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National Geographic Ancient Graves Voices of the Dead
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Ashes to ashes. |
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Dust to dust. |
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Death always gets the final word - |
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Sworn to eternal silence, |
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Yet to some scientists, |
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"When I look at a mummy, |
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Through the lens of modern science, |
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the grave has become |
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Today we can learn intimate details |
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about how the Ancients lived- |
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"...that's really, that's, that's |
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the strangulation |
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Bit by bit, their portraits emerge |
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"Bringing the people back to life, |
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The unearthing of the past reveals |
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But some see only the desecration |
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"They must be put back into |
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As the Living defend the Dead, |
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In truth, those who passed here |
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From fragile remains, |
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And as we hear them, |
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Listen now to the voices |
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This is the driest place on earth: |
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Life has found a foothold here: |
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but in the slender river valleys |
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that stretch across the desert |
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The city of Arica stands where |
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Countless generations of fishermen |
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and many families have deep roots. |
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Whenever ground is broken, |
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there's a good chance |
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The city's arid soil has yielded |
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to the delight of scientists |
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But physical anthropologist |
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now with the University of Nevada, |
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to a site where the water company |
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I remembered in 1983, |
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when the water company called us. |
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They said they had |
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so that really caught our interest. |
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"And we get called all the time, |
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and you never know |
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so that's also |
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You don't know |
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And this time it was quite |
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The shovels had exposed a plot |
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Some would be dated to |
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2,000 years older than the mummies |
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Eerie masks were sculpted |
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Wigs were glued |
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Bodies were completely made over- |
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paste and paint on the outside, |
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Men, women and children |
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Even this eight inch long fetus. |
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These elaborate mummies were created |
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They lived along the coast |
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and left little behind- |
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But from their bones and artifacts, |
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Arriaza has compiled a profile of |
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"The Chinchorro people were fishermen. |
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They fished from the rocks |
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They also collected shellfish |
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And they wove beautiful nets |
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Their clothing and ornaments |
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All their emphasis went into |
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Why would a simple people |
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into such elaborate creations? |
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Arriaza has a theory. |
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"Someone is being mummified, |
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it's a lot of energy investment, |
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Even the fetuses are fascinating. |
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Why? Because they have long hair, |
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That's conveying life. |
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"We tend to see our dead |
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We don't want to see the dead |
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no, you think, wow, |
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You want to see the dead |
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In the case of the Chinchorro, |
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they're seeing the dead |
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Virtual works of art, their mummies |
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They played an important role |
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The mummy was an honored emissary who |
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sending word to the ancestors, |
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The people rendered thanks |
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Mummification helped ease the loss |
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and strengthened bonds |
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It made the community whole again. |
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Such rituals may have quelled the |
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no less a mystery 7,000 years ago |
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One of the earliest expressions |
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death rites date back at least |
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Even the Neanderthals buried |
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beneath a blanket of flowers. |
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Every culture on earth |
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to bid a final farewell to the dead. |
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Some consign the body to |
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Others ensure the release |
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In today's crowded world, |
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the practice of cremation is on the |
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We even send our dead into space. |
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For about the cost of |
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a company in Texas will load |
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After orbiting for several years, |
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the ashes eventually fall into |
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like a tiny shooting star. |
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It's a fitting twenty- |
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but would have been unthinkable |
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in one of the greatest civilizations |
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The ancient Egyptians believed |
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Without it, |
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in the next world |
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To prevent decay, the bodies of |
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and reduced to the consistency |
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Everyone wanted to be mummified. |
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There may have been cut-rate |
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first-class treatment for the rich. |
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Even animals were mummified, |
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to accompany the dead |
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Over some thirty centuries, |
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But countless were also destroyed. |
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Almost from the moment they were sealed, |
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the Pyramids and nearly |
