity in a corpse. Although

no legendary life force can be

proven, electricity

is an essential element of life.

Aldini's experiment advanced further

research into electrotherapy. It was

assumed that

treating the human body with

direct current could cure all kinds of ailments

a true

panacea the world is ready for

electricity in medicine

electrootherapy is

born and the powder manufacturer chain is taking

advantage of this development

but it

actually works in the middle of the 19th century

electrotherapy is all the

rage in big cities like London and

Paris clinics opened that offer a

cure for all sorts of things through

direct current treatment,

but the miraculous

electrotherapy soon got out of

control, as is often the case with inventions,

especially when they are intended to

cure common ailments, it was soon

no longer only used by researchers and

doctors, but

people wanted to use it at home

Electrotherapy is possible thanks to another

novel invention: the

mail-order catalog. Mail-order catalogs were

basically the forerunners of today's online shops. If

you saw something you liked in this thick catalog,

you placed an order

and a while later it arrived

in the mail in this brave new

world Miracle cure from the

mail order catalog, the powder manufacturer chain was

a huge

hit, people wanted to believe that it

worked, that their baldness

or impotence was cured, it gave

them a good

feeling, the manufacturers can claim

whatever they

want, as today there were no

advertising guidelines, licenses or rules

for this

Market if someone is allowed to lie with impunity and

make a profit from it, it

inevitably leads to people lying and

making a profit from it and not only the powder makers

Electrotherapy takes advantage of the thin

legal situation in parts of America

three times as many quacks practice

as real doctors the success of

the

mail order catalogs theirs

Shops there were advertisements for soap

with cigarettes in it that were

supposed to cure asthma and cholera and even

advertisements with small children advertising

cocaine drops for toothache

[music]

The powder chain was riding on

this wave of

miracle cures and was also successful thanks to catchy

advertisements that were aimed at

femininity or masculinity That's

exactly what they did with the

electric chain. In the advertisements, you could see scantily

dressed, muscular men with the

chain around them and the

question to the viewer, men, why

are you

weak? The solution was, of course, to

order a powder maker chain and

become a prime example of masculinity yourself Not only Pulvermacher wants to

make money with electrotherapy, there were advertisements for electric

socks or cororsetts for all kinds of

electrotherapy devices that were supposed to cure all

ailments and ailments of the human

body.

Against this background, the

Pulvermacher chain was a huge success.

Pulvermacher moved production

primarily from London to

Cincinnati around the chain to market in America too

but there is a

significant catch with the

powder maker chain and many similar

devices the problem with all the

electrotherapy devices was that the

advertising promises were completely exaggerated

the idea that you could cure

constipation, headaches and impotence

with light electric shocks was

absurd of the sort absurd that ultimately

The US government becomes aware of this and

wants to put an end to the outrageous claims.

At the beginning of the 20th century,

the unregulated market for

electrotherapy miracle cures is under

attack and with it the

powder manufacturer chain. The government took action

against the false promises

surrounding these devices and the

post-regulated stricter something

Bought, sold and delivered by post

The US government points out a

clear defect in the chain It

has not been proven that it has a

healing effect

[music]

The market for

home electrotherapy devices collapsed

and with that the

electromedical powder manufacturer chain was

history too A little later in Europe,

stricter regulations come into force.

Soon it will be impossible to

sell an electromedical device whose

effectiveness has not been proven. It is the end

for the powder manufacturer chain. The

company goes

bankrupt. Electrotherapy is therefore

not just quackery, but

many quacks made their business

with it Today there are established

fields of application for electrotherapy, even

if it cannot cure everything.

Electrotherapy has its place in

the modern world. Tens devices, for example, are

used for chronic pain or pregnant women suffering from pain.

There are devices for muscle stimulation to

prevent atropine, for example in

coma patients, and perhaps

most importantly, electrical ones The device is the

defibrillator that

can make a heart beat again and

has saved countless lives. The powder-making chain

was pure quackery, but

electricity can

bring about medical miracles. This is how doctors

today sometimes actually manage to bring people who were believed to be dead

back

to life [Music] in the Penn Museum in Philadelphia

is a strange relic exhibited from

ancient Egypt

a small mummy the head of

this strange bundle of

linen cloths similar to that of a

cat Cats played

a big role in ancient Egypt it is only logical that

they mummified cats just like

people but something about this mummy

makes the researchers

wonder with the help of imaging

technology can now be shown in detail

what makes this artifact so

strange

it is almost 50 cm long has a

small round head ears eyes and a

nose the body is elongated with no

visible

limbs but that is not the

strange thing about this

artifact because this cat mummy is missing

something very

crucial There is no cat in it,

not even a few

bones. Where is the cat? Was it

removed or was there never? A

strange relic, a modern

fake or even a

historical one. Mummies have fascinated

people for hundreds of years and

especially in the 19th

century There's

a real

Egyptomania around the world, people can't

get enough of Egypt and its

mummies, people ascribe

magical powers and mythical properties to them,

but mummies are not intended as

exhibits.

