Strangest Things (2021–2022): Season 1, Episode 6 - The Viking Coin, the Ancient Disk and the Dead Girl that Saved Millions - full transcript
See one of the most famous coins ever discovered, and a death mask of a girl who drowned in Paris.
[narrator] How can this
corroded scrap of metal
change the history
of a continent?
[Ben] As soon as
it's identified, wow.
[Kevin] It's the real deal.
[narrator]
Why can't we translate
this 3,000-year-old relic
of a lost civilization?
[Tamar] The Phaistos Disc
is one of the greatest mysteries
of the Bronze Age.
[narrator] And is this
dead woman's face
the most kissed in history?
[Mark Benecke] She became
what we would today call
an it girl.
[narrator]
These are the most remarkable
and mysterious objects on Earth,
hidden away in museums,
laboratories,
and storage rooms.
Now, new research and technology
can get under their skin
like never before.
We can rebuild
them, pull them apart,
and zoom in to reveal
the unbelievable,
the ancient, and
the truly bizarre.
These are the world's
strangest things.
[theme music playing]
[narrator] In a display case
in the Maine State Museum
in Augusta
sits a tiny scrap of metal
that helped rewrite history,
because it is unlike
anything ever found
in the United States.
Now,
the latest imaging technology
reveals it
in astonishing detail.
The Maine penny.
Despite being less than
an inch across
with chipped and corroded metal,
the Maine penny
is one of the most
famous coins in the world,
because it's not a penny,
and it's not from Maine.
Strangely,
barely visible markings on it
reveals something incredible.
Vikings.
[Ben] All of a sudden
this is Viking archaeology
in North America.
How did it get there
and what meaning did it have?
[narrator] It flies in
the face of accepted history
at the time of the coin's find.
American schoolchildren
were being taught
that Columbus
had discovered America.
[narrator]
So how does a Viking coin
end up in Maine?
Is it genuine
or an elaborate hoax?
Now, new research
settles this question
once and for all.
[suspenseful music playing]
[narrator] This strange story
begins at Naskeag Point,
an isolated site
on the coast of Maine.
[Kevin] In the summer of 1957,
an amateur archaeologist
by the name of Guy Mellgren
and a friend
set out to investigate
a Native American midden
or trash heap.
[narrator] They unearthed
thousands of finds
left by the indigenous people
a millennia ago.
[Kevin] And amongst Native
American tools
and bone debris
was a single remarkable
eroded silver coin.
[narrator]
But coins have no place
on a site like this.
[Ben] A thousand years ago,
indigenous American groups
weren't using coinage.
[narrator]
So what exactly is it?
[Kevin] Mellgren shows it
to a friend of his,
who thinks it's a medieval
English coin.
Perhaps it came over with some
of the earliest settlers
to New England.
[narrator] Mellgren puts
the coin on a shelf
and forgets about it
for nearly two decades.
[Ben] And it sits
in his house until 1974
when it makes its way
to the museum.
[narrator]
A local paper publishes
a short article about it,
and that's when this object
becomes one
of history's strangest.
[dramatic music playing]
[Kevin] English coin expert,
Peter Seaby
sees an article on it,
sees the coin, and realizes
it is a very rare Viking coin
of Olaf the Peaceful.
[narrator] This is an original
Olaf the Peaceful coin.
The similarities are undeniable.
Experts date it
as early as 1067.
And that changes everything.
[Ben] When it's considered
to be a British penny,
there's no real mystery
as to how
that might have turned up
on an archeological site.
But as soon
as this is identified
to King Olaf the Peaceful,
wow, all of a sudden,
this is Viking archaeology
in North America.
[narrator] Somehow a tiny
piece of Viking history
has been transported across
the Atlantic to America,
and ended up
in a thousand-year-old
trash heap
on the coast of Maine.
And that is huge.
American schoolchildren
were being taught
that Columbus
had discovered America.
The idea that there were
somehow Vikings
in contact with Native Americans
500 years before Columbus
was big news.
[narrator] Extraordinary claims
require extraordinary proof.
So where is the evidence
to back this up?
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] The idea that Vikings
might have got
to North America first
isn't news to Scandinavians.
They know of the great
Viking tales contained
in the Icelandic sagas.
In particular, the story
of legendary explorer,
Leif Erikson.
[Kevin]
Leif Erikson heard a tale
from a shipwreck mariner
who had been carried by currents
near a land
to the west of Greenland,
which he noted
was covered with trees.
This enticed Erikson,
so he set out
with one well-laden
and equipped boat.
[narrator]
According to the sagas,
Erikson reaches a new land
he names Vinland.
[Kevin] When historians
saw his descriptions
of this country
and the people he encountered,
they thought there's only
one place that this can be.
This must be somewhere
in North America.
Very possibly Newfoundland.
[Ben] If there's any truth
to those stories
and those sagas,
then it really does mean
that the Vikings
have made landfall
in the North...
On the North American continent
much earlier than anybody else
from a European perspective.
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator]
Could this incredible object
really a proof of that?
It certainly isn't
the first Viking artifact
to turn up in the States.
[dramatic music playing]
[Kevin] In 1898,
there was the Kensington
Runestone in Minnesota.
[narrator] The runes translation
records a voyage by eight Goths
and twenty-two Norwegians
to Vinland in 1362
that encounters hostile locals.
This seems to fit more or less
with the Icelandic sagas.
And there are other finds too.
[Kevin] In Ontario,
there was a Viking sword,
axe, and shield found.
And there are also various
bits of writing on stones
which people attributed
to being Viking runes.
[narrator] North America
seems to be littered
with evidence that the Vikings
were there before Columbus.
[Kevin] The problem is
that none of these
were in fact authentic.
The Kensington Runestone
is now known
to have been a forgery.
The axes and shields, likewise.
[narrator]
So why all the Viking fakes.
The Kensington Runestone
may hold the answer.
If you look
at the name of the man
who discovered it, Olof Ohman,
you'll have a clue.
These objects
were found by people
of Scandinavian descent
who were combating
a negative image.
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] Scandinavian
immigrants to the US
had often been taunted
and belittled.
[Kevin] So if these immigrants
could prove
that it wasn't the Italian,
Columbus,
who discovered the New World
but instead, effectively,
a Scandinavian, Leif Erikson,
this would be greatly
to their credit.
[narrator]
And that makes the discovery
of the Maine penny
particularly suspicious
because Mellgren,
the man who finds it,
is of Swedish descent himself.
So is this strange artifact
just another hoax?
[dramatic music playing]
[theme music playing]
[narrator] Could the Maine penny
be just another in a long line
of Viking hoaxes?
One thing that isn't in doubt
is the coins origins
in 11th century Norway.
[Ben] The coin
is definitely authentic.
It's definitely a coin
of King Olaf the Peaceful.
But the big question then is
how can we know that this coin
comes from
an archaeological context?
[narrator] Or, more bluntly,
did Mellgren plant it?
[Kevin] So Mellgren,
himself of Swedish descent,
has both a motive
and an opportunity
to plant this find.
[narrator] To pull off a hoax,
Mellgren would need
the right coin,
but by the late 1950s,
that is relatively easy.
[Kevin] In 1879, a hoard
of more than 2,000 such coins
had come to light.
So the coins themselves
were easy enough to find.
[narrator]
Could Mellgren have got hold
of a real coin to plant?
Now, brand-new research
claims to have finally
answered this question.
[Kevin] The Swedish
coin expert, Von Goldbeck,
decided to take on
the enormous task
of tracing every known coin find
of Olaf the Peaceful.