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appointed tomb were ransacked |
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Kings or commoners, bodies were |
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Things got worse when Europe |
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By the 12th century, |
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they were imported by the ton |
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in potions purported to cure |
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In 1798, Napoleon's campaign |
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Over the next century, |
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both in laboratories |
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The supply seemed endless. |
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Mummies made |
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In the 19th century, |
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to power their steam boilers. |
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Our fascination with mummies continued |
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"Is it dead or alive? |
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You'll know. You'll see. |
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You'll feel the awful, |
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that stands your hair on end |
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The Mummy!" |
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Today, Egypt's mummies are treated |
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Science now has the tools to explore |
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"Take this side off right here." |
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Researchers can coax clues |
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from the tiniest samples |
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Egyptologist Bob Brier, |
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of Long Island University, |
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But just how a mummy became a mummy |
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"The party line |
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'Oh we know how they did it, |
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they removed the internal organs. |
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We know pretty much how they did it.' |
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But there's no papyrus |
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The Egyptians never wrote down |
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It was a secret, |
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A brief description was recorded by |
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For Brier, |
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I started to do |
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trying to just imagine exactly |
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At some point I realized, |
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the only way we'll ever really |
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In 1994, Brier set about to perform |
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style mummification |
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In Cairo, he tracked down |
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mentioned by Herodotus, |
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He would also need special equipment. |
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"We had to have replica tools |
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made of all the instruments |
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So for example, |
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an obsidian blade flaked by somebody |
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who knew how to do this. |
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We had to have a silversmith |
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just like ancient Egyptian |
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"Not since the time of Sneferu |
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Now I'm a little bigger than |
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Copying ancient designs, |
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for the elevation of the corpse |
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"And I'll tell you, |
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but it's not good for the living." |
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With his colleague Ronald Wade, at the |
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Brier would mummify a man |
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"There were quite a few surprises |
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along the way |
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One was in removing the brain. |
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Everybody always thought that |
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you kind of pull the brain out |
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at least that's how |
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We tried it, |
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"What we figured out, |
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they inserted a long hook |
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using it like a whisk. |
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And then broke down the brain until- |
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it was almost like |
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and then turned the cadaver |
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That's how they did it." |
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Internal organs were removed through an |
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sharp as any modern scalpel. |
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Then the body was covered with |
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a naturally occurring salt, |
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Internal organs |
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Left in place for about a month, |
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the natron was supposed to leach |
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For Brier, |
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"What would we get? |
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Or would it need another 3,000 years |
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before it looked like the things |
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"One of the things |
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was when we took the natron off, |
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A striking demonstration |
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the body would shrink from more than |
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"What are the oils in it, Bob?" |
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"The oils are frankincense, myrrh oil, |
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There are five that I got." |
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Brier anointed the body with oils |
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then began wrapping. |
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"Nice and tight." |
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Accurate to the last detail, |
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he used more than a hundred yards |
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inscribed with Egyptian spells. |
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Internal organs were placed |
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created by local college students. |
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"It's been perfumed |
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and we place it inside the jar." |
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"A lot of people don't realize |
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not to get the mummy, |
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And the project isn't over. |
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Our mummy, it seems, |
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is what we say, dead and well. |
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He's been at room temperature |
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no signs of decay, it's stable. |
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So we think we did it right. |
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But he's still being used |
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We get requests for tissue samples, |
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from people doing studies |
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This is the only mummy in the world |
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for which we know exactly |
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It's the only, so to speak, |
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ancient Egyptian mummy that |
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So it's an important mummy." |
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If only in the annals of science, |
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a fate the Egyptians |
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The quest for eternal life |
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just in a different form. |
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Cryonics involves freezing the body |
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immediately after death. |
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Practitioners have faith |
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will have the know-how to revive them. |
