I am 80 years old and was a pupil at the Sir John Cass Foundation School from the age of five years to fifteen years. To celebrate Sir John’s death, each year on ‘Founders Day’, all the pupils of the school paraded from Duke’s Place to St Botolph’s Church, the boys wearing a red feather in their lapels and we girls wore the red feather in our berets. The reason for the red feather was, we were told, for the memory as to how Sir John died as we were told a blood vessel had burst from his head and stained the feather pen he was writing his Will. We were also each given a bun and an orange, which in the fifties after the war and the shortage of some foods, was a real treat. Sir John also ensured that poor children were given free uniforms. Also, we were told that during the 1665/6 Plague he escaped to Essex until it was safe to return. I vividly remember (although I’m not sure how old I was), some of us went on a visit to St Botolphs Church and were shown the mummified head of a man in a glass case). I cannot remember who we were told the head belonged to. We were told this man had been beheaded at The Tower of London. Absolute joy for gruesome children. I later heard this head was no longer in the church/on display. Future gruesome children would no longer have my experience
I do hope you get fully better soon Allan. I had tonsillitis several times as a child and it’s a miserable illness. The doctor said if I had it once more, I’d have to have my tonsils removed - strangely, I never got it again! 😂 My interest in the macabre field of human remains and burials is similar to yours and I really enjoy your exploration and explanation of such things. Thank you.
Thank you, I am feeling very much better today and am taking things easy. These macabre interests of mine are really a reflection on life - pondering on these things does help you think through the bigger picture.
This is fascinating. There are also some royal mummies of England like Edward I of England. It is common with several factors in play. Windsor Castle is built in a chalk mound in geology, with vaults with the assistance of embalming through the surface, cavity, artery, or needle treatment it is natural for royal mummy making. The chalk soil sucks up humidity and makes dry air, in the closed vault it makes the natural process of body desiccation. The funny thing is that besides natron salts the Ancient Egyptians used also crushed chalk to dry and suck up body liquids. Lead also can be one of the factors. Bishop Peder Winstrup is also a fine example of envorement-preserved body.
There's a second-hand bookshop near me that still manages to hang on. I love that place. Floor to ceiling books. Everything from out-of-print books to graphic novels.
It's a place called Books Galore in Erie, PA, USA. I don't know how they've managed to hold on when every other used bookstore in Erie has gone out of business.
I am fascinated by 'momento mori' graves, crypts etc. Have you visited the catacombs in Sicily. I went prior to the pandemic. An awe inspiring place...Glad your'e on the mend. I love your narration!
No I haven't, it is on my bucket list of places to visit one day. There is something very fascinating about the macabre , a natural part of living I think. Thanks for your kind words.
It is so weird to think our last moments, and our very last moments of life, can be frozen in time. Looking forward to the Cromwell video! I’ve got a huge fascination with Sir Thomas Fairfax, the parliamentary commander in chief. To have led the army to victory, then to be forgotten in favour of your general of cavalry.. That said, he was a humble man and wanted a quiet life, so perhaps it is pertinent that he is quietly in the shadows.
It is deeply bizarre - try not to dwell on it too much. I have seen Fairfax's tomb just outside York at Bilbrough. Next time I am up that way I will take some photos of it - it is a wonderful 'Restoration' style tomb - English Baroque.
@@allanbarton I do try not to. Can't help it sometimes. Curse of a morbid mind I suppose! I wanted to see it when we were there the other month but sadly, yet also thankfully, York was so amazing we only complete half our itinerary!
@@Bus_Driver_Jay there is so much to see in York it is difficult to pack everything in. I was very blessed to live there for six years and I still didn't see everything.
Quite telling of my own curiosity that I knew of 'The Duke of Suffolk' and old Jimmy Garlick already. Fascinating stuff. For a body to mummify spontaneously it, generally, needs to dry out faster than the digestive enzymes can cause decomposition. Extremely cold places and arid environments are prime places for this to happen - think the likes of Ötzi, and natural Egyptian mummies. A body in a crypt can dessicate and be preserved so long as there's factors at play to help dry it out. Airflow, space around it, and even the body being clothed can help wick moisture away and increase the chances of some of the soft tissue remains being preserved.
Thanks for the video. I miss old secondhand bookstores. I'm from Savannah, a very old city, at least for US standards (1733) and I used to rummage around those quite a bit. Now, I'm in Manila and they have something a bit similar, but nothing like the ambiance. Occasionally, they have a very large old book kiosk in the middle of a shopping mall, mostly American books. But it’s nothing like what I used to discover back home and those 19th century gems. Keep the videos coming. Cheers
So do I, I live in Lincoln which is a medieval city - it had lots of antiquarian bookshops when I was a kid, nothing left now. However, the plus side is that the internet has opened up so many formerly hidden treasures. Isn't nostalgia great!
I totally enjoy your videos, I love the tours of the different churches and about the Historical topics you have uploaded. Please keep up the great work. I love Medieval English History and all the other things you speak about. Maybe you can find out something for me. I have searched every book I could find on the History of the Tower of London I could get my hands on. Now being in a wheelchair. I thought surely I would find out the answer on the internet......but nothing. It concerns the White Tower, over the entrance into the white Tower on the very top floor there are six small arched windows, I have been trying to learn why two of these windows side by side have been bricked up. Could you possible find out why and then do a video if it is an interesting story behind it or maybe just mention why if you do one on the Tower. Please......curiosity is driving this old woman NUTS......lol.
It would be awesome if dna tests could be done on the three mummified remains as a means to hopefully identify them through any possible living dna relatives, such as cold case files are now being resolved.
