Original subtitles

[narrator] How can this corroded scrap of metal

change the history of a continent?

[Ben] As soon as it's identified, wow.

[Kevin] It's the real deal.

[narrator] Why can't we translate

this 3,000-year-old relic

of a lost civilization?

[Tamar] The Phaistos Disc

is one of the greatest mysteries

of the Bronze Age.

[narrator] And is this dead woman's face

the most kissed in history?

[Mark Benecke] She became what we would today call

an it girl.

[narrator] These are the most remarkable

and mysterious objects on Earth,

hidden away in museums, laboratories,

and storage rooms.

Now, new research and technology

can get under their skin like never before.

We can rebuild them, pull them apart,

and zoom in to reveal the unbelievable,

the ancient, and the truly bizarre.

These are the world's strangest things.

[theme music playing]

[narrator] In a display case

in the Maine State Museum in Augusta

sits a tiny scrap of metal

that helped rewrite history,

because it is unlike anything ever found

in the United States.

Now, the latest imaging technology

reveals it in astonishing detail.

The Maine penny.

Despite being less than an inch across

with chipped and corroded metal,

the Maine penny is one of the most

famous coins in the world,

because it's not a penny,

and it's not from Maine.

Strangely, barely visible markings on it

reveals something incredible.

Vikings.

[Ben] All of a sudden this is Viking archaeology

in North America.

How did it get there and what meaning did it have?

[narrator] It flies in the face of accepted history

at the time of the coin's find.

American schoolchildren were being taught

that Columbus had discovered America.

[narrator] So how does a Viking coin

end up in Maine?

Is it genuine or an elaborate hoax?

Now, new research settles this question

once and for all.

[suspenseful music playing]

[narrator] This strange story begins at Naskeag Point,

an isolated site on the coast of Maine.

[Kevin] In the summer of 1957,

an amateur archaeologist

by the name of Guy Mellgren and a friend

set out to investigate a Native American midden

or trash heap.

[narrator] They unearthed thousands of finds

left by the indigenous people

a millennia ago.

[Kevin] And amongst Native American tools

and bone debris

was a single remarkable eroded silver coin.

[narrator] But coins have no place

on a site like this.

[Ben] A thousand years ago,

indigenous American groups

weren't using coinage.

[narrator] So what exactly is it?

[Kevin] Mellgren shows it to a friend of his,

who thinks it's a medieval English coin.

Perhaps it came over with some

of the earliest settlers to New England.

[narrator] Mellgren puts the coin on a shelf

and forgets about it

for nearly two decades.

[Ben] And it sits in his house until 1974

when it makes its way to the museum.

[narrator] A local paper publishes

a short article about it,

and that's when this object

becomes one of history's strangest.

[dramatic music playing]

[Kevin] English coin expert, Peter Seaby

sees an article on it, sees the coin, and realizes

it is a very rare Viking coin

of Olaf the Peaceful.

[narrator] This is an original Olaf the Peaceful coin.

The similarities are undeniable.

Experts date it as early as 1067.

And that changes everything.

[Ben] When it's considered to be a British penny,

there's no real mystery as to how

that might have turned up on an archeological site.

But as soon as this is identified

to King Olaf the Peaceful,

wow, all of a sudden, this is Viking archaeology

in North America.

[narrator] Somehow a tiny piece of Viking history

has been transported across the Atlantic to America,

and ended up in a thousand-year-old

trash heap on the coast of Maine.

And that is huge.

American schoolchildren were being taught

that Columbus had discovered America.

The idea that there were somehow Vikings

in contact with Native Americans

500 years before Columbus was big news.

[narrator] Extraordinary claims

require extraordinary proof.

So where is the evidence to back this up?

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] The idea that Vikings

might have got to North America first

isn't news to Scandinavians.

They know of the great Viking tales contained

in the Icelandic sagas.

In particular, the story of legendary explorer,

Leif Erikson.

[Kevin] Leif Erikson heard a tale

from a shipwreck mariner

who had been carried by currents

near a land to the west of Greenland,

which he noted was covered with trees.

This enticed Erikson,

so he set out with one well-laden

and equipped boat.

