Strangest Things (2021–2022): Season 1, Episode 3 - The Battery, The Screaming Mummy and the Medieval Iron Hand - full transcript

[narrator] Could this ancient Middle
Eastern relic really produce electricity?

[Dr. Mark Altaweel] How could they
have batteries almost 1,700 years

before batteries existed?

[narrator] Why is this 3,000-year-old
Egyptian mummy screaming?

This person is being denied
an afterlife for eternity.

This is a huge deal.

[narrator] And is this medieval device
the hand of the world's first iron man?

To the untrained eye, it just looks
like a gauntlet on a suit of armor.

This is something
far, far stranger

and more
technologically advanced.

[narrator] These are the most
remarkable and mysterious objects on earth



hidden away in museums,
laboratories and storage room.

Now, new research and technology

can get under their skin
like never before.

We can rebuild them,
pull them apart,

and zoom in
to reveal the unbelievable,

the ancient
and the truly bizarre.

These are
the world's strangest things.

This priceless
2,000-year-old relic

is the only one of its kind
in the world.

Since it was unearthed
in Baghdad in 1936,

it's become infamous

as one of the most
controversial finds of all time.

For nearly 70 years, it was
stored in an Iraqi museum.

Now, it's gone.



In 2003, during the Iraq War,

Baghdad Museum was plundered,
and it went missing.

[narrator] But using the best
available data, we've brought it back.

Just six inches tall.

At first glance, it looks like
a dusty old jar...

but opening it up reveals
something intriguing...

a tube of copper
and an iron rod.

And in between the two, you had this
bitumen plug that separated the two items.

[narrator] The archaeologist
who finds it

is struck by a similarity
in this combination of parts,

not to anything from the ancient
world, but something from the modern.

He basically,
right there on the spot,

thought that
it may have been a battery...

Which is kind of
a crazy-sounding idea

for something
that's 2,000 years old.

[narrator] Accepted history
says the first-known battery

won't be invented until 1799.

How could they have batteries
1,700 years before

when actually batteries existed?

[narrator] It becomes known
as the Baghdad Battery.

No other jar like this
has ever been found.

What is it for?

And could it really be
an ancient electrical device?

Why would an archaeologist identify
it as a battery in the first place?

One of the challenges that
we have in interpreting the past

is that we do have
a kind of natural inclination

to bring our own frames of
reference to what we're seeing.

So it doesn't surprise me that
something unusual like this

might have been interpreted
as a battery.

[Dr. Altaweel] Most scholars
were very skeptical.

As an archaeologist,
I would sort of test an idea,

um, see if it's possible
or feasible.

If it's not, then I would discount
it and say, "Okay, it's not that."

[narrator]
So the first question is,

can it actually function
as a battery at all?

[Dr. Anna Ploszajski] A battery
like this has three main components.

There are two electrodes
made of metal

called the anode
and the cathode.

And the substance in between
those is called an electrolyte.

Electrolytes are liquids that allow
for the flow of charged particles

between the two electrodes.

In a battery, it would
commonly be an acidic liquid.

[narrator] The copper and
the iron in this ancient relic

look strikingly
like modern electrodes.

And that's not
the only similarity.

What's really exciting is that there's
evidence of an acidic solution inside.

As well as this, the electrodes
show evidence of corrosion,

which is exactly what we would
expect to find inside a battery.

[narrator] So, it seems
to have all the right parts,

but can it actually
make electricity?

Scientific research
has finally tested this idea.

People have done a reconstruction
of the Baghdad Battery

and found that because of the
chemistry and the materials involved,

it kind of can't help but be a
battery, which is really cool.

[narrator] So, quite remarkably,

the evidence suggests
it really does work.

But is this an accidental effect

or are its makers actually
trying to create electricity?

Back in the third century,
this region of Mesopotamia

is at the heart
of the Sasanian Empire.

And for the time,
the people who live here

certainly have
a sophisticated culture.

The capital city of Ctesiphon
is a vast metropolis

of a quarter
of a million people.

[Dr. Altaweel] One of the remains
of Ctesiphon is this large arch

that you see if you go
outside of Baghdad.

So, clearly, the Sasanians
were a very sophisticated society

of very developed engineers.