DNA from the mummies of people who died 3 and 4 and 500 years ago would likely be a (distant) match with 10 million Brits. And although he has no direct descendants living, it's believed that between 50 and 75 million people in America and the UK can claim a genetic relationship with Henry VIII. The children of Prince William and Catherine Princess of Wales are Henry VIII’s 18 times great niece and nephews, But FWIW, in the 90's, Cheddar Man, a 10,500 year old skeleton found in a cave in the Cheddar Gorge (Somerset, England), was found to have a DNA connection (indicating a POSSIBLE relationship) with a local history teacher who lived less than 50 miles from the Cheddar Gorge
Glad you are feeling better Allan. Another informative exploration of uncovered remains that does show a somewhat dark fascination with the macabre. Excellent that you visited that second hand bookshop all those years ago. I live in a city that still has many second hand book shops but you would be very lucky to find antiquarian jewels like the one in your possession!
Yes, I have always had that fascination, I have no idea where it comes from. How lucky to live in a place with decent bookshops, I lament the loss of so many.
Now I've been through Petersfield and seen the shop and never stopped. It is good some are still going. It is a really interesting little book, I love these meandering explorations of the curious.
My grandfather's uncle was a memento mori photographer in Victorian/Edwardian England. Like his family, he was born in a Romani camp in Macedonia during the Ottoman Empire. Roma peoples were persecuted by the powers at that time and gramp's uncle moved to England in hopes of finding work. As a young man, he was apprenticed to a farrier, a cooper and finally a photographer. Photography was in it's infancy at that stage and very expensive. He went on to work at a studio and was commissioned for many portraits. I think the studio had the word "Sun" in it. Sadly, I have none of his work.
My husband happened to be in here with me when this video came on, and it made him muse about whether or not he should be buried in a biscuit tin. He said, "Maybe not my head, but my ashes." Also, the thought of people happening upon said biscuit tin brought funny thoughts of Brad Pitt in the last scene of the movie "SE7EN" yelling at a horrified Morgan Freeman, "WHAT'S IN THE BOX??? WHAT'S IN THE BOX???" Also, I'm supposing/hoping that the floor in that sexton's house produced a nice "Telltale Heart" scenario for him. Horrid man! Also, RIP used book stores: A rarified joy. Thank you for this fascinating video. Can't get enough of historical death oddities! Blessings to you from Our Lady of the Holy Biscuit Tin
The new 'burial' systems, such as the use of remains as fodder for trees, sound somehow less macabre and more responsible, at this point in time. The bizarre scenarios of this have my imagination working overtime. Skulls interwoven with budding branches, etc. Perfect post for Halloween approaching however,. well done !
Agreed, my academic and pastoral experience of these things has made me thing long and hard about such matters. The early modern obsession with the rich for sealed in burial in intramural vaults has led to this sort of macabre scene, the reverse of what they thought they were getting - a permanent placed of burial with dignity. My own burial wishes are very simple as a consequence of such reflection, after the burial service in church, I want to be taken to natural burial ground in the back of an ordinary vehicle, that will be followed by burial in a straightforward biodegradable container laid directly in the earth.
When I went on a tour of Herculaneum in 2015, our lecturer refused to let us go into the area where numerous casts of the unfortunates who were caught in the pyroclastic flow were on display. He said gawking at the effigies of their last agony diminished both their suffering and their lives as citizens of the town. I agreed with him after seeing the cast of the dog. That heart-wrenching image will haunt me the rest of my life. I don't even want to see Egyptian mummies anymore.
I think the evidence of the people and animals who were there is what makes it so fascinating and intriguing. We all must die, and anything that causes any one individual to be remembered for whatever reason and to bring the knowledge of that life forward to the future to instruct, intrigue, and inform future generations is the closest thing to the perpetual human yearning for "immortality" that is possible. The people whom we know about from the past are history's winners in a sense, no matter what they suffered. It is good to be able to feel empathy for the suffering of someone long ago. It's good for our own development and education. If we reduce history to merely a backdrop of photogenic buildings and pretty artifacts, we do a disservice to ourselves and also to the people of the past in whose footsteps we walk. I would much rather my pitiful remains be studied by eminent future scientists and historians, maybe even cause them to learn something applicable and of interest to their own era, than just disappear forever and be entirely forgotten, which is, of course the fate of very nearly all of us. So lets celebrate these time travellers fully and put aside our squeamish instinct to only look upon what is conveniently pretty and comforting. The whole point of memento mori is to challenge us to contemplate our own mortality and recognise that the conveyor belt that takes us to the grave is short and to make the most of life. I fell in love with history mostly because of Tutankhamun and I think the world is so greatly enriched, as I am myself, by his post mortem journey to 1922 and beyond.
Two ways of mummification. Intentional and accidental. These were obviously accidental. For that you need a low oxygen area that is dry and kept rather warm or cold for a long period of time. A body that is buried in a wood box under a building may suffice as to what liquids in the body can freely leak out and away from the body and thus the remains are preserved. Glad you are feeling better Allan . Love your channel.
That is really helpful thank you very much - am I right in thinking that a mummified body is more likely to have been buried in a simple wooden coffin than a lead case?
@@allanbarton A lead lined case allows for putrification and eventual decay but more slowly. Proper ones are vented on the top. Allows body gases to escape so you will get to bones. They are not sealed up completely. Some lead lining is done poorly and too thinly allowing moisture out while the lower half of the body turns to wet mess which eventually rots because of the air getting in too fast.