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The sad truth is the human body- |
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plus a few basic chemicals- |
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Exposed in warm weather, |
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a corpse could be reduced to |
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Underground, or underwater, the |
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Bone may last from months |
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But when conditions are just right, |
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In northwest China, near the route |
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the searing sands have yielded |
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more than a hundred heat- |
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Surprisingly, they have |
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and date back |
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Many must have lived |
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before the opening of |
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Scholars had long been puzzled |
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describing figures of great height, |
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Cave paintings in the region lent |
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but the discovery of the mummies adds |
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Their existence suggests |
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much earlier than previously believed. |
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The bogs of northern Europe |
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among them the "boogie-man." |
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Two thousand years ago, |
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were an entrance to |
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They tossed in tribute |
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and other strange sacrifices. |
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Bogs are filled with |
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acidic water low in oxygen |
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the same chemicals |
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Over time, this brew converts |
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long harvested as a heating fuel. |
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It also works wonders on bodies. |
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More than a thousand "bog mummies" |
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most are some 2,000 years old. |
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Often, their bones are dissolved, |
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into a supple leather that retains |
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Many bog mummies bear signs |
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slit throat, strangulation, |
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Many scholars believe they were |
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by early farming communities. |
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They were plunged into the bog, |
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More than 2,500 years ago, |
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were home to a nomadic people |
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They lived by the horse, |
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and moved great herds across the land |
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Horses were their measure |
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The Pazyryk buried their dead in |
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In 1993, Russian archeologists |
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First, they found the remains of |
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Surely, they thought, this must be |
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The coffin itself was |
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To everyone's surprise, |
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her features gone, |
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Tattoos of mythical creatures |
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Was she a Priestess? Warrior? Healer? |
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Her identity eludes us, |
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but she provides a new image of women |
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On the west coast of Greenland, |
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a rocky cove once harbored |
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home to a people called the Inuit. |
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Some five hundred years ago, |
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and eight bodies were laid |
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Cause of death remains a mystery. |
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But these freeze? dried mummies, |
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rank as one of the most spectacular |
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from the arctic region. |
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The frozen heights of the Andes |
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Five hundred years ago, |
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and worshiped the mountains as gods. |
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Traces of their sacred sites are |
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For nearly two decades, |
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has sought out the high altitude |
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But in September 1995, |
| 00:25:01 |
with a different goal in mind. |
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"Ampato's been a peak |
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It's always stood out there and people |
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and haven't seen much |
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"And the idea was just to get |
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that was erupting nearby, |
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never really thinking we'd find |
| 00:25:21 |
Now the reason for that is is that |
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without a permanent |
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The eruption had showered |
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Even at more than 20,000 feet, |
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When my assistant, Miguel Zarate, |
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I was taking some notes when |
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all of a sudden, |
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And I looked and, sure enough, it was |
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that there were feathers |
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They adorned three Inca figurines |
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"We were still looking down the slope |
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and very quickly saw this bundle, |
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I asked Miguel to pick it up |
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And as he did, all of a sudden |
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we were looking into the face |
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Mummified by the cold, |
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on the mountaintop |
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When her rocky tomb collapsed, |
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But her body was |
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even the blood in her veins |
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Scientists estimate she was twelve |
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Never before had |
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of an Inca noble woman |
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She is probably |
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ever discovered in the Americas. |
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In May 1996, the Maiden is flown, |
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to Johns Hopkins University |
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A state-of-the-art CAT scanner |
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produces a detailed three-dimensional |
| 00:27:27 |
Her strong bones and teeth, |
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speak volumes about |
| 00:27:38 |
It's a stunning sight for the man |
| 00:27:42 |
Then Johan Reinhard learns |
| 00:27:46 |
A fatal two-inch fracture |
| 00:27:50 |
"You can see it pretty nicely |
| 00:27:53 |
would it, would it make sense |
| 00:27:57 |
"Absolutely, that's, that's really |
| 00:28:00 |
the strangulation and blows |
| 00:28:02 |
were, were common ways |
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We just didn't see it." |
| 00:28:06 |
"I kept having visions of what |
| 00:28:12 |
with the volcano and snowfall |
| 00:28:15 |
And seeing this modern machinery |
| 00:28:18 |
and you could look at the screen |
| 00:28:23 |
It was just amazing, |
| 00:28:35 |
To the Inca, human sacrifice |
| 00:28:38 |
an act of gratitude when the gods |
| 00:28:41 |
a desperate plea |
| 00:28:45 |
Archeologists now know |
| 00:28:49 |
during a long-term volcanic eruption. |
| 00:29:00 |
The cataclysm could have had |
| 00:29:04 |
Daily showers of hot ash. |
| 00:29:07 |
Air thick with smoke. |
| 00:29:09 |
Water sources poisoned. |
| 00:29:11 |
Crops and livestock decimated. |
| 00:29:17 |
A circle of priests |
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to the highest reaches |