[narrator] Goldbeck tracks down
more than 2,300 coins
to find out
if any could have made it
into Mellgren's hands.
It's an enormous
piece of research
that takes over a decade
to complete.
The result
after exhaustive study
is that no
Olaf the Peaceful coins
were unaccounted for.
[narrator] Additionally,
unlike the Maine penny,
all other
Olaf the Peaceful coins
are in very good condition.
[Kevin] The Maine penny
is very heavily corroded.
And that's hard to fake.
This is a process that goes on
across the centuries.
[narrator]
The Maine State Museum
analyzes the chemistry
of these layers of corrosion.
The results support
the object's authenticity.
[Ben] There's evidence that
water sat around the coin.
It's been sat
in slowly moving water
for a very long period of time,
and this would be supportive
of the fact
that it's been buried
for a long period of time.
There's no doubt
that the Maine penny
is the real deal.
[narrator] Mellgren did not
plant the Maine penny.
In which case,
how did it find its way
to a Native American settlement
a thousand years ago?
In 1960,
three years after Mellgren
discovers the Maine penny,
Norwegian archaeologist,
Anne Stine Ingstad,
and her husband, Helge,
are investigating a site
at L'Anse aux Meadows
in Newfoundland.
Locals describe it
as an old Indian camp,
but it's something far stranger.
[dramatic music playing]
[Kevin] They find the basis
of turf structures.
One large hall.
Also a blacksmith's workshop.
They find remnants
of Viking boat sheds.
So this is definitive proof
that the Vikings
were the first Europeans
to come to America.
[narrator]
The Icelandic sagas are true.
Vikings really do reach
North America
500 years before Columbus.
[thunder rumbles]
[narrator] It's a revelation,
but it doesn't explain
the coin's discovery
750 miles farther south,
because not a single scrap
of evidence ever
turns up to suggest
the Vikings reached
anywhere near this far down.
So how does a Viking coin
end up in Maine?
[dramatic music playing]
[Kevin] Renewed professional
excavations at Naskeag Point
have not found any other traces
of Norse artifacts.
But what they have found
are stone tools
and stone raw materials
coming from as far away
as Labrador,
hundreds of miles to the north.
So there's evidence here
for trade,
for the movement of goods
and also the movement of people
over really quite
significant distances.
[narrator] Despite the fact
that it has no value
to the indigenous people
as a coin,
one feature may explain
why and how they carry it south.
Although,
it has since crumbled away,
when Mellgren finds the coin,
it has a hole in it.
[Kevin] It's been perforated,
which would indicate
that it was being used
as an object of decoration.
Perhaps worn around the neck
or around the wrist.
But the important thing is
that this object
was not being used as a coin.
[narrator]
So it's likely local people
transport the coin
from Newfoundland
all the way to Maine.
This remarkable object
was created a millennia ago
on the far side
of a stormy ocean.
Like the finds
at L'Anse aux Meadows,
it proves that Columbus
isn't the first European
in North America.
The Vikings beat him to it
500 years earlier.
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] In a museum in Crete,
sits a strangely-marked
clay disc
that has sparked over
a century of controversy.
Some say it is one of the most
astonishing texts ever found,
a 3,000-year-old cryptic message
from an ancient civilization.
Others claim it's just
too good to be true.
Now, using the latest
imaging technology,
we're bringing it
into the light.
This is the Phaistos Disc,
measuring roughly
half an inch thick
and six inches in diameter,
made from fire-baked clay.
Its two sides are covered
with inscriptions
made using a technology
thousands of years
ahead of it time,
this disc is unique.
[Mark Altaweel] It's the only
object that we know of
that looks like that.
[narrator]
There are 242 strange symbols
from Mohican-haired men
to twisted figures,
birds, fish,
and other cryptic shapes.
The Phaistos Disc is one
of the greatest mysteries
of the Bronze Age.
And we've not been able
to decode it yet.
[narrator] But, now,
after more than
a century of debate,
new research may have made
the first steps
to revealing its secrets.
So what do these
bizarre symbols mean?
What is the disc for?
Is it genuine?
[dramatic music playing]
[theme music playing]
[narrator] The mystery
of the Phaistos Disc
begins on the Island of Crete
in Greece.
A place steeped
in mythological stories
of a lost civilization
called The Minoans.
Ancient legends
tell the story of their ruler,
King Minos.
Beneath his palace,
he builds a vast labyrinth
to imprison a fearsome beast
called the Minotaur.
[Mark Altaweel] The Minotaur
was this terrifying
half-man half-bull creature.
And it was kind
of the scourge of anyone
who came to visit Minos.
They would basically be eaten
by this Minotaur.
[narrator] The creature
and the civilization behind it
were considered little more
than ancient Greek legends.
A lot of people thought
it was mythology.
That perhaps they were just
kind of mythical people.
[narrator] But in 1900,
near the north coast
of the island,
British archeologist,
Arthur Evans,
makes a discovery
that changes everything,
the ruins of a vast
Minoan palace
4,000 years old.
[Mark Altaweel] It's a major
deal for archeologists.
This is the first time
we discovered
that they're actually
a real civilization.
They're not just some
made-up mythology.
[Tamar] It transformed
our understanding
of what Mediterranean
civilization
were capable of at this time.
[narrator]
The site is called Knossos.
And it has intriguing links
to the ancient legends.
[Mark Altaweel]
When Arthur Evans began
excavation at Knossos,
he notices there are a lot
of bull symbols.
He understood that,
"Hey, this is may be a place
associated with
the Minotaur story."
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator]
It is a previously unknown
and extraordinarily
sophisticated
ancient civilization.
It existed at a time
when the crowning achievement
of most other European societies
is building wooden huts
and stone circles.
But there is more to come.
In 1908, Italian archeologist,
Luigi Pernier,
excavates a second
Minoan palace complex
on the south of the island.
It is called Phaistos.
One evening, Pernier's foreman
happens on a small clay disc
laying the ruins.
The bizarre symbols
covering its surface
are unlike anything
Pernier has ever seen.
But this disc is exceptional
in every way.
[dramatic music playing]
Normally,
such tablets for writing
would have been formed
out of wet clay.
And then when they were
rather hard,
they would have been
written upon
and simply left to dry
in the sun.
The disc was very different.
This disc,
first of all, was baked.
So rather than sun dried,
it was actually fired.
[narrator] It is the only
Minoan clay tablet ever found
that's been fired in a kiln.
And that's just the start,
because there's
something remarkable
about the symbols on it.
Most writing at this time
was inscribed into the clay.
But the symbols
on the Phaistos Disc
have been stamped.
The fact that it was impressed
by a stamp
has also been considered
a unique discovery.
And some archeologists
have, in fact,
called this perhaps the oldest
or first evidence
of a type of printing press.
[narrator] There is literally
nothing else like it
in the ancient world.
[Kevin] Given the care
that was taken in it.
The degree of its...
of its firing,
all of these things mean that
this was a special object
which was view as worthy
of special treatment
and preservation.
[narrator] What could have
been worth all this effort?
Could the answer lie in decoding
these strange symbols?
[dramatic music playing]
[Mark Altaweel] For over
a hundred years now,
people have been
trying to decipher
what exactly is on that disc.
There have been a number
of interpretations.
It could have been
an ancient game perhaps.
A kind of backgammon
or something like that.
Another interpretation
is it's used
for some kind of astronomical
or astrological purposes.
[narrator]
But one obvious theory
has gained more traction
among experts than any other.
[Mark Altaweel] More likely
it's some kind of language.