The Crypt as the Michaelerkirche in Vienna is well know for having mummies. I have visited it. It seems to be atmosphere. Perhaps the time of year. Coffins were often move, generally after 25 years with the bones being stored in niches in the walls. However if a corpse was mummified or partially mummified it had to remain in its coffin. There was a small chapel on a hill in Vienna that was being renovate - name escapes me at the moment - where the couple buried there were going to have their coffins removed and the bones in small boxes placed back in. Worked for the husband but not for the wife. She was in a rather good condition for a corpse buried for over 100+ years or more. This could be the time of year she was buried and the activity of insects who disposed of the flesh and organs of the dead. Given that the chapel at St. Michael's is consecrated you are not permitted to take photos of the mummies in now glass lidded coffins - definitely not Snow White storyline - as it is considered to be disrespectful to the dead. Interesting to note that a small bug from NZ - maybe it cam from wood or another import - got into the vaults and started to consume the mummies. The vaults are now cooled to I think from memory - I visited in 2019 - to under 21'C. This stops the bugs from breeding, thereby saving the mummies.. While waiting for a friend in the Middle of Vienna last week, I was roaming around Stephansdom and read about a small bug that was discovered - in the 90s or first decade of this century that only is found in the Cathedral and nowhere else.I am trying to find a reference to it but as I can't means I need to go back.
I miss old books shops. eBay is not the same. There are old books on sale online, but nothing compares to browsing real shelves. Thank you for another great video. Scientific testing could help with identifying those bodies. Testing preferably not handled under the auspices of a commercial TV channel. They favour rushed hardly scientific methods.
I’d love to visit that book shop. Can you give the details please? I’ve always been fascinated with mummies as well. It’s been a while since I’ve been to the British Museum but they had an excellent showcase of mummies. I spent many hours there!
Very interesting. I viewed" The Curious History of Oliver Cromwell's Corpse". Very well researched and interesting points. Thank you Tony Blea Serrano from Mobile, Alabama
I feel slightly embarrassed in being drawn to, and at the same time, repelled by this kind of subject. But not that repelled ( I hasten to add), because I keep on, & on, looking, lol! I suppose some might observe that I have a morbid interest in graveyards, churches, tombs and dead bodies, but I don’t see it that way. It’s a way of observing the past (in the most honest and direct way) the manner in which rich & poor people lived, and died - albeit viewed through a glass darkly, or a rather murky lens. Keep this work up please, I’m sure there are many of us who love this subject matter and those that don’t, well they can look away!
I agree with you completely on this - people had these preoccupations in the past, which is why monuments were erected. I think it is just a part of human nature to reflect on one's own mortality by thinking on the mortality of those in the past. Yes, those who don't like it are welcome not to watch.
At last I have found some kindred spirits . Since leaving London because of a ) Marriage . b ) Children . c ) Inability to afford a decent home . I feel starved of anything remotely like access to Museums , Theatre , Ballet and the sheer joy of watching the World go by . Living in my narrow minded provincial town it is rare to see people from other Countries and 99.9% of people are white . Including myself . Thank you 💕 for sharing.
@@silverwhistle Really ? Of course there are and I bow to your sarcasm and apparently superior knowledge of such things but the only galleries and museums near my home are a museum about brick making and wallpaper . The nearest City is over 60 miles away and because I'm 74yrs old and public transport means changing train's or driving ( two hours each way ) perhaps some kind person can give me a lift in their private helicopter .
idk what kind of brain worms you boomers have, but you don’t get brownies points from other races for complaining about your own people and family 😂 no other people do this but whites. I’m Native American but for god sakes get over yourself and have some couth. you don’t need to people watch other races just trying to live their lives, to sound cool and cultured. as the song goes, love the one you’re with
Really interesting - I'm so glad I found your channel. A small comment - it's Minn-ories, not Mine-ories. I used to work around there. Keep up the good work and I hope you feel better soon.
That is very fascinating, thank you. That is precisely how it would have been pronounced in the Middle Ages before the great vowel shift - Minoresses would have been Minn-oresses not Mine-oresses. It is interesting how old pronunciations are often preserved in place names.
I also spent my time at UCL/UCHMS between 1976-1981 visiting secondhand bookshops. I'm afraid I allowed myself £1 a week from my grant to buy science fiction! I fantasized for years after about giving up medicine and running such a bookshop. And talking of old books, Taylor's Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence has a section on natural mummification. Dehydration of the corpse is the key to preservation before the effects of bacterial degradation take hold. So a body with good air flow around it will mummify more often than one without.
So, have you heard about the mummies of the Netherlands? A place where the dry type of mummy simply should not exist considering the climate and soil conditions. But they do; in a remote town in the north called Wieuwerd (or Wiuwert in the Frisian language) 6 mummies can be seen, and they were discovered and were turned into a tourist destination as early as 1765. Bodies in the crypt of the church of Wieuwerd were naturally preserved, but we still don't know for sure why. Oh, and then there a few bog bodies too, of course.
@@allanbarton ahah. Thankyou! I should have googled that - it seems quite a distinguished landing place for him in the end. Although....the choice (who by?) of inscription still hints at a degree of continued *entertainment* value methinks?
Not an expert here "but" I believe dry conditions is the key. There is a TH-cam video of a little girl found in a "Fisk" coffin in the basement of a house here in the States. The video is call "Frozen in Time" by Forgot Faces. The little girl was so preserved that they said that her cheeks still had pink in them. These people had sawdust to dry the skin out and they may have had been so sick before they died they didn't eat or drink anything. The dryness of the area they we're buried has a lot to do with it as well of course. I think they try to be very careful with these bodies as some disease such as small pox. anthrax and some others can be reactivated by atmosphereic conditions. Enjoy your videos on this subject! Thanks for being it to us and hope to see more.