| 00:29:22 |
It was a grueling climb that took days. |
| 00:29:29 |
She alone shouldered the fate |
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To be thus chosen was a great honor. |
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In exchange for her life, |
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and a place among the gods. |
| 00:29:55 |
Soon after she died, |
| 00:29:58 |
and the snows returned to Ampato, |
| 00:30:01 |
sealing the Maiden in ice |
| 00:30:07 |
Even now, she serves her people well. |
| 00:30:11 |
"She's providing us |
| 00:30:16 |
that I hope that we are |
| 00:30:20 |
by deepening our respect |
| 00:30:23 |
and understanding for the culture |
| 00:30:27 |
and the Inca civilization |
| 00:30:36 |
Across the globe, |
| 00:30:39 |
yields a messenger from the past. |
| 00:30:43 |
The Alps seem impenetrable |
| 00:30:46 |
But for millennia, |
| 00:30:49 |
have hiked their mountain passes. |
| 00:30:52 |
Today's trekkers are mostly tourists. |
| 00:30:55 |
Every year, millions enjoy the alpine |
| 00:31:01 |
In the fall of 1991, |
| 00:31:07 |
On September 19th, |
| 00:31:08 |
a couple of hikers stray from a marked |
| 00:31:13 |
Instead, in a melting glacier |
| 00:31:17 |
they spot something that stops them |
| 00:31:31 |
Four days later, |
| 00:31:34 |
an Austrian forensic team arrives. |
| 00:31:37 |
This is not an uncommon sight |
| 00:31:40 |
The frozen bodies of mountaineers |
| 00:31:44 |
after they perish among the peaks. |
| 00:31:51 |
But this body is so deeply icebound |
| 00:31:56 |
and ski pole from a passing hiker. |
| 00:32:07 |
Somewhat puzzling |
| 00:32:10 |
pulled from the slush around the body. |
| 00:32:12 |
Not to mention the strange artifacts. |
| 00:32:18 |
Team members conclude this body |
| 00:32:23 |
They turn it over to experts |
| 00:32:31 |
Still wearing a strange shoe |
| 00:32:35 |
it's the body of |
| 00:32:38 |
shriveled but virtually intact. |
| 00:32:41 |
Teeth show heavy wear. |
| 00:32:46 |
Simple blue tattoos |
| 00:32:54 |
Seventy objects were found |
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A quiver of animal skin |
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A leather waist pouch, |
| 00:33:08 |
Bits of leather and grass rope. |
| 00:33:11 |
A flint dagger. |
| 00:33:16 |
Most telling, an axe |
| 00:33:22 |
To archeologists, |
| 00:33:25 |
suggests its owner |
| 00:33:29 |
It was not the final word. |
| 00:33:32 |
Skin, bone and grass samples |
| 00:33:34 |
are sent to four eminent European |
| 00:33:44 |
All four conclude the Iceman |
| 00:33:50 |
which makes him the oldest |
| 00:33:56 |
Almost immediately, word gets out. |
| 00:34:02 |
The University of Innsbruck is overrun, |
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and a humble man from the Copper Age |
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Few archeological discoveries have |
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Nicknamed after the Otztal Alps, |
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"Otzi" provides endless inspiration |
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Who was he? How did he die? |
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We may never know. |
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But his body and artifacts |
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of a lifestyle practiced |
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X-rays speak of lifelong |
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broken ribs, heavily worn joints, |
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In his left foot |
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With an endoscope, |
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scientists remove a sample |
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and found remnants of meat and grain- |
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His lungs made a startling sight, |
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by hours spent near open fires, |
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Clinging to tatters of |
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grains of primitive wheat suggest |
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he had passed through a farming |
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Found frozen in the snow |
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a sloe berry also helped pinpoint |
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the fruit ripens in early autumn. |
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At the discovery site, now determined |
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researchers sifted through |
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After days of melting and filtering, |
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they recovered part |
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Another fragment, |
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held hairs that fell from |
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Chemical analysis would show the hair |
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the kind that are airborne |
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Not an unusual finding- |
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or an assistant to one. |
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Finally, every last inch |
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became digital information, |
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This "virtual Iceman" |
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without risking the fragile, |
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It also provides a ghostly |
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as he resurrects a traveler |
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Something drives him |
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He may be a renegade on the run. |
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He knows the mountains well, |
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Perhaps he has no choice |
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He climbs higher than the trees, |
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beyond hope of any kindling to build |
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In the lee of a rocky ridge, |
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he'll lay down his belongings |
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He knows that with sleep |
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But his senses are already numbed. |
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His lonely death deprived him |
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But this everyday man, |
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has helped write a new chapter |
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In southwest England, |
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Somerset is a region of limestone |
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Home to some 3,000 people, |
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not just for its namesake cheese, |
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but for a series of spectacular caves |
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Some 9,000 years ago, |
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and left one of their dead |
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Today a replica of "Cheddar Man" |
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He lived before the age of farming, |
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The oldest complete skeleton |
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it seems Cheddar Man died of |
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In 1996, a fragment |
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by scientists at Oxford University. |
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The ancient bone |
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A tiny fraction of Cheddar Man's |
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A local television producer |
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any of Cheddar Man's descendants |
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The high school became involved |
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Students from local families |
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Why are those two unpopular |
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History teacher Adrian Targett, |
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himself a native of |
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helped coordinate the volunteers. |
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A simple cheek swab was all it took |
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to collect the necessary cells |
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To make up an even twenty, |
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At Oxford University, |
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Within weeks, results were in. |
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"On the basis of what we've got here, |
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which would mean that they had |
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So, who do we match this up with? |
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"Number 12." |
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"Number 12, so who's number 12?" |
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On a Friday afternoon, the volunteers |
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"You're all agog, no doubt, |
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Who is related to the cave man |
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What would it feel like |
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Because it's probably going to be |
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all over the world that there is |
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to this person found in the cave. |