[narrator] According to the sagas,

Erikson reaches a new land he names Vinland.

[Kevin] When historians saw his descriptions

of this country

and the people he encountered,

they thought there's only one place that this can be.

This must be somewhere in North America.

Very possibly Newfoundland.

[Ben] If there's any truth to those stories

and those sagas,

then it really does mean that the Vikings

have made landfall in the North...

On the North American continent

much earlier than anybody else

from a European perspective.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] Could this incredible object

really a proof of that?

It certainly isn't the first Viking artifact

to turn up in the States.

[dramatic music playing]

[Kevin] In 1898,

there was the Kensington Runestone in Minnesota.

[narrator] The runes translation

records a voyage by eight Goths

and twenty-two Norwegians

to Vinland in 1362

that encounters hostile locals.

This seems to fit more or less

with the Icelandic sagas.

And there are other finds too.

[Kevin] In Ontario, there was a Viking sword,

axe, and shield found.

And there are also various

bits of writing on stones

which people attributed

to being Viking runes.

[narrator] North America seems to be littered

with evidence that the Vikings

were there before Columbus.

[Kevin] The problem is that none of these

were in fact authentic.

The Kensington Runestone

is now known to have been a forgery.

The axes and shields, likewise.

[narrator] So why all the Viking fakes.

The Kensington Runestone may hold the answer.

If you look at the name of the man

who discovered it, Olof Ohman,

you'll have a clue.

These objects were found by people

of Scandinavian descent

who were combating a negative image.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] Scandinavian immigrants to the US

had often been taunted and belittled.

[Kevin] So if these immigrants could prove

that it wasn't the Italian,

Columbus, who discovered the New World

but instead, effectively,

a Scandinavian, Leif Erikson,

this would be greatly to their credit.

[narrator] And that makes the discovery

of the Maine penny particularly suspicious

because Mellgren, the man who finds it,

is of Swedish descent himself.

So is this strange artifact just another hoax?

[dramatic music playing]

[theme music playing]

[narrator] Could the Maine penny

be just another in a long line

of Viking hoaxes?

One thing that isn't in doubt

is the coins origins

in 11th century Norway.

[Ben] The coin is definitely authentic.

It's definitely a coin of King Olaf the Peaceful.

But the big question then is

how can we know that this coin

comes from an archaeological context?

[narrator] Or, more bluntly, did Mellgren plant it?

[Kevin] So Mellgren, himself of Swedish descent,

has both a motive and an opportunity

to plant this find.

[narrator] To pull off a hoax,

Mellgren would need the right coin,

but by the late 1950s,

that is relatively easy.

[Kevin] In 1879, a hoard of more than 2,000 such coins

had come to light.

So the coins themselves

were easy enough to find.

[narrator] Could Mellgren have got hold

of a real coin to plant?

Now, brand-new research

claims to have finally answered this question.

[Kevin] The Swedish coin expert, Von Goldbeck,

decided to take on the enormous task

of tracing every known coin find

of Olaf the Peaceful.

[narrator] Goldbeck tracks down

more than 2,300 coins

to find out if any could have made it

into Mellgren's hands.

It's an enormous piece of research

that takes over a decade to complete.

The result after exhaustive study

is that no Olaf the Peaceful coins

were unaccounted for.

[narrator] Additionally, unlike the Maine penny,

all other Olaf the Peaceful coins

are in very good condition.

[Kevin] The Maine penny is very heavily corroded.

And that's hard to fake.

This is a process that goes on

across the centuries.

[narrator] The Maine State Museum

analyzes the chemistry

of these layers of corrosion.

The results support

the object's authenticity.

[Ben] There's evidence that water sat around the coin.

It's been sat in slowly moving water

for a very long period of time,

and this would be supportive of the fact

that it's been buried for a long period of time.

There's no doubt that the Maine penny

is the real deal.

[narrator] Mellgren did not plant the Maine penny.

In which case, how did it find its way

to a Native American settlement

a thousand years ago?

In 1960,

three years after Mellgren discovers the Maine penny,

Norwegian archaeologist, Anne Stine Ingstad,

and her husband, Helge,

are investigating a site at L'Anse aux Meadows

in Newfoundland.