Whether it's
a localized language
or a slightly more widespread
language is debatable,
but it seems to be something
meant to be read
or, at least, perhaps
even announced to an audience.
[narrator] But experts
couldn't even agree
which direction they should read
this language in.
[Abigail] Archeologists
initially thought
that you started
from the inside of the disc
and read kind
of in a swirl pattern,
coming out to the outer edges.
But then when they looked
more closely at the symbols,
they seem to get more crowded
and difficult
as you move
from the outer rim inside.
So scholars now think
that it's more likely
that it was read
working from the outside in.
[narrator] But what does
it actually say?
There are 242 impressions
on the disc
using 45 unique symbols.
Most alphabets
have far fewer symbols
than the Phaistos Disc.
So experts think it's probably
not an alphabet.
But it has too few symbols
and too many repetitions
to be a pictographic script,
where one symbol can represent
an entire word,
such as Egyptian hieroglyphics
or Babylonian cuneiform.
Instead, experts suspect
the Phaistos script
is what's known as a syllabary
in which symbols
represents syllables
such as do, re, mi.
Syllabaries fit well
with the number of symbols
on the disc,
and we already know another
Minoan script uses them.
But a century of intense
effort by experts
has failed to get any further
with its meaning.
Now, after years of analysis,
Gareth Owens,
a British linguistic scholar,
claims to have solved
at least part of the riddle.
[Abigail] What Owens has done
is try and find a parallel text.
Something else that either
has a similar function
or has a similar type of text,
going through,
looking for other examples
in other languages
is a kind of natural process.
[narrator] Owens has matched
a sequence of symbols
on the disc
with a pattern of symbols
on Minoan religious artifacts
believed to be a prayer.
He has also identified
another pattern of symbols
on the disc
repeated three times
like a chant,
which is similar to an older
Cretan symbol pattern
meaning "Mother Goddess".
His theory, the disc is a prayer
to the Mother Goddess.
This would fit quite well
of what we know.
The Mother Goddess was very
important to Minoan society,
so having some kind of
dedication of prayer to her
seems to be logical.
We do see some repetition
in this disc
like you would do in a prayer.
And the fact that it's baked
clay seems to indicate
that it's a high valued item.
And so having a religious reason
as to why you have this disc,
I think it makes a lot sense.
[narrator] But the problem
with every theory about the disc
is that nothing quite like it
has ever been found.
The strange symbols,
the use of stamps
thousands of years
before anyone else,
the fact that it's the only
kiln-fired tablet
the Minoans ever produced,
it seems out of place
and out of time.
But there is one
explosive theory
that could answer every question
about this mysterious object.
[theme music playing]
[narrator] The Phaistos Disc
is a unique ancient relic,
and that worries some experts.
[Kevin] The uniqueness
of this object is...
As is often the case
with unique objects,
rings a lot of alarm bells.
[Abigail] We would expect
to find more
of these objects,
because if someone
had made the stamp
and have the set,
then we would think,
particularly something
that is made in clay,
which a relatively
durable material,
that we would have more
of these surviving.
[narrator] Establishing
its age is also troublesome.
The disc itself
has not been directly dated,
but as it was found
near a tablet
made between 1700 and 1600 BCE,
archeologists have assumed
it's the same age.
But the issue is clouded
by the unusual circumstances
of its discovery.
It wasn't actually found
by a professional archeologist.
It was in an area which
had been previously excavated
and was spotted by a foreman
doing their rounds.
[narrator] So is it
the real deal
or did someone plant it?
Suspicion has fallen
on one person in particular
at Phaistos.
Site director, Luigi Pernier,
has a strong motive
to conjure up a fake.
[Kevin] What was being found
to the north at Knossos
by Arthur Evans
was quite sensational,
the supposed throne
of King Minos.
Phaistos, by comparison,
is a relatively
humble palatial complex
which had,
up to the find
of the Phaistos Disc,
provided nothing
really sensational
for the media at the time
or to the credit
of Luigi Pernier.
[narrator] The disc definitely
puts Pernier's Phaistos site
on the map.
It raises his archeological
profile immensely.
And that's not the only detail
that casts a shadow
over Pernier.
[Kevin]
Pernier was also responsible
for antiquities in Florence,
in Italy,
and the museum there.
And in its collections
was a remarkable Etruscan disc
known as the Milano Disc.
The disc is circular.
There is a set
of symbols engraved
in a helical or spiral shape
which looks uncannily similar
to the Phaistos Disc.
[narrator] Pernier has means,
motive, opportunity,
and even inspiration.
Cased closed?
Nothing about this unique object
is that simple.
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] Decades after
the disc's discovery,
another relic turns up.
[Mark Altaweel] In 1934,
an axe was found.
This bronze axe
actually had symbology
that were very similar
to what was found on the disc.
[narrator] It is known
as the Arkalochori Axe.
Running down
the center of the axe
are a series of unusual symbols.
Some appear strangely
similar to symbols
on the Phaistos Disc.
A plant, a T shape,
a Y-shaped stick-like symbol,
and, most striking of all,
a man with spiky hair.
[Mark Altaweel] So that
supports the argument
that this was an authentic disc.
That these kinds of symbols
were symbols
that would have been known
to at least somebody
from this region.
[Kevin] The question is,
how would Pernier
have known if he was faking
the disc
to make symbols
which had not yet officially
been archeologically discovered.
This might attest
to the authenticity of the disc.
[narrator] So fake or not fake?
[Mark Altaweel]
I think it's real.
I think the symbology
that has been found
subsequent to this disc,
the fact that
it's very similar to it,
and at a time of discovery,
were not known symbols
indicates to me that it's real.
[narrator]
Others are less certain.
[Kevin] The Phaistos Disc
is one of those rare
enigmatic objects
that it is very difficult
to make an absolute
judgment about.
[Abigail]
What I've often found is
when we call something a fake,
sometimes that is
largely because
we can't understand
what it was used for.
I don't see clear
signs that it's a fake.
And I would certainly
like to believe
that it's real.
[narrator] Controversy
about the disc's authenticity
has raged for a hundred years.
It shows no signs
of being settled anytime soon.
[suspenseful music playing]
[narrator] On display
in an old workshop in Paris
is the death mask
of a drowned girl.
Some claim this is the most
kissed face in history.
[Mark Benecke] She inspired
people, poets, music, dance,
and she was really well known.
[narrator] And she is said
to have saved
over two million lives.
Now, using the latest
imaging technology,
we're bringing
this mysterious mask
into the light.
Every feature immortalized
in plaster
in exceptional detail,
the serene expression,
the eyelids lightly closed,
and that strange
enigmatic smile.
This mask appears
again and again
in museums
and private collections
across the world.
But the woman behind it
is shrouded in mystery.
Who is she?
How did she die?
Why is she so famous?
[theme music playing]
[suspenseful music playing]
[narrator] Who is the
mysterious girl
behind this famous death mask?
Her macabre story
begins in Paris
in the mid-19th century.
It is a sightseer's paradise.
You can climb the 422 steps
of Notre-Dame's towers,
meander through the halls
of the Louvre,
or marvel at the newly-built
Arc de Triomphe.
But one of the biggest
crowd-pullers
is the Paris morgue.
[ominous music playing]
[Mark Benecke] They were
lining up and queuing
to see which people
were put on display.
There were street vendors.
Like today when there's
something entertaining
taking place.
So it was just, you know,
fashionable for normal people
to go and watch the corpses.
[narrator] In theory,
this is done to aid
in the identification
of the dead,
but it quickly becomes
a grisly form of entertainment.