Gee....that mummified head could be that of Cromwell.....who did Henry VIII's bidding. The executioner apparently really botched the beheading of Cromwell, with someone else taking the axe and doing it properly. At least that is what I have read and heard on some videos over the years.
PS, See below. Have just remembered, we were also told that the mummified head came to be so and ended up in the church was because the head fell into a bucket of sawdust and was secreted away. True or not I know not, but it was a good story
What is this thing about a second-hand book shop? A shop? Yes got that, Second hand book, Lost me? A book which you need a second hand to hold it? O got it a shop which big books inside? Am I right or what? As you might have guessed I was top of my class at school,
Very interesting thank you. I was thinking of those catacombs where people were put and the elements naturally mummified their bodies. People can see them hanging displayed along the walls of the catacombs. I am pleased in a way that there are some examples of mummies who are not bog bodies in England. I may stand corrected but I dont think the wet and cold climate helps in this laspect. The DNA idea is good I have heard that the princely brothers remains may have DNA tests done on them. This will be very interesting as it will either prove or squash the stories about their tragic murders. I agree fully with your comment about people liking to see examples of the macabre. The aweful truth is that good news does not sell. Any media house would not survive if they only gave good news. Anything dreadful and tragic sells. At this very moment the Titan submersible and Titanic take centre stage and try as you might you cannot escape it. Another huge irritant which plagued me was the jubilee celebrations for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and her funeral. I had and still do have a great respect for this Monarch and I wanted to just see the celebrations of the jubilee and the events of the funeral showing dignity and honour to this great queen. However, the glory was stolen from her by the constant scandalous media about Prince Andrew, Harry and Meghan and the infernal Charles Dianna and Camilla story. So irritated was I that I did not bother to watch the coronation of King Charles III and I dont regret it at all.
Love second hand book stores! I could spend hours in one. I also read/majored in European History. Book stores definitely go with the territory!👍👍😄🐿️🦮🐕🦺🎃🎃❤️
I am 80 years old and was a pupil at the Sir John Cass Foundation School from the age of five years to fifteen years. To celebrate Sir John’s death, each year on ‘Founders Day’, all the pupils of the school paraded from Duke’s Place to St Botolph’s Church, the boys wearing a red feather in their lapels and we girls wore the red feather in our berets. The reason for the red feather was, we were told, for the memory as to how Sir John died as we were told a blood vessel had burst from his head and stained the feather pen he was writing his Will. We were also each given a bun and an orange, which in the fifties after the war and the shortage of some foods, was a real treat. Sir John also ensured that poor children were given free uniforms. Also, we were told that during the 1665/6 Plague he escaped to Essex until it was safe to return. I vividly remember (although I’m not sure how old I was), some of us went on a visit to St Botolphs Church and were shown the mummified head of a man in a glass case). I cannot remember who we were told the head belonged to. We were told this man had been beheaded at The Tower of London. Absolute joy for gruesome children. I later heard this head was no longer in the church/on display. Future gruesome children would no longer have my experience
@@dannetterousseau4095 💋
We in the Vintage and Antique community take pride in finding old books! Thank you for your sharing ♥️🐩
We are grateful for it - I did deal in antiquarian books on small scale for a while myself. It is much fun.
Aaaaah, old book shops. Breath in and enjoy. Another interesting presentation. Thanks
Very Fascinating. It really teach us about ourselves and and our perception of death.
It really does.
I do hope you get fully better soon Allan. I had tonsillitis several times as a child and it’s a miserable illness. The doctor said if I had it once more, I’d have to have my tonsils removed - strangely, I never got it again! 😂 My interest in the macabre field of human remains and burials is similar to yours and I really enjoy your exploration and explanation of such things. Thank you.
Thank you, I am feeling very much better today and am taking things easy. These macabre interests of mine are really a reflection on life - pondering on these things does help you think through the bigger picture.
@@allanbarton Indeed it does. It’s very grounding to see the path we all must take!
This is fascinating. There are also some royal mummies of England like Edward I of England. It is common with several factors in play. Windsor Castle is built in a chalk mound in geology, with vaults with the assistance of embalming through the surface, cavity, artery, or needle treatment it is natural for royal mummy making. The chalk soil sucks up humidity and makes dry air, in the closed vault it makes the natural process of body desiccation. The funny thing is that besides natron salts the Ancient Egyptians used also crushed chalk to dry and suck up body liquids. Lead also can be one of the factors. Bishop Peder Winstrup is also a fine example of envorement-preserved body.
There's a second-hand bookshop near me that still manages to hang on. I love that place. Floor to ceiling books. Everything from out-of-print books to graphic novels.
Ooo where is this, sound like heaven.
It's a place called Books Galore in Erie, PA, USA. I don't know how they've managed to hold on when every other used bookstore in Erie has gone out of business.
I'll take your voice in whatever form doing these videos. Many thanks Sir
I am fascinated by 'momento mori' graves, crypts etc. Have you visited the catacombs in Sicily. I went prior to the pandemic. An awe inspiring place...Glad your'e on the mend. I love your narration!
No I haven't, it is on my bucket list of places to visit one day. There is something very fascinating about the macabre , a natural part of living I think. Thanks for your kind words.
Just came across your channel and I’m so glad I did! Thanks for all the work😁
Welcome!! Thanks for your kind comments, keep coming back there is so much more to come.
It is so weird to think our last moments, and our very last moments of life, can be frozen in time.