Locals describe it as an old Indian camp,

but it's something far stranger.

[dramatic music playing]

[Kevin] They find the basis of turf structures.

One large hall.

Also a blacksmith's workshop.

They find remnants of Viking boat sheds.

So this is definitive proof

that the Vikings were the first Europeans

to come to America.

[narrator] The Icelandic sagas are true.

Vikings really do reach North America

500 years before Columbus.

[thunder rumbles]

[narrator] It's a revelation,

but it doesn't explain the coin's discovery

750 miles farther south,

because not a single scrap of evidence ever

turns up to suggest the Vikings reached

anywhere near this far down.

So how does a Viking coin end up in Maine?

[dramatic music playing]

[Kevin] Renewed professional excavations at Naskeag Point

have not found any other traces

of Norse artifacts.

But what they have found

are stone tools and stone raw materials

coming from as far away as Labrador,

hundreds of miles to the north.

So there's evidence here for trade,

for the movement of goods

and also the movement of people

over really quite significant distances.

[narrator] Despite the fact that it has no value

to the indigenous people as a coin,

one feature may explain

why and how they carry it south.

Although, it has since crumbled away,

when Mellgren finds the coin,

it has a hole in it.

[Kevin] It's been perforated,

which would indicate that it was being used

as an object of decoration.

Perhaps worn around the neck or around the wrist.

But the important thing is

that this object was not being used as a coin.

[narrator] So it's likely local people

transport the coin from Newfoundland

all the way to Maine.

This remarkable object was created a millennia ago

on the far side of a stormy ocean.

Like the finds at L'Anse aux Meadows,

it proves that Columbus

isn't the first European in North America.

The Vikings beat him to it

500 years earlier.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] In a museum in Crete,

sits a strangely-marked clay disc

that has sparked over

a century of controversy.

Some say it is one of the most astonishing texts ever found,

a 3,000-year-old cryptic message

from an ancient civilization.

Others claim it's just too good to be true.

Now, using the latest imaging technology,

we're bringing it into the light.

This is the Phaistos Disc,

measuring roughly half an inch thick

and six inches in diameter,

made from fire-baked clay.

Its two sides are covered with inscriptions

made using a technology

thousands of years ahead of it time,

this disc is unique.

[Mark Altaweel] It's the only object that we know of

that looks like that.

[narrator] There are 242 strange symbols

from Mohican-haired men to twisted figures,

birds, fish, and other cryptic shapes.

The Phaistos Disc is one of the greatest mysteries

of the Bronze Age.

And we've not been able to decode it yet.

[narrator] But, now,

after more than a century of debate,

new research may have made the first steps

to revealing its secrets.

So what do these bizarre symbols mean?

What is the disc for?

Is it genuine?

[dramatic music playing]

[theme music playing]

[narrator] The mystery of the Phaistos Disc

begins on the Island of Crete in Greece.

A place steeped in mythological stories

of a lost civilization called The Minoans.

Ancient legends tell the story of their ruler,

King Minos.

Beneath his palace, he builds a vast labyrinth

to imprison a fearsome beast called the Minotaur.

[Mark Altaweel] The Minotaur was this terrifying

half-man half-bull creature.

And it was kind of the scourge of anyone

who came to visit Minos.

They would basically be eaten by this Minotaur.

[narrator] The creature and the civilization behind it

were considered little more than ancient Greek legends.

A lot of people thought it was mythology.

That perhaps they were just kind of mythical people.

[narrator] But in 1900,

near the north coast of the island,

British archeologist, Arthur Evans,

makes a discovery that changes everything,

the ruins of a vast Minoan palace

4,000 years old.

[Mark Altaweel] It's a major deal for archeologists.

This is the first time we discovered

that they're actually a real civilization.

They're not just some made-up mythology.

[Tamar] It transformed our understanding

of what Mediterranean civilization

were capable of at this time.

[narrator] The site is called Knossos.

And it has intriguing links to the ancient legends.

[Mark Altaweel] When Arthur Evans began

excavation at Knossos,

he notices there are a lot of bull symbols.

He understood that, "Hey, this is may be a place

associated with the Minotaur story."

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] It is a previously unknown

and extraordinarily sophisticated

ancient civilization.