[narrator] If any civilization in this
period is going to invent a battery,

the Sasanians
sound like a good prospect.

In fact, one of the most ancient
universities was built by the Sasanians.

Um, they had an ancient school

that brought scholars
from India, from Rome,

from the Greek world, uh,
to basically conduct science.

[narrator] If the Sasanians really
do create this mysterious object,

what is it for?

One theory suggests
its electrical charge

could be used for plating metal.

To do this, you put metal
objects that you want to coat

in a precious material
into a vat

of really nasty chemicals
that contain gold, for example.

When you pass a current
through that solution,

then the gold atoms stick to
the metals that you want to plate.

And what you ends up with is a really
thin layer of gold onto the metal surface.

[narrator]
And there's no shortage

of gold-plated objects from
this period to support this idea.

Plating gold, particularly on
things like silver, or other metals,

was very typical.

Uh, gold, of course,
was highly precious,

highly desired,
but was also very expensive.

So you often would put a
plate of gold on another item

to make it look like
the entire item's made of gold

to give it
that, kind of, gold shine.

[narrator] But there are
some issues with this theory.

[Dr. Ploszajski]
The problem with the

electroplating theory is
that you would have needed

a lot of Baghdad Batteries to
power it, and we've only found one.

[narrator] There's
an even bigger problem.

The Sasanians already know
how to plate gold.

It was a different process
that was much better known

and much easier to do
called fire gilding,

which would have achieved
the same effect

of plating
these metal objects with gold.

In fire gilding, what you do is

you create an alloy
out of gold and mercury.

You apply that to the metal
surface, and then you heat it up,

which boils away the mercury
into the air

to leave the gold
on the surface.

This is a ridiculously
dangerous process,

and would have been
extremely bad

for the health
of everyone involved

in doing
this fire gilding process.

So, we know that now, but they
probably didn't know that back then.

[narrator] The electroplating
theory doesn't hold up,

and there's
an even more bizarre idea.

Could this strange object
have been for childbirth?

The Baghdad Battery,
a mysterious ancient device

that produces
an electric charge.

What is it for?

There's been one argument
that the device

may have been used
for a kind of electrotherapy.

Uh, the idea of using
electricity to numb the pain,

perhaps in childbirth, labor.

We do this in the modern world.

[narrator] Surprisingly, using
electricity in this way is not a new idea.

There are ancient texts
from the ancient Greek world,

uh, the use of electric rays,
for instance.

Electricity derived from animals

that could be used to
numb the pain for individuals.

So that's indicating there
is a precedent for this, uh...

potential use to the battery
for that purpose.

[narrator] The problem with this
theory is that there was no shortage,

of pain relief in this part
of the world already.

Almost 2,000 years
before this jar...

would have been made,

you had text discussing
the use of things.

Probably comparable
to opium or even cannabis.

Used to numb pain.

So, medicinal uses of
different plants,

would have been a well established
practice, in this part of the world.

[narrator] So probably
not a miracle pain relief.

Their seemed to be flaws in
every ancient battery theory.

Maybe the answer is
it's not a battery at all.

The form and shape of the Baghdad
battery, is a very common shape.

Very common looking jar,
very plainly decorated.

Such jars were often used to
contain scrolls, parchment effectively.

[narrator] But if this jar is
designed to hold scrolls,

why is there acid residue
inside it?

And why the copper tube
and iron rod?

Any theory has to explain the
function of all four key elements.

[Dr. Altaweel] You have
the liquid inside the jar.

You had the jar itself.

The two items
the rod and the cylinder.

The fact that they're made
of specific metals.

You had iron and copper.

So you had to come up
with a solution,

that effectively brings it
all together.

Now there is a new idea,

one that could
explain everything.

A new and very exciting...

theory about the
Baghdad battery,

is that it could have been
used in the brewing of beer.

When you ferment yeast
to create beer,

it also makes substances
like hydrogen sulphide.

This is a really smelly
and disgusting material.

You can smell it near volcanoes.

It sort of smells like
rotten eggs,

and you really don't want
that in your beer.

So, today we take
hydrogen sulphide out of beer,

using electrochemical processes.