[Ruth] This is a show
in the middle of Paris
that's free to enter,
'cause they want everybody
to come and have a look
to identify the bodies,
in which naked dead people
are laid out in front of you.
So I think you have to imagine
the sort of social thing
that's going on here.
We're looking
at a sort of mixture
of titillation and thrill.
[narrator]
Out of this macabre world
appears this mysterious face.
[Mark Benecke] The story goes
that a drowned woman
was found in the River Seine.
Nobody claimed the body
so it was brought to the morgue.
Since there were no signs
of violence on her body,
people thought that
she probably killed herself
by drowning.
[narrator] Her flawless
complexion suggests
she is around 16 years old.
Her hairstyle fits that
of a peasant girl.
Despite being displayed
to the public,
it seems no one steps forward
to identify the drowned girl.
But she catches someone's eye.
One of the morgue staff
decided that the face
was calm and interesting,
and the person
was captivated and decided
to build a plaster cast.
And everybody who went in
could also see the mask.
[narrator] In an era
before photography,
it isn't uncommon
for morgue attendants
to take plaster casts
before the faces deteriorate
too much to identify.
But how does this one become
one of the most famous
death masks of all time?
[ominous music playing]
[narrator] Making casts
of a dead person's face
sounds macabre today,
but it wasn't always like that.
Two thousand years ago in Rome,
they are a family affair.
[Abigail] The Greek historian,
Polybius,
in the 2nd-century BC,
wrote about these things
called imagines maiorum.
These are the wax masks
that Romans would make
after someone died.
The idea would be
that at every funeral,
they would get these masks out
and wear them as a part
of the funerary procession,
as a way of remembering
not just the one person
being buried
but making sure that the
entire family was present.
Kind of exciting,
but also a bit creepy.
[narrator] But as far
as we know,
no family comes to identify
and preserve the mask
of this young woman.
Yet she achieves immortality.
She is not the first death mask
to become famous.
Although others were rather
better known in life.
Oliver Cromwell,
the 17th-century general
who overthrew
the English monarchy,
Ludwig van Beethoven,
one of the most revered
composers
of the Western world,
and scientist, Sir Isaac Newton,
the man who discovered gravity.
These are all historical
celebrities.
And for the most famous
celebrity death mask of all,
you have to look to Egypt
almost three and a half
thousand years ago
to the death mask
of a king no less,
Tutankhamun.
[Rebecca] The ancient
Egyptians believed
that your ba or your soul
would go into the afterlife.
And in order to identify
its body,
so soul and body
can be reunited,
it needed to have something
really visual,
really clear to identify
your body as you.
Tutankhamun's
very famous death mask
is a really,
really good example of that.
[narrator] But this young girl
is no royal.
She doesn't produce
great works of art
or make world-changing
scientific breakthroughs.
She is the total opposite.
Completely unknown.
So why does her death mask
become so famous?
It may just be a question
of right time, right place.
In Europe during
the Victorian era,
masks become a key part
of an obsession with death.
They are keepsake reminders
of our mortality
known as memento mori.
[Ruth] Death masks
were normal way
of dealing with death.
People have them
about themselves,
have them in their houses,
used them as little reminders
of the sweetness of life,
as well as the shortness
of life.
Like we might keep a photograph
of somebody who's passed away,
you might keep a death mask
of your child that you've lost.
[narrator] In this culture,
the plaster mask
of the drowned girl
from the Paris morgue
finds a receptive audience.
She becomes known
as L'Inconnue de la Seine,
the unknown woman of the Seine.
[Mark Benecke] At the beginning
of the 20th-century,
the mask of
L'Inconnue de la Seine
was relatively widespread.
[narrator] Thousands of copies
of her death mask are made.
Her enigmatic features
capture the imagination
of novelists and poets.
Famous French philosopher,
Albert Camus,
even compares her smile
to the Mona Lisa.
[Mark Benecke]
L'Inconnue de la Seine became
what we would today call
an it girl.
She was known.
She inspired people,
poets, music, dance.
[narrator] But how does
a dead it girl
become the most kissed face
in the world?
[theme music playing]
[ominous music playing]
[narrator] How does the death
mask of an unknown girl
become the most kissed face
in history?
The answer
to this mystery begins
with the search for a way
to preserve life.
When L'Inconnue's body
is fished out of the Seine,
resuscitation is still
in its infancy,
and there are some
pretty bizarre methods.
[Ruth] People are looking
at many different ways
that you might help
stimulate a person
to bring them back.
One is to whip them all over
with stinging nettles.
That that sort of would get
the blood moving
all over the body
and therefore perhaps
trigger something into action.
[Mark Benecke] Maybe they
could resuscitate people
by putting you
over a trotting horse
or putting hot ashes
on your skin.
A method that sounds surprising
is to blow tobacco fumes
inside of the anus of a person
that you try to resurrect.
[Ruth] You'd make up
a really strong concoction
infused with tobacco
and then you'd introduce it
at the other end
and hope that that would
also stimulate
and excite the whole
bodily system,
jerk it back into life.
[narrator] Unsurprisingly,
none of these methods
really help.
So how does this face
become part of the solution?
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] It isn't until
the 1950s
and the work of an Austrian
anesthesiologist
that modern medicine
really gets to grips
with resuscitation.
[Mark Benecke] Peter Safar
came up with the idea
that you could resuscitate
a person correctly.
For example, by putting the head
a little bit to the back,
giving mouth-to-mouth,
applying chest compression
to get the heart started again.
So he invented CPR.
[narrator] Safar reasons
that if everyone
learns these techniques,
more lives will be saved.
To do that, he needs
a realistic training model
for people to practice on.
But no such model exists... yet.
[dramatic music playing]
In 1959, Dr. Safar
goes to a toymaker,
a Norwegian toymaker
of his acquaintance,
Asmund Laerdal.
And Asmund has a lot
of experience using PVC,
a brand-new material,
but he thinks
that this might be
the way forward.
And between them,
they come up with a mannequin
which mimics the basic usage
of a pair of lungs
within a person.
Nearing the end of the process,
Laerdal has his doll
but it hasn't got a face
at the moment.
So where on Earth
is he gonna get one of those?
[narrator]
Laerdal wants a passive,
nonthreatening face.
[Ruth] Well,
luckily at this moment,
he goes and visits his in-laws.
And there on the wall
is hanging L'Inconnue
de la Seine.
Perfect.
Absolutely perfect.
[Mark Benecke] And this is
why we have the face
of L'Inconnue de la Seine
on the CPR mannequin.
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] And the unknown girl
finally gets a name.
Resusci Anne.
It's estimated
she has been used to train
more than five hundred million
people worldwide
and saved as many as two
and a half million lives.
A girl who drowned in the Seine
more than 150 years ago
has become the most
kissed face in history.
But there's one last twist
to the story
of L'Inconnue de la Seine.
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] Her drowned face
is famously picture perfect,
and that's a problem.
[Mark Benecke]
When you die in water
and your body is resting
or laying in water
for an amount of time,
then your skin starts to slip
or you get marbling which means
you have bacteria in your veins.
And since you don't see that
on the death mask,
some people thought
that maybe she was not dead.
[narrator] And that's not
the only unexplained thing
about her.
[Mark Benecke] One thing
that is mentioned often
is that when you look
at the eyeballs,
the eyeballs
are not perfectly round.
[narrator] When your eyes
are shut,
the lens underneath creates
a slight bump in the eyelid.
Some have suggested
that this bump is not circular
on L'Inconnue's face
as though the eyes were moving
while the plaster was setting.