In ancient Egypt, they were used to

preserve the deceased for the afterlife in the 19th century In the 19th century, it was

impossible for archaeologists to look inside the

mummies without destroying them. They had to be

damaged.

Some even organized

bizarre unwrapping

events. People paid a lot of money to

be part of such an event. At the

end of the 19th century,

Egyptologists relied on the new technology To

put an end to the destruction of mummies, even today we still reveal rays

hidden

under the

bandages. The whole thing is similar to a

virtual

autopsy. We can examine mummies in great detail

without

destroying them. The pen museum team also

uses rays to hide the cat mummy

to take a magnifying glass and

reveal its secrets,

the researchers want to

virtually uncover and examine the inside of the cat, but things turn

out

differently. They found that there was nothing

to see.

With the help of the most modern 3D representation, the

inside can be viewed in detail -

there is no cat inside

once a few

bones where is the

cat it is just a

fake this assumption is quite

plausible fake Egyptian

artifacts have a long

tradition on the art market there is

a huge sponge of fake

objects e.g. from the Egyptian

period mummies were also

faked in the Vatican Museums in

Rome had two mummies in their collection. In

2015, researchers examined them using

radiation CT and DNA

analysis. They determined that they were

fakes. They found

a mishmash of medieval

bones and a nail from the 19th

century.

The cat mummy could therefore be a

modern fake

But if you look closely,

their bandages have an authentic pattern.

They are wrapped crosswise in such a way that

a diamond pattern is created, which was very common in the

late period and especially in the

Greco-Roman period,

which suggests that it is a

real ancient Egyptian mumia

If the empty cat mummy

is real, then the cat was removed a long time ago

or there was never one in it,

it is simply a historical one of

a modern

[music]

fake. Experts are convinced that

the ancient Egyptians had good reasons to

make this mummy as if it were

one Cat

in it They are not based on a 2000-

year-old forgery.

The answer could be related to

why the ancient Egyptians made animal mummies.

Animals were assigned to individual gods.

By making an animal mummy,

people believed that they were capturing the

spiritual power of the deity

that was associated with the animal

For example, the falcon was assigned to the god Horus,

the baboon was assigned to the god dead and

the cat was assigned to the goddess Bastet, who was one of the

most revered deities in ancient

Egypt.

Egyptologists see that in most

animal mummies the

gods were mummified in order to offer them

as sacrifices to various gods

Not about life

after death, they were offerings to the

gods before the late period from which the

cat mum comes. They are bronze statues, the

common offerings to the gods, but as

the need for information increases, the costs

and effort become too great. Instead of statues,

animal mummies are now being used more and more often

Archaeological finds suggest that the

Egyptians made extensive use of them.

In the late period of ancient

Egypt, there were plenty of these

cats and animal mummies. Tens of

millions were made back then.

The number of animal mummies is

gigantic. In 2011, a team of

archaeologists discovered a network of catacombs in

Sakara, which was dedicated to the god Anubis, it is

estimated that

the remains of around 8 million

animals were found there, but at that time there were not

enough wild animals to meet this demand.

Egyptologists assume that

sacrificial animals were bred on this

scale, it is possible that at this time

Mass production of animal mummies

is there ever an empty specimen in between

to exclude gullible pilgrims

or is this

a common

practice in ancient Egypt? In the year 2000, researchers began

a long-term project to investigate this question

with astonishing

results. They subjected them to more than 00

compuogies and they only accounted for a third

of them Enthi complete

animal carcasses in another third,

parts of carcasses in the

remaining third were no

animal remains at all. So what is behind the

empty

cat mummy? Some researchers are of

the opinion that such empty mummies are

part of a larger

forger culture.

However, the counterfeiter

theory has a catch, although there is no

cat However, this object was

made in the same way that a real

mummy would have been

bandaged. The

face and head were

modeled like a real

mummy The amount of

effort and detail that looked like a real cat does

not fit with the theory of the

cheap

[music]

fake. The true background of the

strange artifact could be

provided by other animal mummies that the British

research team examined.

For example, they came across a

crocodile mummy with the

skulls of four adults inside of

four baby crocodiles were

extremely

strange what purpose could the

mummification of several animals

serve one explanation is that well-off

people bought such premium offerings

in the hope of getting on particularly good terms with the gods

Egyptologists see this as a possible

explanation for the empty

cat mummy perhaps it is the

counterpart to the luxury variant an

inexpensive

offering you get exactly what you

pay for if you only had a little money buy

an empty cat mummy that was still somewhat

herm but it served its

purpose in ancient Egypt the absence of the

cat's corpse was perhaps less of

a problem than one might think today

in the ancient

Egyptians' imagination Something that looked like a mummy was

perfectly adequate,

magically it served the

same purpose as a real mummy,

so it was okay to offer an

empty mummy as an offering to the gods. There

never seems to have been a cat in the mummy,

but that's what it does

not a counterfeit, the people who

bought it probably knew that it

was empty, it was an offering to the

gods just for the small

wallet