[Dr. Altaweel]
In modern beer making,

copper barrels are often used,

to remove smell and
impurities from beer,

so potentially
the Baghdad battery

is used for a similar purpose.

To get rid of the
hydrogen sulphide from beer,

what you can do is put a
copper electrode...

into the beer and apply
a voltage to it.

When you do that, the
hydrogen sulfide in the beer,

reacts with the copper
to produce a solid material,

which just floats
to the bottom of the vat,

which you can then
easily remove,

which gets rid of your
hydrogen sulphide.

And it's possible that the
Baghdad battery was used,

for the same process back then.

[narrator] But did the Sasanians
really care enough about beer,

to go to this much effort?

Beer was a big deal
and had been for a long time.

We know of brewing in Iraq,
from 3500 BCE,

and possibly even older
than that.

Beer was a very common beverage,

in this part of the world
for a long time,

perhaps even preferred beverage,

but it was also
full of impurities.

And so, perhaps creating something
that could diminish those impurities,

would have been an innovation
that would be desired by this period.

[narrator]
After 70 years of controversy,

do we finally have an
explanation, for this strange object?

So I guess the question is,

could the Baghdad battery have
actually been part of a Baghdad brewery?

Well, the beer is acidic,

so yeah, that would work
as the electrolytes.

The copper and the iron
together create the voltage.

The copper can take the
hydrogen sulphide out of the beer.

And we also see that corrosion
on the electrodes.

So, yes, it could have worked
in this way.

[narrator] But like every theory
about the Baghdad battery,

there's a snag.

There's only one problem
with this brewery theory,

which is that the Baghdad
battery itself is extremely small.

So, if it was used
for brewing beer,

it would have been the
world's first craft beer.

[narrator] Right now,
proving this idea is impossible.

Because the battery is
still missing.

Unless it's recovered,

this new theory can't be
properly tested.

For now, at least,
the Baghdad battery,

remains one of the world's most
perplexing, unexplained objects.

Locked away in a Cairo museum,

is one of the strangest
Egyptian relics in history.

Unlike the thousands of
other mummies,

unearthed from the sands
of Egypt,

that seem calm and composed,

this one appears to be a
snapshot, of the true horror of death.

Now the body has been
removed from its coffin,

and painstakingly reconstructed.

This is the Screaming Mummy.

People think that the Screaming
Mummy is screaming in agony,

you know, it looks
really horrific.

[narrator] Even the gold earrings
lost after the body was discovered,

have been digitally restored.

They're definitely not
the jewelry of a peasant.

His body tells a similar story.

His hair was braided.
He had henna on.

All of this actually suggests that what
we have here is a man of extreme status.

[narrator]
Yet this emaciated body,

looks nothing like other
high status Egyptian mummies.

"Normal" mummies would be
wrapped in linen bandages,

which were
symbolically important.

It's really shocking
that this mummy is not.

And his hands and feet
looked like they were tied up.

[Dr. Rebecca] Why was he buried
in this really disturbing manner?

[narrator] Who is he?

Why is he screaming?

Now, the latest scientific analysis
can reveal not only his identity,

but the truth behind his
gruesome demise.

The Screaming Mummy is
discovered in the late 19th century.

Near Egypt's legendary
Valley of the Kings,

and he isn't found alone.

Basically, this was a discovery
of a cache of mummies.

So there were about 40 in there,
most of them richly decorated,

with coffins and sarcophagi
and things like that.

Some of the mummies
in this cache,

are actually quite well known,
what we might say,

household names
from ancient Egypt.

So, for example, Ramses II.

[narrator] Ramses II ruled
for more than 60 years,

and is considered one of
ancient Egypt's greatest pharaohs.

So this certainly wasn't just
a group of unimportant people,

but rather a bringing together,

of some of the biggest names
in ancient Egypt.

[narrator]
But inside one of the coffins,

archaeologists make a shocking
discovery.

So when they opened up
the lid of the coffin,

they were really surprised to
find, the body of a young man.

His face was contorted
in what seems like agony.

[narrator]
With no clue to his identity,

archaeologists label him
"Unknown Man E,"

What is this macabre body doing
amongst such exalted company?

Forensic analysis just adds
to the mystery.

You don't see any calluses,
no thick skin.

The person had beautiful
earrings, fingernails were manicured.