Looking forward to the Cromwell video! I’ve got a huge fascination with Sir Thomas Fairfax, the parliamentary commander in chief. To have led the army to victory, then to be forgotten in favour of your general of cavalry..
That said, he was a humble man and wanted a quiet life, so perhaps it is pertinent that he is quietly in the shadows.
It is deeply bizarre - try not to dwell on it too much. I have seen Fairfax's tomb just outside York at Bilbrough. Next time I am up that way I will take some photos of it - it is a wonderful 'Restoration' style tomb - English Baroque.
@@allanbarton I do try not to. Can't help it sometimes. Curse of a morbid mind I suppose!
I wanted to see it when we were there the other month but sadly, yet also thankfully, York was so amazing we only complete half our itinerary!
@@Bus_Driver_Jay there is so much to see in York it is difficult to pack everything in. I was very blessed to live there for six years and I still didn't see everything.
@@allanbarton I’d love to move up that way, I must admit. All that history. The old churches. Just.. all of it!
What a wonderful video! I love your intricate information with your sense of whit! Thank you sooo much!🥰
I try to just rabbit on as I do in person really, or when I'm teaching - it is a bit of a revelation that you and others enjoy it. Thank you.
Quite telling of my own curiosity that I knew of 'The Duke of Suffolk' and old Jimmy Garlick already. Fascinating stuff.
For a body to mummify spontaneously it, generally, needs to dry out faster than the digestive enzymes can cause decomposition. Extremely cold places and arid environments are prime places for this to happen - think the likes of Ötzi, and natural Egyptian mummies. A body in a crypt can dessicate and be preserved so long as there's factors at play to help dry it out. Airflow, space around it, and even the body being clothed can help wick moisture away and increase the chances of some of the soft tissue remains being preserved.
Bog mummies also. Makes the environment anoxic iirc?
Another wonderful presentation! I found the book on eBay, so excited to read it (and for my 1st issue of Antiquary) Thank you
Thanks for the video. I miss old secondhand bookstores. I'm from Savannah, a very old city, at least for US standards (1733) and I used to rummage around those quite a bit. Now, I'm in Manila and they have something a bit similar, but nothing like the ambiance. Occasionally, they have a very large old book kiosk in the middle of a shopping mall, mostly American books. But it’s nothing like what I used to discover back home and those 19th century gems. Keep the videos coming. Cheers
So do I, I live in Lincoln which is a medieval city - it had lots of antiquarian bookshops when I was a kid, nothing left now. However, the plus side is that the internet has opened up so many formerly hidden treasures. Isn't nostalgia great!
I totally enjoy your videos, I love the tours of the different churches and about the Historical topics you have uploaded. Please keep up the great work. I love Medieval English History and all the other things you speak about. Maybe you can find out something for me. I have searched every book I could find on the History of the Tower of London I could get my hands on. Now being in a wheelchair. I thought surely I would find out the answer on the internet......but nothing. It concerns the White Tower, over the entrance into the white Tower on the very top floor there are six small arched windows, I have been trying to learn why two of these windows side by side have been bricked up. Could you possible find out why and then do a video if it is an interesting story behind it or maybe just mention why if you do one on the Tower. Please......curiosity is driving this old woman NUTS......lol.
Thank you for sharing this video. Just love your content.
Glad you enjoy it!
Give me a good old bookshop anytime! I Could spend hours in them.
VERY INFORMATIVE video, Allan!! 💖👍
My pleasure Nadia.
It would be awesome if dna tests could be done on the three mummified remains as a means to hopefully identify them through any possible living dna relatives, such as cold case files are now being resolved.
That would be fascinating, I don't think the church authorities would allow it now sadly. They will probably remain anonymous forever.
It would be great though. Cant are they wont allow it.
My dna could be looked up to used for this purpose, as I have ancestry 5 or 6 generations back in the gray family
DNA from the mummies of people who died 3 and 4 and 500 years ago would likely be a (distant) match with 10 million Brits. And although he has no direct descendants living, it's believed that between 50 and 75 million people in America and the UK can claim a genetic relationship with Henry VIII. The children of Prince William and Catherine Princess of Wales are Henry VIII’s 18 times great niece and nephews, But FWIW, in the 90's, Cheddar Man, a 10,500 year old skeleton found in a cave in the Cheddar Gorge (Somerset, England), was found to have a DNA connection (indicating a POSSIBLE relationship) with a local history teacher who lived less than 50 miles from the Cheddar Gorge
Thats very sad - not to mention backwards.@@allanbarton
Glad you are feeling better Allan. Another informative exploration of uncovered remains that does show a somewhat dark fascination with the macabre. Excellent that you visited that second hand bookshop all those years ago. I live in a city that still has many second hand book shops but you would be very lucky to find antiquarian jewels like the one in your possession!
Yes, I have always had that fascination, I have no idea where it comes from. How lucky to live in a place with decent bookshops, I lament the loss of so many.
How interesting. Glad you are feeling better tonsillitis is very nasty
It has been horrible, but getting better. I've just been out for a quick walk and it has wiped me out. Easy does it I guess.
I suffer from fibromyalgia so get wiped out very often
Great! Very well done. Great research, photos and graphics, and narration.
Thanks very much! Glad you enjoyed it.
Oh I have that exact book Bell's Unknown London (bought from my favourite 2nd hand bookshop The Petersfield Book Shop)
Now I've been through Petersfield and seen the shop and never stopped. It is good some are still going. It is a really interesting little book, I love these meandering explorations of the curious.