It existed at a time when the crowning achievement

of most other European societies

is building wooden huts and stone circles.

But there is more to come.

In 1908, Italian archeologist, Luigi Pernier,

excavates a second Minoan palace complex

on the south of the island.

It is called Phaistos.

One evening, Pernier's foreman

happens on a small clay disc laying the ruins.

The bizarre symbols covering its surface

are unlike anything Pernier has ever seen.

But this disc is exceptional in every way.

[dramatic music playing]

Normally, such tablets for writing

would have been formed out of wet clay.

And then when they were rather hard,

they would have been written upon

and simply left to dry in the sun.

The disc was very different.

This disc, first of all, was baked.

So rather than sun dried, it was actually fired.

[narrator] It is the only Minoan clay tablet ever found

that's been fired in a kiln.

And that's just the start,

because there's something remarkable

about the symbols on it.

Most writing at this time was inscribed into the clay.

But the symbols on the Phaistos Disc

have been stamped.

The fact that it was impressed by a stamp

has also been considered a unique discovery.

And some archeologists have, in fact,

called this perhaps the oldest

or first evidence of a type of printing press.

[narrator] There is literally nothing else like it

in the ancient world.

[Kevin] Given the care that was taken in it.

The degree of its... of its firing,

all of these things mean that this was a special object

which was view as worthy

of special treatment and preservation.

[narrator] What could have been worth all this effort?

Could the answer lie in decoding

these strange symbols?

[dramatic music playing]

[Mark Altaweel] For over a hundred years now,

people have been trying to decipher

what exactly is on that disc.

There have been a number of interpretations.

It could have been an ancient game perhaps.

A kind of backgammon or something like that.

Another interpretation is it's used

for some kind of astronomical or astrological purposes.

[narrator] But one obvious theory

has gained more traction among experts than any other.

[Mark Altaweel] More likely it's some kind of language.

Whether it's a localized language

or a slightly more widespread language is debatable,

but it seems to be something meant to be read

or, at least, perhaps even announced to an audience.

[narrator] But experts couldn't even agree

which direction they should read

this language in.

[Abigail] Archeologists initially thought

that you started from the inside of the disc

and read kind of in a swirl pattern,

coming out to the outer edges.

But then when they looked more closely at the symbols,

they seem to get more crowded and difficult

as you move from the outer rim inside.

So scholars now think that it's more likely

that it was read working from the outside in.

[narrator] But what does it actually say?

There are 242 impressions on the disc

using 45 unique symbols.

Most alphabets have far fewer symbols

than the Phaistos Disc.

So experts think it's probably not an alphabet.

But it has too few symbols and too many repetitions

to be a pictographic script,

where one symbol can represent an entire word,

such as Egyptian hieroglyphics

or Babylonian cuneiform.

Instead, experts suspect the Phaistos script

is what's known as a syllabary

in which symbols represents syllables

such as do, re, mi.

Syllabaries fit well with the number of symbols

on the disc,

and we already know another Minoan script uses them.

But a century of intense effort by experts

has failed to get any further with its meaning.

Now, after years of analysis,

Gareth Owens, a British linguistic scholar,

claims to have solved at least part of the riddle.

[Abigail] What Owens has done

is try and find a parallel text.

Something else that either

has a similar function

or has a similar type of text,

going through, looking for other examples

in other languages is a kind of natural process.

[narrator] Owens has matched a sequence of symbols

on the disc with a pattern of symbols

on Minoan religious artifacts

believed to be a prayer.

He has also identified

another pattern of symbols on the disc

repeated three times like a chant,

which is similar to an older Cretan symbol pattern

meaning "Mother Goddess".

His theory, the disc is a prayer

to the Mother Goddess.

This would fit quite well of what we know.

The Mother Goddess was very important to Minoan society,

so having some kind of dedication of prayer to her

seems to be logical.

We do see some repetition in this disc

like you would do in a prayer.

And the fact that it's baked clay seems to indicate

that it's a high valued item.

And so having a religious reason

as to why you have this disc, I think it makes a lot sense.

[narrator] But the problem

with every theory about the disc

is that nothing quite like it has ever been found.