So is this really the face
of a dead woman
or is she just a fiction
built around an artist's model?
We'll probably never know
for sure.
corroded scrap of metal
change the history
of a continent?
[Ben] As soon as
it's identified, wow.
[Kevin] It's the real deal.
[narrator]
Why can't we translate
this 3,000-year-old relic
of a lost civilization?
[Tamar] The Phaistos Disc
is one of the greatest mysteries
of the Bronze Age.
[narrator] And is this
dead woman's face
the most kissed in history?
[Mark Benecke] She became
what we would today call
an it girl.
[narrator]
These are the most remarkable
and mysterious objects on Earth,
hidden away in museums,
laboratories,
and storage rooms.
Now, new research and technology
can get under their skin
like never before.
We can rebuild
them, pull them apart,
and zoom in to reveal
the unbelievable,
the ancient, and
the truly bizarre.
These are the world's
strangest things.
[theme music playing]
[narrator] In a display case
in the Maine State Museum
in Augusta
sits a tiny scrap of metal
that helped rewrite history,
because it is unlike
anything ever found
in the United States.
Now,
the latest imaging technology
reveals it
in astonishing detail.
The Maine penny.
Despite being less than
an inch across
with chipped and corroded metal,
the Maine penny
is one of the most
famous coins in the world,
because it's not a penny,
and it's not from Maine.
Strangely,
barely visible markings on it
reveals something incredible.
Vikings.
[Ben] All of a sudden
this is Viking archaeology
in North America.
How did it get there
and what meaning did it have?
[narrator] It flies in
the face of accepted history
at the time of the coin's find.
American schoolchildren
were being taught
that Columbus
had discovered America.
[narrator]
So how does a Viking coin
end up in Maine?
Is it genuine
or an elaborate hoax?
Now, new research
settles this question
once and for all.
[suspenseful music playing]
[narrator] This strange story
begins at Naskeag Point,
an isolated site
on the coast of Maine.
[Kevin] In the summer of 1957,
an amateur archaeologist
by the name of Guy Mellgren
and a friend
set out to investigate
a Native American midden
or trash heap.
[narrator] They unearthed
thousands of finds
left by the indigenous people
a millennia ago.
[Kevin] And amongst Native
American tools
and bone debris
was a single remarkable
eroded silver coin.
[narrator]
But coins have no place
on a site like this.
[Ben] A thousand years ago,
indigenous American groups
weren't using coinage.
[narrator]
So what exactly is it?
[Kevin] Mellgren shows it
to a friend of his,
who thinks it's a medieval
English coin.
Perhaps it came over with some
of the earliest settlers
to New England.
[narrator] Mellgren puts
the coin on a shelf
and forgets about it
for nearly two decades.
[Ben] And it sits
in his house until 1974
when it makes its way
to the museum.
[narrator]
A local paper publishes
a short article about it,
and that's when this object
becomes one
of history's strangest.
[dramatic music playing]
[Kevin] English coin expert,
Peter Seaby
sees an article on it,
sees the coin, and realizes
it is a very rare Viking coin
of Olaf the Peaceful.
[narrator] This is an original
Olaf the Peaceful coin.
The similarities are undeniable.
Experts date it
as early as 1067.
And that changes everything.
[Ben] When it's considered
to be a British penny,
there's no real mystery
as to how
that might have turned up
on an archeological site.
But as soon
as this is identified
to King Olaf the Peaceful,
wow, all of a sudden,
this is Viking archaeology
in North America.
[narrator] Somehow a tiny
piece of Viking history
has been transported across
the Atlantic to America,
and ended up
in a thousand-year-old
trash heap
on the coast of Maine.
And that is huge.
American schoolchildren
were being taught
that Columbus
had discovered America.
The idea that there were
somehow Vikings
in contact with Native Americans
500 years before Columbus
was big news.
[narrator] Extraordinary claims
require extraordinary proof.
So where is the evidence
to back this up?
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] The idea that Vikings
might have got
to North America first
isn't news to Scandinavians.
They know of the great
Viking tales contained
in the Icelandic sagas.
In particular, the story
of legendary explorer,
Leif Erikson.
[Kevin]
Leif Erikson heard a tale
from a shipwreck mariner
who had been carried by currents
near a land
to the west of Greenland,
which he noted
was covered with trees.
This enticed Erikson,
so he set out
with one well-laden
and equipped boat.
[narrator]
According to the sagas,
Erikson reaches a new land
he names Vinland.
[Kevin] When historians
saw his descriptions
of this country
and the people he encountered,
they thought there's only
one place that this can be.
This must be somewhere
in North America.
Very possibly Newfoundland.
[Ben] If there's any truth
to those stories
and those sagas,
then it really does mean
that the Vikings
have made landfall
in the North...
On the North American continent
much earlier than anybody else
from a European perspective.
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator]
Could this incredible object
really a proof of that?
It certainly isn't
the first Viking artifact
to turn up in the States.
[dramatic music playing]
[Kevin] In 1898,
there was the Kensington
Runestone in Minnesota.
[narrator] The runes translation
records a voyage by eight Goths
and twenty-two Norwegians
to Vinland in 1362
that encounters hostile locals.
This seems to fit more or less
with the Icelandic sagas.
And there are other finds too.
[Kevin] In Ontario,
there was a Viking sword,
axe, and shield found.
And there are also various
bits of writing on stones
which people attributed
to being Viking runes.
[narrator] North America
seems to be littered
with evidence that the Vikings
were there before Columbus.
[Kevin] The problem is
that none of these
were in fact authentic.
The Kensington Runestone
is now known
to have been a forgery.
The axes and shields, likewise.
[narrator]
So why all the Viking fakes.
The Kensington Runestone
may hold the answer.
If you look
at the name of the man
who discovered it, Olof Ohman,
you'll have a clue.
These objects
were found by people
of Scandinavian descent
who were combating
a negative image.
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] Scandinavian
immigrants to the US
had often been taunted
and belittled.
[Kevin] So if these immigrants
could prove
that it wasn't the Italian,
Columbus,
who discovered the New World
but instead, effectively,
a Scandinavian, Leif Erikson,
this would be greatly
to their credit.
[narrator]
And that makes the discovery
of the Maine penny
particularly suspicious
because Mellgren,
the man who finds it,
is of Swedish descent himself.
So is this strange artifact
just another hoax?
[dramatic music playing]
[theme music playing]
[narrator] Could the Maine penny
be just another in a long line
of Viking hoaxes?
One thing that isn't in doubt
is the coins origins
in 11th century Norway.
[Ben] The coin
is definitely authentic.
It's definitely a coin
of King Olaf the Peaceful.
But the big question then is
how can we know that this coin
comes from
an archaeological context?
[narrator] Or, more bluntly,
did Mellgren plant it?
[Kevin] So Mellgren,
himself of Swedish descent,
has both a motive
and an opportunity
to plant this find.
[narrator] To pull off a hoax,
Mellgren would need
the right coin,
but by the late 1950s,
that is relatively easy.
[Kevin] In 1879, a hoard
of more than 2,000 such coins
had come to light.
So the coins themselves
were easy enough to find.
[narrator]
Could Mellgren have got hold
of a real coin to plant?
Now, brand-new research
claims to have finally
answered this question.
[Kevin] The Swedish
coin expert, Von Goldbeck,
decided to take on
the enormous task
of tracing every known coin find
of Olaf the Peaceful.
[narrator] Goldbeck tracks down
more than 2,300 coins
to find out
if any could have made it
into Mellgren's hands.