My grandfather's uncle was a memento mori photographer in Victorian/Edwardian England. Like his family, he was born in a Romani camp in Macedonia during the Ottoman Empire. Roma peoples were persecuted by the powers at that time and gramp's uncle moved to England in hopes of finding work. As a young man, he was apprenticed to a farrier, a cooper and finally a photographer. Photography was in it's infancy at that stage and very expensive. He went on to work at a studio and was commissioned for many portraits. I think the studio had the word "Sun" in it. Sadly, I have none of his work.
I love second hand bookshops!
Fascinating as always Allan, and didn't put me off my lunch at least.
I'm pleased about that!
My husband happened to be in here with me when this video came on, and it made him muse about whether or not he should be buried in a biscuit tin. He said, "Maybe not my head, but my ashes."
Also, the thought of people happening upon said biscuit tin brought funny thoughts of Brad Pitt in the last scene of the movie "SE7EN" yelling at a horrified Morgan Freeman, "WHAT'S IN THE BOX??? WHAT'S IN THE BOX???"
Also, I'm supposing/hoping that the floor in that sexton's house produced a nice "Telltale Heart" scenario for him. Horrid man!
Also, RIP used book stores: A rarified joy.
Thank you for this fascinating video. Can't get enough of historical death oddities!
Blessings to you from Our Lady of the Holy Biscuit Tin
The new 'burial' systems, such as the use of remains as fodder for trees, sound somehow less macabre and more responsible, at this point in time.
The bizarre scenarios of this have my imagination working overtime. Skulls interwoven with budding branches, etc.
Perfect post for Halloween approaching however,. well done !
Agreed, my academic and pastoral experience of these things has made me thing long and hard about such matters. The early modern obsession with the rich for sealed in burial in intramural vaults has led to this sort of macabre scene, the reverse of what they thought they were getting - a permanent placed of burial with dignity. My own burial wishes are very simple as a consequence of such reflection, after the burial service in church, I want to be taken to natural burial ground in the back of an ordinary vehicle, that will be followed by burial in a straightforward biodegradable container laid directly in the earth.
I do like the idea of a flowering tree atop. Then I can come back and visit the family every year 😊
Fascinated and repelled. Not always in equal measure.
The many people who attended beheadings and hangings is beyond me.
At 8:04 , I love how it seems like that guy is asking the question.
Fascinating video! Thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it!
When I went on a tour of Herculaneum in 2015, our lecturer refused to let us go into the area where numerous casts of the unfortunates who were caught in the pyroclastic flow were on display. He said gawking at the effigies of their last agony diminished both their suffering and their lives as citizens of the town. I agreed with him after seeing the cast of the dog. That heart-wrenching image will haunt me the rest of my life. I don't even want to see Egyptian mummies anymore.
They were a "Cast" of the void that the people left when disintegrated.. Not the actual people... Over sentimentilization...B/S
@@adambrinkley4014 Agree. How could it diminish it? It makes it real. All I felt from seeing casts from Pompeii was sadness and empathy.
@@adambrinkley4014 Honestly, you needn't be so dissimissive of the feelings of others unless, of course, you see yourself as some sort of arbiter.
I think the evidence of the people and animals who were there is what makes it so fascinating and intriguing. We all must die, and anything that causes any one individual to be remembered for whatever reason and to bring the knowledge of that life forward to the future to instruct, intrigue, and inform future generations is the closest thing to the perpetual human yearning for "immortality" that is possible. The people whom we know about from the past are history's winners in a sense, no matter what they suffered. It is good to be able to feel empathy for the suffering of someone long ago. It's good for our own development and education. If we reduce history to merely a backdrop of photogenic buildings and pretty artifacts, we do a disservice to ourselves and also to the people of the past in whose footsteps we walk. I would much rather my pitiful remains be studied by eminent future scientists and historians, maybe even cause them to learn something applicable and of interest to their own era, than just disappear forever and be entirely forgotten, which is, of course the fate of very nearly all of us. So lets celebrate these time travellers fully and put aside our squeamish instinct to only look upon what is conveniently pretty and comforting. The whole point of memento mori is to challenge us to contemplate our own mortality and recognise that the conveyor belt that takes us to the grave is short and to make the most of life. I fell in love with history mostly because of Tutankhamun and I think the world is so greatly enriched, as I am myself, by his post mortem journey to 1922 and beyond.
You have issues
I love your laugh in the videos! But I so enjoy your videos!! Thanks Allan!
Two ways of mummification. Intentional and accidental. These were obviously accidental. For that you need a low
oxygen area that is dry and kept rather warm or cold for a long period of time. A body that is buried in a wood box
under a building may suffice as to what liquids in the body can freely leak out and away from the body and thus the
remains are preserved. Glad you are feeling better Allan . Love your channel.
That is really helpful thank you very much - am I right in thinking that a mummified body is more likely to have been buried in a simple wooden coffin than a lead case?
@@allanbarton A lead lined case allows for putrification and eventual decay but more slowly. Proper ones are vented on the top. Allows body gases to escape so you will get to bones. They are not sealed up completely. Some lead lining is done poorly and too thinly allowing moisture out while the lower half of the body turns to wet mess which eventually rots because of the air getting in too fast.
The Crypt as the Michaelerkirche in Vienna is well know for having mummies. I have visited it. It seems to be atmosphere. Perhaps the time of year. Coffins were often move, generally after 25 years with the bones being stored in niches in the walls. However if a corpse was mummified or partially mummified it had to remain in its coffin. There was a small chapel on a hill in Vienna that was being renovate - name escapes me at the moment - where the couple buried there were going to have their coffins removed and the bones in small boxes placed back in. Worked for the husband but not for the wife. She was in a rather good condition for a corpse buried for over 100+ years or more. This could be the time of year she was buried and the activity of insects who disposed of the flesh and organs of the dead.