The strange symbols,

the use of stamps thousands of years

before anyone else,

the fact that it's the only kiln-fired tablet

the Minoans ever produced,

it seems out of place and out of time.

But there is one explosive theory

that could answer every question

about this mysterious object.

[theme music playing]

[narrator] The Phaistos Disc

is a unique ancient relic,

and that worries some experts.

[Kevin] The uniqueness of this object is...

As is often the case with unique objects,

rings a lot of alarm bells.

[Abigail] We would expect to find more

of these objects,

because if someone had made the stamp

and have the set, then we would think,

particularly something that is made in clay,

which a relatively durable material,

that we would have more of these surviving.

[narrator] Establishing its age is also troublesome.

The disc itself has not been directly dated,

but as it was found near a tablet

made between 1700 and 1600 BCE,

archeologists have assumed

it's the same age.

But the issue is clouded

by the unusual circumstances of its discovery.

It wasn't actually found

by a professional archeologist.

It was in an area which had been previously excavated

and was spotted by a foreman doing their rounds.

[narrator] So is it the real deal

or did someone plant it?

Suspicion has fallen on one person in particular

at Phaistos.

Site director, Luigi Pernier,

has a strong motive to conjure up a fake.

[Kevin] What was being found to the north at Knossos

by Arthur Evans was quite sensational,

the supposed throne of King Minos.

Phaistos, by comparison,

is a relatively humble palatial complex

which had,

up to the find of the Phaistos Disc,

provided nothing really sensational

for the media at the time

or to the credit of Luigi Pernier.

[narrator] The disc definitely puts Pernier's Phaistos site

on the map.

It raises his archeological profile immensely.

And that's not the only detail

that casts a shadow over Pernier.

[Kevin] Pernier was also responsible

for antiquities in Florence, in Italy,

and the museum there.

And in its collections

was a remarkable Etruscan disc

known as the Milano Disc.

The disc is circular.

There is a set of symbols engraved

in a helical or spiral shape

which looks uncannily similar

to the Phaistos Disc.

[narrator] Pernier has means, motive, opportunity,

and even inspiration.

Cased closed?

Nothing about this unique object

is that simple.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] Decades after the disc's discovery,

another relic turns up.

[Mark Altaweel] In 1934, an axe was found.

This bronze axe actually had symbology

that were very similar to what was found on the disc.

[narrator] It is known as the Arkalochori Axe.

Running down the center of the axe

are a series of unusual symbols.

Some appear strangely similar to symbols

on the Phaistos Disc.

A plant, a T shape,

a Y-shaped stick-like symbol,

and, most striking of all,

a man with spiky hair.

[Mark Altaweel] So that supports the argument

that this was an authentic disc.

That these kinds of symbols were symbols

that would have been known to at least somebody

from this region.

[Kevin] The question is, how would Pernier

have known if he was faking the disc

to make symbols which had not yet officially

been archeologically discovered.

This might attest

to the authenticity of the disc.

[narrator] So fake or not fake?

[Mark Altaweel] I think it's real.

I think the symbology that has been found

subsequent to this disc,

the fact that it's very similar to it,

and at a time of discovery,

were not known symbols

indicates to me that it's real.

[narrator] Others are less certain.

[Kevin] The Phaistos Disc is one of those rare

enigmatic objects that it is very difficult

to make an absolute judgment about.

[Abigail] What I've often found is

when we call something a fake,

sometimes that is largely because

we can't understand what it was used for.

I don't see clear signs that it's a fake.

And I would certainly like to believe

that it's real.

[narrator] Controversy about the disc's authenticity

has raged for a hundred years.

It shows no signs of being settled anytime soon.

[suspenseful music playing]

[narrator] On display in an old workshop in Paris

is the death mask of a drowned girl.

Some claim this is the most

kissed face in history.

[Mark Benecke] She inspired people, poets, music, dance,

and she was really well known.

[narrator] And she is said to have saved

over two million lives.

Now, using the latest imaging technology,

we're bringing this mysterious mask

into the light.

Every feature immortalized in plaster

in exceptional detail,

the serene expression,

the eyelids lightly closed,

and that strange enigmatic smile.