Person was in good health,
as far as we could see.

[narrator] This is not a
man who works for his living.

Combined with the location
of his burial.

This suggests he is a member
of ancient Egypt's ruling elite.

But there's a problem
with that theory.

His simple wooden coffin
looks nothing like the others.

[Dr. Rebecca]
It's not highly decorated,

so really, this is a
huge question,

why is this man of high status
being buried,

in this completely plain coffin?

[narrator] Worse still, it
doesn't record his name.

This is almost unheard of
in elite burials.

This is not a small thing
for the ancient Egyptians.

Names were tied intrinsically,
to your body.

So if you wanted to have a
successful transition, into the afterlife,

you needed to have your body
intact,

and part of that was having
a recognizable name.

[narrator] Everything about
Egyptian burials,

is to assist your journey
after death.

[Dr. Rebecca]
If you were buried properly,

the idea would be that you
could go into the afterlife.

You could be
in the Field of Reeds,

which was at the ancient Egyptian
conception of what we might call heaven,

and you lived a life
of paradise.

[narrator] The nameless
coffin sends a stark message.

The implication of burying
someone without their name,

is huge when it comes to
ancient Egyptian theology.

This really means that this person is
being denied, an afterlife for eternity.

This is a huge deal.

[narrator] The other essential
component of a successful journey

into the afterlife
is mummification.

Mummification was an
extremely elaborate process.

You would start by removing by
removing the brain and the internal organs,

um, washing the body
and cleansing it with salt.

[narrator] But a forensic
examination of the corpse

reveals something even more
shocking than the nameless coffin.

[Dr. Mark] If you look at
the skull of the mummy,

you see that the brain
is still there.

That is very unusual because the
brain should have been removed.

[narrator] The abdomen
of the body is also unmarked,

suggesting the other organs
are still in place.

[Dr. Mark]
And that is something...

Especially for a person
from a very high social rank,

that's something
that I've never seen before.

[narrator] And the material
covering the corpse

is completely out of place
for a high status burial.

It's really shocking
that this mummy is wrapped

not in linen but in a sheepskin.

I've seen a lot of mummies, but
none was ever wrapped into a skin

of an animal
that has a bad meaning,

or an unclean meaning
like a sheep.

So that is something
that is very, very unusual,

and very offensive
for that person.

[Dr. Rebecca] So if we
bring all of this together,

the fact that
there's no name on the coffin,

the fact that he was wrapped
in sheep skin,

and the fact that
his organs weren't removed.

This all adds up to the idea

that someone has done
this intentionally,

and that this man
is being completely denied

a chance of living
in the afterlife.

[narrator] A member of the
elite buried in a royal tomb.

His body treated with contempt,
his soul damned to oblivion.

Who is this cursed man?

[narrator] The screaming Mummy,

a 3,000-year-old unidentified
corpse twisted in agony.

For nearly 130 years,

the identity of Unknown Man E
remains a mystery.

Now, 21st century forensics have
been brought to bare on the body.

In the late 2000s, an Egyptian
archeologist named Zahi Hawass

commissioned a number
of DNA analyses.

What these analyses
tell us is that

he was the son of one of Egypt's
greatest pharaohs, Ramses III.

Ramses III is quite a big deal
in ancient Egyptian history.

He had a number of military
campaigns that he oversaw,

and he built on
an incredibly prolific scale.

To some Egyptologists, he's
actually the last of the great pharaohs.

[narrator] If the Screaming
Mummy is the son of a living God,

what can he have done
to deserve this terrible fate?

An ancient document
located two 2,000 miles away

in Turin, northern Italy,
might hold the key.

It's known
as the Judicial Papyrus.

It seems to record the trial
of a number of people

who are high up in the court for
conspiracy to assassinate Ramses III.

The pharaohs in ancient Egypt
were able to marry a number of wives,

however many they liked, really.

And these wives
would usually be ranked.

The Judicial Papyrus actually
talks about a lesser queen

whose name was T, um, and
the fact that she had managed

to recruit a huge number of
courtiers, people of real power.

[narrator] The Papyrus
claims that this lesser queen,

a wife of Ramses III
plotted to murder him.