Given that the chapel at St. Michael's is consecrated you are not permitted to take photos of the mummies in now glass lidded coffins - definitely not Snow White storyline - as it is considered to be disrespectful to the dead. Interesting to note that a small bug from NZ - maybe it cam from wood or another import - got into the vaults and started to consume the mummies. The vaults are now cooled to I think from memory - I visited in 2019 - to under 21'C. This stops the bugs from breeding, thereby saving the mummies..
While waiting for a friend in the Middle of Vienna last week, I was roaming around Stephansdom and read about a small bug that was discovered - in the 90s or first decade of this century that only is found in the Cathedral and nowhere else.I am trying to find a reference to it but as I can't means I need to go back.
I miss old books shops. eBay is not the same. There are old books on sale online, but nothing compares to browsing real shelves. Thank you for another great video.
Scientific testing could help with identifying those bodies. Testing preferably not handled under the auspices of a commercial TV channel. They favour rushed hardly scientific methods.
Another fantastic history video Allan!
Many thanks David.
Nothing better than a rummage in a second hand book store Ross on wye was heaven
There is nothing better, I really miss it.
“That we all must die too”….thanks for the pep talk! 😂
Great video, greetings from Miami
Very interesting 🧐. Thanks
You're welcome
I’d love to visit that book shop. Can you give the details please? I’ve always been fascinated with mummies as well. It’s been a while since I’ve been to the British Museum but they had an excellent showcase of mummies. I spent many hours there!
Very interesting. I viewed" The Curious History of Oliver Cromwell's Corpse". Very well researched and interesting points. Thank you Tony Blea Serrano from Mobile, Alabama
Thanks for watching, glad you're enjoying my videos!
Fascinating!
I really enjoy your videos, Allan! Thank you ever so much. So glad I found your channel! I share your interests. Love from Canada! Carry on! 🤗
Glad you like them Lisette, welcome and thanks for the support.
I feel slightly embarrassed in being drawn to, and at the same time, repelled by this kind of subject. But not that repelled ( I hasten to add), because I keep on, & on, looking, lol! I suppose some might observe that I have a morbid interest in graveyards, churches, tombs and dead bodies, but I don’t see it that way. It’s a way of observing the past (in the most honest and direct way) the manner in which rich & poor people lived, and died - albeit viewed through a glass darkly, or a rather murky lens. Keep this work up please, I’m sure there are many of us who love this subject matter and those that don’t, well they can look away!
I agree with you completely on this - people had these preoccupations in the past, which is why monuments were erected. I think it is just a part of human nature to reflect on one's own mortality by thinking on the mortality of those in the past. Yes, those who don't like it are welcome not to watch.
I remember those shops, always interesting
Glad you are feeling better Allan. Ginger and mint cooked with water for 30 min helps.
At last I have found some kindred spirits . Since leaving London because of a ) Marriage . b ) Children . c ) Inability to afford a decent home . I feel starved of anything remotely like access to Museums , Theatre , Ballet and the sheer joy of watching the World go by . Living in my narrow minded provincial town it is rare to see people from other Countries and 99.9% of people are white . Including myself . Thank you 💕 for sharing.
There are museums, galleries and theatres outside London, you know…
I live in Lincoln, lots going on here.
@@silverwhistle Really ? Of course there are and I bow to your sarcasm and apparently superior knowledge of such things but the only galleries and museums near my home are a museum about brick making and wallpaper . The nearest City is over 60 miles away and because I'm 74yrs old and public transport means changing train's or driving ( two hours each way ) perhaps some kind person can give me a lift in their private helicopter .
@@allanbarton Thank you for replying , I have subscribed and will try to get your magazine .
idk what kind of brain worms you boomers have, but you don’t get brownies points from other races for complaining about your own people and family 😂 no other people do this but whites. I’m Native American but for god sakes get over yourself and have some couth. you don’t need to people watch other races just trying to live their lives, to sound cool and cultured. as the song goes, love the one you’re with
Come to Portland, Oregon to Powell’s City of Books. A six story block occupying used book store. It has new books too, but nso many.
That sounds amazing
As a child of the 70s 80s visited 'Hay on wye' one big 2nd hand book shop😊
The bookshops are legendary!
Hmmmm would make a great Monty Python Skit!🤣🤣🤣
In a biscuit tin ? I've only found sewing supplies in Danish butter cookies tins so far
I bought the mug! It's a movement! BBMF!
Ha, ha - you've made it official Ellen. It was my kids who said I needed 'merch' as they like to call it.
@@allanbarton absolutely! I’d love to have a BBMF shirt!
Really interesting - I'm so glad I found your channel. A small comment - it's Minn-ories, not Mine-ories. I used to work around there. Keep up the good work and I hope you feel better soon.
That is very fascinating, thank you. That is precisely how it would have been pronounced in the Middle Ages before the great vowel shift - Minoresses would have been Minn-oresses not Mine-oresses. It is interesting how old pronunciations are often preserved in place names.
Great video 👍
Good to know it wasnt covid - I actulally and physically remember that bookshop. I have a copy of Alfred Russel Wallace journal - from there.
Wasn't it fantastic. In the end I heard he'd retired on the basis of the sale of one book!
😊 missed this before 🎉
Yeah the “resemblance” of the head to that guy in the painting was definitely a stretch! 😂
Amazing what you can see when you squint enough.
@@allanbarton Ha ha ha!!!