This mask appears again and again

in museums and private collections

across the world.

But the woman behind it is shrouded in mystery.

Who is she?

How did she die?

Why is she so famous?

[theme music playing]

[suspenseful music playing]

[narrator] Who is the mysterious girl

behind this famous death mask?

Her macabre story begins in Paris

in the mid-19th century.

It is a sightseer's paradise.

You can climb the 422 steps

of Notre-Dame's towers,

meander through the halls of the Louvre,

or marvel at the newly-built Arc de Triomphe.

But one of the biggest crowd-pullers

is the Paris morgue.

[ominous music playing]

[Mark Benecke] They were lining up and queuing

to see which people were put on display.

There were street vendors.

Like today when there's something entertaining

taking place.

So it was just, you know,

fashionable for normal people

to go and watch the corpses.

[narrator] In theory, this is done to aid

in the identification of the dead,

but it quickly becomes

a grisly form of entertainment.

[Ruth] This is a show in the middle of Paris

that's free to enter,

'cause they want everybody to come and have a look

to identify the bodies,

in which naked dead people are laid out in front of you.

So I think you have to imagine

the sort of social thing that's going on here.

We're looking at a sort of mixture

of titillation and thrill.

[narrator] Out of this macabre world

appears this mysterious face.

[Mark Benecke] The story goes that a drowned woman

was found in the River Seine.

Nobody claimed the body

so it was brought to the morgue.

Since there were no signs of violence on her body,

people thought that she probably killed herself

by drowning.

[narrator] Her flawless complexion suggests

she is around 16 years old.

Her hairstyle fits that of a peasant girl.

Despite being displayed to the public,

it seems no one steps forward

to identify the drowned girl.

But she catches someone's eye.

One of the morgue staff

decided that the face was calm and interesting,

and the person was captivated and decided

to build a plaster cast.

And everybody who went in could also see the mask.

[narrator] In an era before photography,

it isn't uncommon for morgue attendants

to take plaster casts

before the faces deteriorate too much to identify.

But how does this one become

one of the most famous death masks of all time?

[ominous music playing]

[narrator] Making casts of a dead person's face

sounds macabre today,

but it wasn't always like that.

Two thousand years ago in Rome,

they are a family affair.

[Abigail] The Greek historian, Polybius,

in the 2nd-century BC,

wrote about these things called imagines maiorum.

These are the wax masks

that Romans would make after someone died.

The idea would be that at every funeral,

they would get these masks out

and wear them as a part of the funerary procession,

as a way of remembering

not just the one person being buried

but making sure that the entire family was present.

Kind of exciting, but also a bit creepy.

[narrator] But as far as we know,

no family comes to identify

and preserve the mask of this young woman.

Yet she achieves immortality.

She is not the first death mask

to become famous.

Although others were rather better known in life.

Oliver Cromwell, the 17th-century general

who overthrew the English monarchy,

Ludwig van Beethoven,

one of the most revered composers

of the Western world,

and scientist, Sir Isaac Newton,

the man who discovered gravity.

These are all historical celebrities.

And for the most famous celebrity death mask of all,

you have to look to Egypt

almost three and a half thousand years ago

to the death mask of a king no less,

Tutankhamun.

[Rebecca] The ancient Egyptians believed

that your ba or your soul

would go into the afterlife.

And in order to identify its body,

so soul and body can be reunited,

it needed to have something really visual,

really clear to identify your body as you.

Tutankhamun's very famous death mask

is a really, really good example of that.

[narrator] But this young girl is no royal.

She doesn't produce great works of art

or make world-changing scientific breakthroughs.

She is the total opposite.

Completely unknown.

So why does her death mask become so famous?

It may just be a question of right time, right place.

In Europe during the Victorian era,

masks become a key part of an obsession with death.

They are keepsake reminders of our mortality

known as memento mori.

[Ruth] Death masks were normal way

of dealing with death.

People have them about themselves,

have them in their houses,

used them as little reminders

of the sweetness of life,

as well as the shortness of life.

Like we might keep a photograph

of somebody who's passed away,

you might keep a death mask

of your child that you've lost.

[narrator] In this culture, the plaster mask

of the drowned girl from the Paris morgue

finds a receptive audience.