It's an enormous
piece of research
that takes over a decade
to complete.
The result
after exhaustive study
is that no
Olaf the Peaceful coins
were unaccounted for.
[narrator] Additionally,
unlike the Maine penny,
all other
Olaf the Peaceful coins
are in very good condition.
[Kevin] The Maine penny
is very heavily corroded.
And that's hard to fake.
This is a process that goes on
across the centuries.
[narrator]
The Maine State Museum
analyzes the chemistry
of these layers of corrosion.
The results support
the object's authenticity.
[Ben] There's evidence that
water sat around the coin.
It's been sat
in slowly moving water
for a very long period of time,
and this would be supportive
of the fact
that it's been buried
for a long period of time.
There's no doubt
that the Maine penny
is the real deal.
[narrator] Mellgren did not
plant the Maine penny.
In which case,
how did it find its way
to a Native American settlement
a thousand years ago?
In 1960,
three years after Mellgren
discovers the Maine penny,
Norwegian archaeologist,
Anne Stine Ingstad,
and her husband, Helge,
are investigating a site
at L'Anse aux Meadows
in Newfoundland.
Locals describe it
as an old Indian camp,
but it's something far stranger.
[dramatic music playing]
[Kevin] They find the basis
of turf structures.
One large hall.
Also a blacksmith's workshop.
They find remnants
of Viking boat sheds.
So this is definitive proof
that the Vikings
were the first Europeans
to come to America.
[narrator]
The Icelandic sagas are true.
Vikings really do reach
North America
500 years before Columbus.
[thunder rumbles]
[narrator] It's a revelation,
but it doesn't explain
the coin's discovery
750 miles farther south,
because not a single scrap
of evidence ever
turns up to suggest
the Vikings reached
anywhere near this far down.
So how does a Viking coin
end up in Maine?
[dramatic music playing]
[Kevin] Renewed professional
excavations at Naskeag Point
have not found any other traces
of Norse artifacts.
But what they have found
are stone tools
and stone raw materials
coming from as far away
as Labrador,
hundreds of miles to the north.
So there's evidence here
for trade,
for the movement of goods
and also the movement of people
over really quite
significant distances.
[narrator] Despite the fact
that it has no value
to the indigenous people
as a coin,
one feature may explain
why and how they carry it south.
Although,
it has since crumbled away,
when Mellgren finds the coin,
it has a hole in it.
[Kevin] It's been perforated,
which would indicate
that it was being used
as an object of decoration.
Perhaps worn around the neck
or around the wrist.
But the important thing is
that this object
was not being used as a coin.
[narrator]
So it's likely local people
transport the coin
from Newfoundland
all the way to Maine.
This remarkable object
was created a millennia ago
on the far side
of a stormy ocean.
Like the finds
at L'Anse aux Meadows,
it proves that Columbus
isn't the first European
in North America.
The Vikings beat him to it
500 years earlier.
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] In a museum in Crete,
sits a strangely-marked
clay disc
that has sparked over
a century of controversy.
Some say it is one of the most
astonishing texts ever found,
a 3,000-year-old cryptic message
from an ancient civilization.
Others claim it's just
too good to be true.
Now, using the latest
imaging technology,
we're bringing it
into the light.
This is the Phaistos Disc,
measuring roughly
half an inch thick
and six inches in diameter,
made from fire-baked clay.
Its two sides are covered
with inscriptions
made using a technology
thousands of years
ahead of it time,
this disc is unique.
[Mark Altaweel] It's the only
object that we know of
that looks like that.
[narrator]
There are 242 strange symbols
from Mohican-haired men
to twisted figures,
birds, fish,
and other cryptic shapes.
The Phaistos Disc is one
of the greatest mysteries
of the Bronze Age.
And we've not been able
to decode it yet.
[narrator] But, now,
after more than
a century of debate,
new research may have made
the first steps
to revealing its secrets.
So what do these
bizarre symbols mean?
What is the disc for?
Is it genuine?
[dramatic music playing]
[theme music playing]
[narrator] The mystery
of the Phaistos Disc
begins on the Island of Crete
in Greece.
A place steeped
in mythological stories
of a lost civilization
called The Minoans.
Ancient legends
tell the story of their ruler,
King Minos.
Beneath his palace,
he builds a vast labyrinth
to imprison a fearsome beast
called the Minotaur.
[Mark Altaweel] The Minotaur
was this terrifying
half-man half-bull creature.
And it was kind
of the scourge of anyone
who came to visit Minos.
They would basically be eaten
by this Minotaur.
[narrator] The creature
and the civilization behind it
were considered little more
than ancient Greek legends.
A lot of people thought
it was mythology.
That perhaps they were just
kind of mythical people.
[narrator] But in 1900,
near the north coast
of the island,
British archeologist,
Arthur Evans,
makes a discovery
that changes everything,
the ruins of a vast
Minoan palace
4,000 years old.
[Mark Altaweel] It's a major
deal for archeologists.
This is the first time
we discovered
that they're actually
a real civilization.
They're not just some
made-up mythology.
[Tamar] It transformed
our understanding
of what Mediterranean
civilization
were capable of at this time.
[narrator]
The site is called Knossos.
And it has intriguing links
to the ancient legends.
[Mark Altaweel]
When Arthur Evans began
excavation at Knossos,
he notices there are a lot
of bull symbols.
He understood that,
"Hey, this is may be a place
associated with
the Minotaur story."
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator]
It is a previously unknown
and extraordinarily
sophisticated
ancient civilization.
It existed at a time
when the crowning achievement
of most other European societies
is building wooden huts
and stone circles.
But there is more to come.
In 1908, Italian archeologist,
Luigi Pernier,
excavates a second
Minoan palace complex
on the south of the island.
It is called Phaistos.
One evening, Pernier's foreman
happens on a small clay disc
laying the ruins.
The bizarre symbols
covering its surface
are unlike anything
Pernier has ever seen.
But this disc is exceptional
in every way.
[dramatic music playing]
Normally,
such tablets for writing
would have been formed
out of wet clay.
And then when they were
rather hard,
they would have been
written upon
and simply left to dry
in the sun.
The disc was very different.
This disc,
first of all, was baked.
So rather than sun dried,
it was actually fired.
[narrator] It is the only
Minoan clay tablet ever found
that's been fired in a kiln.
And that's just the start,
because there's
something remarkable
about the symbols on it.
Most writing at this time
was inscribed into the clay.
But the symbols
on the Phaistos Disc
have been stamped.
The fact that it was impressed
by a stamp
has also been considered
a unique discovery.
And some archeologists
have, in fact,
called this perhaps the oldest
or first evidence
of a type of printing press.
[narrator] There is literally
nothing else like it
in the ancient world.
[Kevin] Given the care
that was taken in it.
The degree of its...
of its firing,
all of these things mean that
this was a special object
which was view as worthy
of special treatment
and preservation.
[narrator] What could have
been worth all this effort?
Could the answer lie in decoding
these strange symbols?
[dramatic music playing]
[Mark Altaweel] For over
a hundred years now,
people have been
trying to decipher
what exactly is on that disc.
There have been a number
of interpretations.
It could have been
an ancient game perhaps.
A kind of backgammon
or something like that.
Another interpretation
is it's used
for some kind of astronomical
or astrological purposes.
[narrator]
But one obvious theory
has gained more traction
among experts than any other.
[Mark Altaweel] More likely
it's some kind of language.
Whether it's
a localized language
or a slightly more widespread
language is debatable,
but it seems to be something
meant to be read
or, at least, perhaps
even announced to an audience.