Really enjoyable facts& history.
Glad you enjoyed 😊
I also spent my time at UCL/UCHMS between 1976-1981 visiting secondhand bookshops. I'm afraid I allowed myself £1 a week from my grant to buy science fiction! I fantasized for years after about giving up medicine and running such a bookshop. And talking of old books, Taylor's Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence has a section on natural mummification. Dehydration of the corpse is the key to preservation before the effects of bacterial degradation take hold. So a body with good air flow around it will mummify more often than one without.
Everything you put out is so fascinating, especially when I found out I'm a descendant of Oliver Cromwell.
How interesting! Glad you're enjoying my channel 😊
I love going to used book shops
Such a shame there are so few left. Ho, hum.
Very Interesting!
So, have you heard about the mummies of the Netherlands? A place where the dry type of mummy simply should not exist considering the climate and soil conditions. But they do; in a remote town in the north called Wieuwerd (or Wiuwert in the Frisian language) 6 mummies can be seen, and they were discovered and were turned into a tourist destination as early as 1765. Bodies in the crypt of the church of Wieuwerd were naturally preserved, but we still don't know for sure why. Oh, and then there a few bog bodies too, of course.
Little glitch at 16:46? No sure where is Jimmy Garlic is kept now?
Hmmmppph, yes - don't know what went wrong there. I blame the dodgy editor (me). He is buried in the tower.
@@allanbarton ahah. Thankyou! I should have googled that - it seems quite a distinguished landing place for him in the end. Although....the choice (who by?) of inscription still hints at a degree of continued *entertainment* value methinks?
Brilliant listening thankyou
You're very welcome
Fascinating video, thanks for this, glad you got ill! 👏🏻👏🏼👏🏽 🇬🇧🏴🏴🏴
Thank you - the book would have languished on the bookcase for longer had I been well.
Not an expert here "but" I believe dry conditions is the key. There is a TH-cam video of a little girl found in a "Fisk" coffin in the basement of a house here in the States. The video is call "Frozen in Time" by Forgot Faces. The little girl was so preserved that they said that her cheeks still had pink in them. These people had sawdust to dry the skin out and they may have had been so sick before they died they didn't eat or drink anything. The dryness of the area they we're buried has a lot to do with it as well of course. I think they try to be very careful with these bodies as some disease such as small pox. anthrax and some others can be reactivated by atmosphereic conditions. Enjoy your videos on this subject! Thanks for being it to us and hope to see more.
Often when bodies like this are exposed to air they rapidly deteriorate in a matter of hours
I STILL VISIT USED BOOKSTORES, MY FAVE IS GOTTWAL'S, SHOULD YOU COME ACROSS THE POND TO THE U.S.A AND VISIT GA LOOK THEM UP IN WARNER ROBINS, GA.
I hope you feel better soon
I am very much on the mend, thank you John.
Gee....that mummified head could be that of Cromwell.....who did Henry VIII's bidding. The executioner apparently really botched the beheading of Cromwell, with someone else taking the axe and doing it properly. At least that is what I have read and heard on some videos over the years.
PS, See below. Have just remembered, we were also told that the mummified head came to be so and ended up in the church was because the head fell into a bucket of sawdust and was secreted away. True or not I know not, but it was a good story
These mummies more than likely underwent a smilar process of natural mummification as the mummies of Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo.
No daddies?
😜
@@allanbarton Sorry 😔🤣👍🏻
5:54 its his double.....
It's uncanny.
The last mummy definitely looks as if there was some artificial embalming, aided by dry conditions in the crypt.
To speed up your getting over strep or tonsillitis gargle peroxide twice a day
You might say...... He got shafted.....
That guy has beautiful teeth.
What is this thing about a second-hand book shop?
A shop? Yes got that,
Second hand book, Lost me?
A book which you need a second hand to hold it? O got it a shop which big books inside? Am I right or what? As you might have guessed I was top of my class at school,
Hasn’t Jimmy Garlic got marvellous teeth!
Very interesting thank you. I was thinking of those catacombs where people were put and the elements naturally mummified their bodies. People can see them hanging displayed along the walls of the catacombs.
I am pleased in a way that there are some examples of mummies who are not bog bodies in England. I may stand corrected but I dont think the wet and cold climate helps in this laspect. The DNA idea is good I have heard that the princely brothers remains may have DNA tests done on them. This will be very interesting as it will either prove or squash the stories about their tragic murders.
I agree fully with your comment about people liking to see examples of the macabre. The aweful truth is that good news does not sell. Any media house would not survive if they only gave good news. Anything dreadful and tragic sells. At this very moment the Titan submersible and Titanic take centre stage and try as you might you cannot escape it.
Another huge irritant which plagued me was the jubilee celebrations for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and her funeral. I had and still do have a great respect for this Monarch and I wanted to just see the celebrations of the jubilee and the events of the funeral showing dignity and honour to this great queen. However, the glory was stolen from her by the constant scandalous media about Prince Andrew, Harry and Meghan and the infernal Charles Dianna and Camilla story. So irritated was I that I did not bother to watch the coronation of King Charles III and I dont regret it at all.
Mummy
Build the skulls like the police do for identifikation of John/Jane Doe!
That would be really interesting to do.
Thanks for the warning....? Maybe I will get back to you.....1998 21years of age.... You sound so much more mature than that.. 😊
Your life STORY..? M????????.
Mummies hahaha
Love second hand book stores! I could spend hours in one. I also read/majored in European History. Book stores definitely go with the territory!👍👍😄🐿️🦮🐕🦺🎃🎃❤️