And it goes on to suggest that
Queen T had created this conspiracy

in order to put her own son
on the throne.

And that son's name
was Pentawere.

[narrator] The story recorded
in this ancient document

is a dark tale
of conspiracy and murder.

One that might finally reveal the
identity of the Screaming Mummy.

From the DNA test, we know that
this is one of the sons of Ramses III.

And we also know that
he was buried in disgrace.

So if we put that together,
there's only one solution.

This must be Prince Pentawere.

[narrator] There's one problem
with this theory.

Other than the Papyrus,
the name Pentawere appears

absolutely nowhere
else in ancient Egypt.

There's a very real possibility that
Pentawere wasn't his real name.

And that actually this is a
pseudonym used specifically

so that his real name
wouldn't be said

because the action of saying
someone's name gives him life.

[narrator] The Screaming Mummy
may have been at the center

of a treasonous plot.

But did the plot succeed?

On the one hand,
we have the Judicial Papyrus,

at which Ramses III, seems
to be opening proceedings

and presiding
over the entire trial.

However, he is referred to
as the Great God,

which is often a title reserved
for people who were dead.

So the Judicial Papyrus doesn't
actually give us a firm answer

as to whether the plot against
Ramses III was successful or not.

[narrator] In 2007,

Ramses III's mummy is scanned
using 21st century CT technology.

The results are shocking.

Under the linen, which was
carefully placed and arranged there,

there was a deep wound stretching
from the front back to the spine,

and that means that the veins
here on his the sides of the neck

were cut.

And that means the brain doesn't
get any oxygen and you die instantly.

Meaning that
he was assassinated.

[Dr. Rebecca] As the most
important man in ancient Egypt,

there is no doubt that the Pharaoh would
have been extremely, closely guarded.

And this suggests that
anyone who got to him

may have been
someone close to him.

[narrator] Someone like a son.

Which may explain why
Pentawere is damned to oblivion.

By killing this person who
is seen to be a living God,

you are committing the most
heinous crime possible.

The conspirators who were
found guilty of being part of this plot

actually were handed out some
pretty heavy duty sentences.

[narrator] 28 of them
are sentenced to death.

Royal members of the plot
are ordered to commit suicide.

Is this the fate
of the Screaming Mummy?

On the withered corpse
is one final clue.

[Dr. Mark] You see kind of
indentations on the wrists,

that means that the person was probably
or most likely restrained before death

because you even find pieces
of leather inside of the tongue.

So, I mean, why would
the person be restrained?

The fact that his hands were bound
does suggest that if this was suicide,

it was probably more likely
to be assisted suicide.

[narrator]
We know his name and his fate.

One final question remains.

Why is he screaming?

Why is this mummy screaming?

It turns out he's not alone.

Screaming Mummies
exist everywhere.

You see some Screaming Mummies
in Sicily, in Italy,

in the middle
and Southern America.

Wherever you see mummies,
you often see a scream.

[narrator] But are they
really screaming at all?

The Screaming Mummy
looks as if it was screaming

because it is poorly prepared.

This was...
this is not done with love.

In most cases,
when mummies are produced,

the lower jaw is bound
so that it doesn't open up.

If you bind find the jaw,

then you have joints over here
and over there on both sides

and then your lower jaw
will just drop.

And that obviously looks
as if you were screaming.

So it's just an accidental
thing that happens

by gravitational forces.

[narrator] The reason
he appears to be screaming

says as much about us as
it does about the Egyptians.

It is completely normal
that we see emotions,

facial expressions in a
face of a living or dead body.

This is because our brain
is just hard-wired in a way,

because it is absolutely
necessary to very quickly find out

which emotion another person
to react properly.

[narrator] When we see a
face with a gaping mouth,

its head thrown backwards,

our brains instantly
compare it to what we know.

And the closest resemblance
to Pentawere's face, is a scream.

[screaming sound]

So it seems this corpse
isn't actually screaming.

But that doesn't stop the face
from looking profoundly disturbing.

[narrator] Locked forever in an
expression of agonizing torment.

[narrator] In a glass cabinet
in Jagsthausen Castle

deep in the German countryside,

lies one of the world's
most incredible objects.

To the untrained eye, it just looks like a
gauntlet you might see on a suit of armor.