[narrator] But experts
couldn't even agree
which direction they should read
this language in.
[Abigail] Archeologists
initially thought
that you started
from the inside of the disc
and read kind
of in a swirl pattern,
coming out to the outer edges.
But then when they looked
more closely at the symbols,
they seem to get more crowded
and difficult
as you move
from the outer rim inside.
So scholars now think
that it's more likely
that it was read
working from the outside in.
[narrator] But what does
it actually say?
There are 242 impressions
on the disc
using 45 unique symbols.
Most alphabets
have far fewer symbols
than the Phaistos Disc.
So experts think it's probably
not an alphabet.
But it has too few symbols
and too many repetitions
to be a pictographic script,
where one symbol can represent
an entire word,
such as Egyptian hieroglyphics
or Babylonian cuneiform.
Instead, experts suspect
the Phaistos script
is what's known as a syllabary
in which symbols
represents syllables
such as do, re, mi.
Syllabaries fit well
with the number of symbols
on the disc,
and we already know another
Minoan script uses them.
But a century of intense
effort by experts
has failed to get any further
with its meaning.
Now, after years of analysis,
Gareth Owens,
a British linguistic scholar,
claims to have solved
at least part of the riddle.
[Abigail] What Owens has done
is try and find a parallel text.
Something else that either
has a similar function
or has a similar type of text,
going through,
looking for other examples
in other languages
is a kind of natural process.
[narrator] Owens has matched
a sequence of symbols
on the disc
with a pattern of symbols
on Minoan religious artifacts
believed to be a prayer.
He has also identified
another pattern of symbols
on the disc
repeated three times
like a chant,
which is similar to an older
Cretan symbol pattern
meaning "Mother Goddess".
His theory, the disc is a prayer
to the Mother Goddess.
This would fit quite well
of what we know.
The Mother Goddess was very
important to Minoan society,
so having some kind of
dedication of prayer to her
seems to be logical.
We do see some repetition
in this disc
like you would do in a prayer.
And the fact that it's baked
clay seems to indicate
that it's a high valued item.
And so having a religious reason
as to why you have this disc,
I think it makes a lot sense.
[narrator] But the problem
with every theory about the disc
is that nothing quite like it
has ever been found.
The strange symbols,
the use of stamps
thousands of years
before anyone else,
the fact that it's the only
kiln-fired tablet
the Minoans ever produced,
it seems out of place
and out of time.
But there is one
explosive theory
that could answer every question
about this mysterious object.
[theme music playing]
[narrator] The Phaistos Disc
is a unique ancient relic,
and that worries some experts.
[Kevin] The uniqueness
of this object is...
As is often the case
with unique objects,
rings a lot of alarm bells.
[Abigail] We would expect
to find more
of these objects,
because if someone
had made the stamp
and have the set,
then we would think,
particularly something
that is made in clay,
which a relatively
durable material,
that we would have more
of these surviving.
[narrator] Establishing
its age is also troublesome.
The disc itself
has not been directly dated,
but as it was found
near a tablet
made between 1700 and 1600 BCE,
archeologists have assumed
it's the same age.
But the issue is clouded
by the unusual circumstances
of its discovery.
It wasn't actually found
by a professional archeologist.
It was in an area which
had been previously excavated
and was spotted by a foreman
doing their rounds.
[narrator] So is it
the real deal
or did someone plant it?
Suspicion has fallen
on one person in particular
at Phaistos.
Site director, Luigi Pernier,
has a strong motive
to conjure up a fake.
[Kevin] What was being found
to the north at Knossos
by Arthur Evans
was quite sensational,
the supposed throne
of King Minos.
Phaistos, by comparison,
is a relatively
humble palatial complex
which had,
up to the find
of the Phaistos Disc,
provided nothing
really sensational
for the media at the time
or to the credit
of Luigi Pernier.
[narrator] The disc definitely
puts Pernier's Phaistos site
on the map.
It raises his archeological
profile immensely.
And that's not the only detail
that casts a shadow
over Pernier.
[Kevin]
Pernier was also responsible
for antiquities in Florence,
in Italy,
and the museum there.
And in its collections
was a remarkable Etruscan disc
known as the Milano Disc.
The disc is circular.
There is a set
of symbols engraved
in a helical or spiral shape
which looks uncannily similar
to the Phaistos Disc.
[narrator] Pernier has means,
motive, opportunity,
and even inspiration.
Cased closed?
Nothing about this unique object
is that simple.
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] Decades after
the disc's discovery,
another relic turns up.
[Mark Altaweel] In 1934,
an axe was found.
This bronze axe
actually had symbology
that were very similar
to what was found on the disc.
[narrator] It is known
as the Arkalochori Axe.
Running down
the center of the axe
are a series of unusual symbols.
Some appear strangely
similar to symbols
on the Phaistos Disc.
A plant, a T shape,
a Y-shaped stick-like symbol,
and, most striking of all,
a man with spiky hair.
[Mark Altaweel] So that
supports the argument
that this was an authentic disc.
That these kinds of symbols
were symbols
that would have been known
to at least somebody
from this region.
[Kevin] The question is,
how would Pernier
have known if he was faking
the disc
to make symbols
which had not yet officially
been archeologically discovered.
This might attest
to the authenticity of the disc.
[narrator] So fake or not fake?
[Mark Altaweel]
I think it's real.
I think the symbology
that has been found
subsequent to this disc,
the fact that
it's very similar to it,
and at a time of discovery,
were not known symbols
indicates to me that it's real.
[narrator]
Others are less certain.
[Kevin] The Phaistos Disc
is one of those rare
enigmatic objects
that it is very difficult
to make an absolute
judgment about.
[Abigail]
What I've often found is
when we call something a fake,
sometimes that is
largely because
we can't understand
what it was used for.
I don't see clear
signs that it's a fake.
And I would certainly
like to believe
that it's real.
[narrator] Controversy
about the disc's authenticity
has raged for a hundred years.
It shows no signs
of being settled anytime soon.
[suspenseful music playing]
[narrator] On display
in an old workshop in Paris
is the death mask
of a drowned girl.
Some claim this is the most
kissed face in history.
[Mark Benecke] She inspired
people, poets, music, dance,
and she was really well known.
[narrator] And she is said
to have saved
over two million lives.
Now, using the latest
imaging technology,
we're bringing
this mysterious mask
into the light.
Every feature immortalized
in plaster
in exceptional detail,
the serene expression,
the eyelids lightly closed,
and that strange
enigmatic smile.
This mask appears
again and again
in museums
and private collections
across the world.
But the woman behind it
is shrouded in mystery.
Who is she?
How did she die?
Why is she so famous?
[theme music playing]
[suspenseful music playing]
[narrator] Who is the
mysterious girl
behind this famous death mask?
Her macabre story
begins in Paris
in the mid-19th century.
It is a sightseer's paradise.
You can climb the 422 steps
of Notre-Dame's towers,
meander through the halls
of the Louvre,
or marvel at the newly-built
Arc de Triomphe.
But one of the biggest
crowd-pullers
is the Paris morgue.
[ominous music playing]
[Mark Benecke] They were
lining up and queuing
to see which people
were put on display.
There were street vendors.
Like today when there's
something entertaining
taking place.
So it was just, you know,
fashionable for normal people
to go and watch the corpses.
[narrator] In theory,
this is done to aid
in the identification
of the dead,
but it quickly becomes
a grisly form of entertainment.
[Ruth] This is a show
in the middle of Paris
that's free to enter,
'cause they want everybody
to come and have a look
to identify the bodies,
in which naked dead people
are laid out in front of you.