She becomes known as L'Inconnue de la Seine,

the unknown woman of the Seine.

[Mark Benecke] At the beginning

of the 20th-century,

the mask of L'Inconnue de la Seine

was relatively widespread.

[narrator] Thousands of copies of her death mask are made.

Her enigmatic features capture the imagination

of novelists and poets.

Famous French philosopher, Albert Camus,

even compares her smile to the Mona Lisa.

[Mark Benecke] L'Inconnue de la Seine became

what we would today call an it girl.

She was known.

She inspired people, poets, music, dance.

[narrator] But how does a dead it girl

become the most kissed face in the world?

[theme music playing]

[ominous music playing]

[narrator] How does the death mask of an unknown girl

become the most kissed face in history?

The answer to this mystery begins

with the search for a way to preserve life.

When L'Inconnue's body is fished out of the Seine,

resuscitation is still in its infancy,

and there are some pretty bizarre methods.

[Ruth] People are looking at many different ways

that you might help stimulate a person

to bring them back.

One is to whip them all over with stinging nettles.

That that sort of would get the blood moving

all over the body and therefore perhaps

trigger something into action.

[Mark Benecke] Maybe they could resuscitate people

by putting you over a trotting horse

or putting hot ashes on your skin.

A method that sounds surprising

is to blow tobacco fumes

inside of the anus of a person

that you try to resurrect.

[Ruth] You'd make up a really strong concoction

infused with tobacco

and then you'd introduce it at the other end

and hope that that would also stimulate

and excite the whole bodily system,

jerk it back into life.

[narrator] Unsurprisingly, none of these methods

really help.

So how does this face become part of the solution?

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] It isn't until the 1950s

and the work of an Austrian anesthesiologist

that modern medicine really gets to grips

with resuscitation.

[Mark Benecke] Peter Safar came up with the idea

that you could resuscitate a person correctly.

For example, by putting the head

a little bit to the back,

giving mouth-to-mouth,

applying chest compression

to get the heart started again.

So he invented CPR.

[narrator] Safar reasons that if everyone

learns these techniques,

more lives will be saved.

To do that, he needs a realistic training model

for people to practice on.

But no such model exists... yet.

[dramatic music playing]

In 1959, Dr. Safar goes to a toymaker,

a Norwegian toymaker of his acquaintance,

Asmund Laerdal.

And Asmund has a lot of experience using PVC,

a brand-new material, but he thinks

that this might be the way forward.

And between them, they come up with a mannequin

which mimics the basic usage

of a pair of lungs within a person.

Nearing the end of the process,

Laerdal has his doll

but it hasn't got a face at the moment.

So where on Earth is he gonna get one of those?

[narrator] Laerdal wants a passive,

nonthreatening face.

[Ruth] Well, luckily at this moment,

he goes and visits his in-laws.

And there on the wall

is hanging L'Inconnue de la Seine.

Perfect.

Absolutely perfect.

[Mark Benecke] And this is why we have the face

of L'Inconnue de la Seine on the CPR mannequin.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] And the unknown girl

finally gets a name.

Resusci Anne.

It's estimated she has been used to train

more than five hundred million people worldwide

and saved as many as two and a half million lives.

A girl who drowned in the Seine

more than 150 years ago

has become the most kissed face in history.

But there's one last twist to the story

of L'Inconnue de la Seine.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] Her drowned face is famously picture perfect,

and that's a problem.

[Mark Benecke] When you die in water

and your body is resting or laying in water

for an amount of time,

then your skin starts to slip

or you get marbling which means

you have bacteria in your veins.

And since you don't see that on the death mask,

some people thought that maybe she was not dead.

[narrator] And that's not the only unexplained thing

about her.

[Mark Benecke] One thing that is mentioned often

is that when you look at the eyeballs,

the eyeballs are not perfectly round.

[narrator] When your eyes are shut,

the lens underneath creates

a slight bump in the eyelid.

Some have suggested that this bump is not circular

on L'Inconnue's face

as though the eyes were moving

while the plaster was setting.

So is this really the face of a dead woman

or is she just a fiction

built around an artist's model?

We'll probably never know for sure.