This is something far, far stranger
and more technologically advanced.

[narrator] Now
painstakingly reconstructing it

using cutting edge
imaging technology...

reveals it in forensic detail.

It's a 500-year-old
medieval marvel,

a mechanical iron hand
with a seven inch long cuff,

the only one of its kind
in the world.

Its fingers are
fully articulated,

and inside is a complex
mechanism of cods and springs.

Its owner, Gotz Von Berlichingen
made extravagant claims for this device.

The iron hands
allows him to hold a glass,

wield a sword, ride a horse
and all these things

made you like pretty manly
and active and virile.

[narrator] It sounds fantastic,
but maybe that's all it is.

Because Gotz has a well
earned reputation

as a man given to wild
and extravagant claims.

At the end of the day, people thought,
is it all true what he's writing there?

Does this hand really
properly work?

[narrator] Why was this
device built?

Did it really work?

And who was the man
with the iron hand?

He lives in
15th century Germany.

It is a brutal, violent place.

The Germanic area

was divided up into dozens
of little principalities.

[Ruth Goodman] Some of them
were ruled by princess and by Duke's.

They're all at each other's
throats all time

trying to get their bit bigger
than somebody else's.

It's enormously chaotic,
you know.

The same political situation
isn't in place

more than about three weeks
before, Bing, it's all changed again.

[narrator] This is the world in
which Gotz Von Berlichingen lives.

He was born in 1480, and he
was a knight by the age of 17.

At the age of 20, he became
a freelancer, so to speak.

[narrator]
Gotz may be called a knight,

but in reality
he's an infamous mercenary.

He had his own gang
and he was a weapon to hire.

Anybody could hire the gang and then they
would go there and fight for that person.

And he was killing people and robbing
people and making money out of that.

[narrator] Then, at the age of
24, it all goes wrong for him.

In 1504, Gotz is fighting for
a Bavarian Duke.

And during one of the battles,
a cannonball hits his arm

and slices of his hand
and a part of his arm.

[narrator] Before antibiotics,
such wounds are often fatal.

Gotz is in luck.

He survives. But he loses
his right forearm and hand.

It seems his days
as a fighting knight are over.

Whilst Gotz is in bed being ill.

He's not giving up.

He's trying to figure
something out.

He wants to continue to do his job,
so he designs a new arm and hand

for himself to grab a weapon,
and two continue to kill.

[narrator] He certainly
isn't the first person

to come up with the idea
of artificial body parts.

I think there's a general idea
that prosthetics

haven't been around
for that long.

[Dr. Rebecca] There are a couple of
really good examples from ancient Egypt,

the best of which is probably
a prosthetic toe

that was designed to go onto
the right toe of a noble woman.

It's really amazing.
It's made of wood and leather.

It has a hinge
so that it can move with her,

fits movement more easily, and it has
a nice leather strap for comfort we think.

[narrator] Even the
Romans get in on the act.

Pliny the Elder describes a man
who he finds to be incredibly heroic.

His name is
Marcus Sergius Silus.

He is famous for having his
arm cut off in battle

and refusing to step down,

and he actually had an iron
bit added onto his arm,

the shield's side arm,

to hold up a shield so that he
could continue fighting.

He was on horse numerous times.

He went on to fight
numerous battles.

[narrator] But Gotz has a vision of
something far more sophisticated.

Gotz goes to a blacksmith and
really tries to find something that works,

not just a hook or a wooden
stump or something,

but something that really allows
him to continue to function and to work.

[narrator] Two years
after losing his hand,

Gotz is back on the battlefield
with a metal prosthetic.

But he's not satisfied
with his first attempt.

First one was still rather
relatively remarkable

and that it would open
and close,

but more of a binary
on and off sort of grip.

But the second version
is truly remarkable.

[narrator]
What Gotz comes up with

appears to be a uniquely
sophisticated iron hand.

If you must have taken to his
blacksmith, it was pretty incredible.

He wanted to have each
individual digits fully articulated,

and he wanted to be able to
hold a sword and take it into battle.

That is a pretty incredible
list of demands

to take to a
16th century blacksmith.

[narrator]
It sounds astonishing,

and Gotz certainly tells
everyone it is.