So I think you have to imagine
the sort of social thing
that's going on here.
We're looking
at a sort of mixture
of titillation and thrill.
[narrator]
Out of this macabre world
appears this mysterious face.
[Mark Benecke] The story goes
that a drowned woman
was found in the River Seine.
Nobody claimed the body
so it was brought to the morgue.
Since there were no signs
of violence on her body,
people thought that
she probably killed herself
by drowning.
[narrator] Her flawless
complexion suggests
she is around 16 years old.
Her hairstyle fits that
of a peasant girl.
Despite being displayed
to the public,
it seems no one steps forward
to identify the drowned girl.
But she catches someone's eye.
One of the morgue staff
decided that the face
was calm and interesting,
and the person
was captivated and decided
to build a plaster cast.
And everybody who went in
could also see the mask.
[narrator] In an era
before photography,
it isn't uncommon
for morgue attendants
to take plaster casts
before the faces deteriorate
too much to identify.
But how does this one become
one of the most famous
death masks of all time?
[ominous music playing]
[narrator] Making casts
of a dead person's face
sounds macabre today,
but it wasn't always like that.
Two thousand years ago in Rome,
they are a family affair.
[Abigail] The Greek historian,
Polybius,
in the 2nd-century BC,
wrote about these things
called imagines maiorum.
These are the wax masks
that Romans would make
after someone died.
The idea would be
that at every funeral,
they would get these masks out
and wear them as a part
of the funerary procession,
as a way of remembering
not just the one person
being buried
but making sure that the
entire family was present.
Kind of exciting,
but also a bit creepy.
[narrator] But as far
as we know,
no family comes to identify
and preserve the mask
of this young woman.
Yet she achieves immortality.
She is not the first death mask
to become famous.
Although others were rather
better known in life.
Oliver Cromwell,
the 17th-century general
who overthrew
the English monarchy,
Ludwig van Beethoven,
one of the most revered
composers
of the Western world,
and scientist, Sir Isaac Newton,
the man who discovered gravity.
These are all historical
celebrities.
And for the most famous
celebrity death mask of all,
you have to look to Egypt
almost three and a half
thousand years ago
to the death mask
of a king no less,
Tutankhamun.
[Rebecca] The ancient
Egyptians believed
that your ba or your soul
would go into the afterlife.
And in order to identify
its body,
so soul and body
can be reunited,
it needed to have something
really visual,
really clear to identify
your body as you.
Tutankhamun's
very famous death mask
is a really,
really good example of that.
[narrator] But this young girl
is no royal.
She doesn't produce
great works of art
or make world-changing
scientific breakthroughs.
She is the total opposite.
Completely unknown.
So why does her death mask
become so famous?
It may just be a question
of right time, right place.
In Europe during
the Victorian era,
masks become a key part
of an obsession with death.
They are keepsake reminders
of our mortality
known as memento mori.
[Ruth] Death masks
were normal way
of dealing with death.
People have them
about themselves,
have them in their houses,
used them as little reminders
of the sweetness of life,
as well as the shortness
of life.
Like we might keep a photograph
of somebody who's passed away,
you might keep a death mask
of your child that you've lost.
[narrator] In this culture,
the plaster mask
of the drowned girl
from the Paris morgue
finds a receptive audience.
She becomes known
as L'Inconnue de la Seine,
the unknown woman of the Seine.
[Mark Benecke] At the beginning
of the 20th-century,
the mask of
L'Inconnue de la Seine
was relatively widespread.
[narrator] Thousands of copies
of her death mask are made.
Her enigmatic features
capture the imagination
of novelists and poets.
Famous French philosopher,
Albert Camus,
even compares her smile
to the Mona Lisa.
[Mark Benecke]
L'Inconnue de la Seine became
what we would today call
an it girl.
She was known.
She inspired people,
poets, music, dance.
[narrator] But how does
a dead it girl
become the most kissed face
in the world?
[theme music playing]
[ominous music playing]
[narrator] How does the death
mask of an unknown girl
become the most kissed face
in history?
The answer
to this mystery begins
with the search for a way
to preserve life.
When L'Inconnue's body
is fished out of the Seine,
resuscitation is still
in its infancy,
and there are some
pretty bizarre methods.
[Ruth] People are looking
at many different ways
that you might help
stimulate a person
to bring them back.
One is to whip them all over
with stinging nettles.
That that sort of would get
the blood moving
all over the body
and therefore perhaps
trigger something into action.
[Mark Benecke] Maybe they
could resuscitate people
by putting you
over a trotting horse
or putting hot ashes
on your skin.
A method that sounds surprising
is to blow tobacco fumes
inside of the anus of a person
that you try to resurrect.
[Ruth] You'd make up
a really strong concoction
infused with tobacco
and then you'd introduce it
at the other end
and hope that that would
also stimulate
and excite the whole
bodily system,
jerk it back into life.
[narrator] Unsurprisingly,
none of these methods
really help.
So how does this face
become part of the solution?
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] It isn't until
the 1950s
and the work of an Austrian
anesthesiologist
that modern medicine
really gets to grips
with resuscitation.
[Mark Benecke] Peter Safar
came up with the idea
that you could resuscitate
a person correctly.
For example, by putting the head
a little bit to the back,
giving mouth-to-mouth,
applying chest compression
to get the heart started again.
So he invented CPR.
[narrator] Safar reasons
that if everyone
learns these techniques,
more lives will be saved.
To do that, he needs
a realistic training model
for people to practice on.
But no such model exists... yet.
[dramatic music playing]
In 1959, Dr. Safar
goes to a toymaker,
a Norwegian toymaker
of his acquaintance,
Asmund Laerdal.
And Asmund has a lot
of experience using PVC,
a brand-new material,
but he thinks
that this might be
the way forward.
And between them,
they come up with a mannequin
which mimics the basic usage
of a pair of lungs
within a person.
Nearing the end of the process,
Laerdal has his doll
but it hasn't got a face
at the moment.
So where on Earth
is he gonna get one of those?
[narrator]
Laerdal wants a passive,
nonthreatening face.
[Ruth] Well,
luckily at this moment,
he goes and visits his in-laws.
And there on the wall
is hanging L'Inconnue
de la Seine.
Perfect.
Absolutely perfect.
[Mark Benecke] And this is
why we have the face
of L'Inconnue de la Seine
on the CPR mannequin.
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] And the unknown girl
finally gets a name.
Resusci Anne.
It's estimated
she has been used to train
more than five hundred million
people worldwide
and saved as many as two
and a half million lives.
A girl who drowned in the Seine
more than 150 years ago
has become the most
kissed face in history.
But there's one last twist
to the story
of L'Inconnue de la Seine.
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] Her drowned face
is famously picture perfect,
and that's a problem.
[Mark Benecke]
When you die in water
and your body is resting
or laying in water
for an amount of time,
then your skin starts to slip
or you get marbling which means
you have bacteria in your veins.
And since you don't see that
on the death mask,
some people thought
that maybe she was not dead.
[narrator] And that's not
the only unexplained thing
about her.
[Mark Benecke] One thing
that is mentioned often
is that when you look
at the eyeballs,
the eyeballs
are not perfectly round.
[narrator] When your eyes
are shut,
the lens underneath creates
a slight bump in the eyelid.
Some have suggested
that this bump is not circular
on L'Inconnue's face
as though the eyes were moving
while the plaster was setting.
So is this really the face
of a dead woman
or is she just a fiction
built around an artist's model?
We'll probably never know
for sure.