Law and Order: The Ancient World
Just for fun, come join me in a look into an ancient murder case.
The Pharaoh, Ramesses III, was dead, there was no doubt about that.
His throat had been cut, and at first, nobody knew what had happened.
There are a lot of things you could be told about the Pharaoh, but the one thing you have to know for our purposes about the man is he REALLY liked to impregnate women.
By the time of his death he had tons of children by many, many wives.
So many, I honestly wonder when he found time to do anything else.
I mean, rabbits would have looked at him, and said, “slow down, dude”
So I guess it made sense that the investigation began in the harem.
Well, I am calling it an “investigation” but honestly since torture was used, its a little hard to be totally sure of the results.
After the ... err ... detective work was done, it was time for judges to get involved.
The case was regarded as pretty cut and dried, and several people confessed, and were sentenced to death.
This included a number of trusted advisers and servants of the pharaoh, but most shockingly, it included a member of the harem, and her son, who was also the son of the king.
Yes, he really was a Prince of Egypt.
Unlike the more common folk who confessed, he and his mother were given the opportunity to commit suicide instead of being executed.
They apparently agreed, and court documents chronicling this whole mess were made.
What the court had not told the defendants, was that outside of those documents, a deliberate attempt to erase them took place, which for Egyptians was worse than death, because they believed that they could not reach the afterlife without being remembered.
So why is this particular case interesting to us modern types?
See a mummy was found, not embalmed, and most worrying, with its mouth wide open as if he had spent his last breath screaming.
For a long time, this mummy, officially referred to as “Unknown man E” but informally known as “the screaming mummy”.
And for a long time, archeologists could only speculate about the mummy, since no identification was found.
Until genetic testing, and the discovery of the court documents, showed that it was very likely the mummy was none other than the prince who had attempted to seize the throne.
As for the screaming?
Well, it turns out unless wrapped properly, the jaw will fall open after death, giving it that terrifying appearance.
So ironically, the attempt to erase him has failed, and his name and story are now going to be remembered, even if there is still a little uncertainty about the identification.
So there you have it folks, an episode of Law and Order: the ancient world.
Will I do another one? Well, we will have to see . . .
End
Law and Order: The Ancient World:
Murder at 10,000 Feet
Imagine you are a hiker, and you are making your way through the Italian Alps, when you see something sticking out of the ice.
Coming closer, you realize it's a body, and you call the authorities.
Which would lead to an investigation, which proved that the victim had not died by accident - he had been murdered. And the murder had happened about 5,000 years ago.
Using what the investigation found, let us reconstruct his story . . .
We don’t know his actual name. He has been nicknamed “Otzi” because of the location where his body was found. He was an older man for his time, and had joint pain, which he treated with tattoos on the hurting parts, still visible when his body was found. And we know his society was undergoing a technological revolution.
It was changing from being a group of hunter-gatherers to using agriculture. And “Otzi” was right at the front of this change.
No other item showed this more than his axe, because it had a copper head, which meant it was bleeding edge tech at the time.
Besides his axe, he clearly knew how to prepare for a trip up a mountain, including bringing basically a sandwich with him to eat later.
But he probably did this in a hurry.
Because he had been injured, probably in a fight. His right hand had been struck with a sharp blade, deep enough that if he had to use the bow he carried, it would be with great difficulty.
As it happened, he never got to even try.
He went up a mountain, and must have felt like he was safe, as he ate the small snack he had taken with him.
And before he could even stand back up, he was shot in the back with an arrow.
He fell into the snow, and died within a minute or so.
His attacker didn’t try to loot the body, as Otzi still would have his valuable axe with him when he was found, thousands of years later.
There are many ironies in his death. He went from a powerful member of his community to a body lost in the snow, but when he was found, he became a scientific miracle - an almost perfectly preserved artifact of a crucial time in the history of humans.
No human body in history has been examined more, but some mysteries remain, and probably always will, like who was his killer, or why exactly he was killed.
And yet, people travel to look at his face, his clothes, his equipment - and wonder about this man, a time traveller of a sort. They wonder about the times he lived in, and the fight that ended his life.
And wonder is one human quality that he probably shared, and it is one quality that will probably exist as long as humans exist.
End.
Law and Order: the Ancient World
Beyond Ancient
The tar sands of Northern Alberta can be a rough and tumble place, but its still rare to come across a body.
So when it happens, they call in an expert.
In this case, they called in a paleontologist, because the body was that of a dinosaur, and it was to revolutionize everything we thought about dinosaurs.
To picture this creature, imagine a turtle, but the size and weight of a mid-sized car. The shell is made of interlocking plates, and to add to the defense the creature has a row of spikes running down either side of its body.
The mouth presents no danger, its beak-like shaped designed to grab and chew leaves, not other animals.
But it did have one offensive weapon - a tail with a club at the end made of solid bone which the creature could use to break bones if needed.
Once its body was released from the tar sands, the scientists realized it was one of the best preserved specimens ever found, so much so they could see what it had for its last meal, but how that could come to be took a while to solve.
Eventually, they put together what they think happened.
Imagine hundreds of millions ago, you are the tank-like beast, enjoying a typical day in the swampy forest that is your home.
But this swamp hides one unexpected danger, a cliff that hangs above a river, and somehow, you stumble, and fall over the edge, and landing in the water upside down.
Like modern turtles, you would have a tough time turning back over, but what made it impossible was the water rushing into your lungs.
You die, and settle to the bottom, soon being covered in silt.
But your bad luck made it so scavengers couldn't get at your body, and the cool water and the silt worked to preserve you until you are found so long after by oil workers, and soon you are famous in scientific circles and maybe even beyond.
While the original body is on display at the Royal Terrel Museum, copies have been made, and sent to museums around the world.
So if you wanted to, you could go see one of these if one is on display near you.
If you do, I wonder if like me, you will take a moment to look at this almost time traveler, this massive beast that would have preferred to keep eating plants and maybe find a mate in peace, only to fall victim to a random accident, and see something of yourself in it.
Or maybe that's just me . . .
End