But does it actually work?

Now new research can finally
answer that question.

[narrator] Gotz Von Berlichingen's
500-year-old iron hand

is a masterpiece
of medieval engineering.

Challenge of building a prosthetic
hand is having a combination

of being able to move
and adapt the grip.

But then, actually, when you're
ready to hold it, it actually have it fixed

into a very robust mechanical hold
say, especially in the case of guts.

If he's holding a sword
for the reign of a horse,

he needs for that to be a very
tight grip.

[narrator] To understand
just how clever Gotz's hand is,

you need to look
at the mechanisms inside it.

The key is a ratchet
and Paul system.

A ratchet has a series of teeth.

A paul falls into each tooth
as it rotates,

and because of the shape
of the teeth,

the paul prevents the joint
going backwards.

To do that, the paul has to be
lifted clear.

It's exactly the same
mechanism still found in handcuffs.

In the iron hand, each finger
contains three of these mechanisms

that can lock every knuckle
joint in place.

So Gotz can use his good hand

to push the metal fingers around
an object until the grip is tight enough.

The ratchet and paul keeps it
that way.

Pressing a small button
on the side of the hand

disengages the paul and releases
the ratchets allowing the hand to open.

Another button on the back allows
the hand to pivot at the risk joint.

Gotz tells everyone
how fantastic his new hand is.

Gotz claimed that his new hand and
arm rendered more service in the fight,

then did his original hand
and arm out of flesh and bone.

[narrator] The problem with Gotz
is that he is famously economical

with the truth.

He would write a
beautiful autobiography

and of course which only show
the best of him.

He would not tell about murder
and rubbing people all the time,

but he would always see that he's,
you know, presented in a good light.

[narrator] So can Gotz really hold
a glass, grip the reins of his horse

and wield a sword, as he claims?

Over the last 500 years, there's
been no shortage of doubters.

Now new research can finally
settle it once and for all.

The University of Offenburg,
they studied the design of the hand.

[narrator] The research has started
with his simpler mark one hand.

Actually used 3D printing
technology to replicate the design.

And part of what that study
demonstrated was the extremes

that the hand was able to
achieve from relatively robust grips

that would be used, say,
in a battle

all the way to the more fine
finely dexterous applications,

such as holding a pen.

[narrator] The mark one hand
contains many of the key technologies

that Gotz refines
in the Mark II.

So based on this research,
it seems Gotz isn't boasting.

His mechanical hand
really does work.

This is effectively
a 500-year-old,

almost fully functioning
mechanical, prosthetic iron hand.

[narrator] Perhaps the
proof of just how well it works

is the life Gotz lives.

After losing his hands, Gotz
continues to live for 58 years,

and his work was blundering,
murdering and, you know,

drinking, gambling, so his hands
quite obviously worked very well.

[narrator] Gotz has become
a German folk hero,

and it's all because
of something that happened

two hundred years
after his death.

Gotz would probably not be known

if German national poet Goethe
would not have put him

in to one of his plays,
very famous play.

In this play, Gotz is
quoted as saying in German,

[speaking in German]
which roughly translates

into "Kiss my ass,"
but actually it's much worse.

[narrator] Gotz's iron hand
is centuries ahead of its time,

a fully functioning
medieval prosthetic.

The latest state of the art,
electronic prosthetics

appear to have moved on a long
way from Gotz's cranks and levers.

Neuro musculoskeletal prostheses

connect the prosthetic
directly into the user's nerves,

muscles and skeleton.

Through the use of electrodes,

it's even possible for the wearer to
control a prosthetic with their mind.

Gotz's iron hand seems like
a relic of the distant past.

But the researchers who test
his design don't agree.

They believe it could have
far reaching consequences

for people all around the world.

Cases like Gotz's
are still relevant today

because of the cost
of prosthetics.

And so especially in
and some geographies,

that just can't afford some of
the most advanced prosthetics.

So systems like Gotz is good
still be very, very useful.

[narrator] So, ironically,
it's possible in the future

there may be people
around the world

who will owe a huge debt
of gratitude

to a man who made a very successful
career out of robbery and murder.

If Gotz knew
this was going to happen,

he'd probably have put it
in his autobiography.

Anything to make him sound good.