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Think you could stand the publicity |
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Yes? So, who is it? |
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"Thank you very much!" |
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"This is the man that's |
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"I'm overwhelmed!" |
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"How do you feel about that?" |
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"A bit surprised! I was just about, |
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"Adrian, what was your instant |
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you had this amazing line |
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"Well, it was a great shock, |
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that was why I had been put in next to |
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The study of "dead DNA"? |
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for unraveling relationships |
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It can help illuminate patterns of |
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or family ties among rulers |
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DNA gave this man the oldest |
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But there's more to it |
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It's essentially about our roots |
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and I think, at heart, most people |
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where they come from, and of course |
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The goal of archeology is |
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Much of what we know about |
| 00:43:52 |
comes from the excavation |
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This work has shed light |
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But it has also disturbed |
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In recent years, the collecting |
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have become more controversial, |
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demand a new respect |
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The conflict is especially heated |
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In the last century, countless Indian |
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Today, museums and institutes |
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house the remains of |
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In 1927, this thousand-year-old |
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was opened to the public. |
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The Dickson Mounds Museum |
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But in the 1980s, |
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Native Americans registered complaints |
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By the 1990s, |
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"...in our own land. |
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So this movement, |
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is said to be first |
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To political activist |
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of the Ojibwa tribe, |
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the burial display |
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"We practice our spiritual |
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We still have our language, |
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and many of us who follow |
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of our grandfathers and grandmothers, |
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when we see our burial sites being |
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desecrated and the physical remains |
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who are in an open burial pit |
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We decided to take |
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In 1991, Bellecourt and four |
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from the museum for attempting |
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One year later, museum officials |
| 00:46:32 |
and completely covered it with earth. |
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Under a law passed in 1990, |
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have begun to return Indian remains |
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Native peoples |
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Africa and elsewhere are calling |
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Across time and space, |
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in the most surprising ways. |
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In 1991, a British housewife purchased |
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near her home |
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Since childhood, |
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by Native American culture. |
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Her new book included a 1920s essay |
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who visited London- |
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It was the story of Chief Long Wolf. |
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Legend has it, he was a seasoned Sioux |
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Documents suggest he was one of |
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released by the US Government |
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In 1892, Cody's Wild West Show |
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Chief Long Wolf, at age 59, |
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In London, the show was applauded |
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But Long Wolf developed pneumonia. |
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As he lay dying, |
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he asked his wife to take his body |
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But on June 13th, he was buried, |
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in London's Brompton Cemetery. |
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His wife and child returned home. |
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In time, his gravesite was forgotten. |
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The chief's final wish |
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"I had the book for |
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I put the book back |
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but eventually I had to take it down |
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'I'll have to do something about this |
| 00:49:12 |
Some 35,000 gravestones rise |
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On May 1, 1992, Elizabeth |
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until she found the weathered wolf. |
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"I made a vow to try and help him. |
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To try and find his family, because I |
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Half a world away, in Tempe, Arizona, |
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A retired mechanic, John Black Feather |
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not far from the site of Wounded Knee. |
| 00:49:58 |
John had always known his great |
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but he had no idea exactly where. |
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"I've been hearing about Long Wolf |
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My mother always talked about |
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we didn't know how to go |
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That's like looking for |
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In 1992, |
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John's wife spotted a newspaper |
| 00:50:29 |
Elizabeth Knight's letter |
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marked the beginning of four years |
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"Maybe you should writer her, a letter |
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"I always knew that |
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I never thought I'd be involved with |
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September 25th, 1997. |
| 00:50:59 |
The Black Feather family come to |
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"It's not a sad day for us. |
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It's, it's, it's gonna be like |
| 00:51:13 |
when we get him back to South Dakota." |
| 00:51:17 |
For Elizabeth Knight it is a day |
| 00:51:30 |
"This is a moment of resolution, |
| 00:51:35 |
"It was the most extraordinary day |
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And I'm sure Long Wolf's spirit |
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On September 28th, 1997, |
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in a small cemetery in Wolf Creek, |
| 00:52:19 |
His descendants reenact |
| 00:52:23 |
this gesture of love beyond death. |
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More than anything else, |
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We all stand on the shoulders |
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We walk in their footsteps. |
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We live on their graves. |
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Each time we speak their names, |
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perhaps they do live again. |
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To be remembered, and nothing more. |
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That alone may be the secret |
