Hide Jewels In Your Wig Like A Lady, Then Walk Like An Egyptian

Jess is back with another awesome historical woman, Lady Elizabeth Cathcart. She was locked away by her gold-digging husband for TWENTY YEARS when she refused to give up her jewels and her estate. But he got a healthy dose of karma in the end.

Hids talks about the Egyptian craze that spiked during the Victorian age and has influenced so much in architecture, art, and design ever since, with another big spike in the 1920s with the discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb. 

Jess’ Sources:

• https://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/yourplaceandmine/fermanagh/lady_cathcart.shtml
• https://scamsnow.com/the-abuse-of-lady-elizabeth-cathcart-a-historical-romance-scam-story-2025/
• https://www.dib.ie/biography/maguire-hugh-a5358
• https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BU5NP6HJj/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Rackrent

Hids’ Sources:

• https://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu/exhibitions/napoleon-and-egyptomania-in-tennessee/
• https://hauntedpalaceblog.com/2024/10/03/mummy-unrolling-in-nineteenth-century-britain-science-or-spectacle/
• https://www.thecollector.com/victorian-egyptomania/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/bji99u/comment/em9gq51/?context=3
• https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/e3zzmv/what_kicked_off_the_egyptology_craze_in_the_18th/
• https://www.epoch-magazine.com/post/the-curse-of-the-victorians-in-egypt-tourists-on-the-nile
• https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9nbhwz/im_an_upperclass_englishman_in_victorian_england/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Okay, I have my notes up. She's making the funniest faces at that sound.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Like she's looking at me like, dude, are you hearing it?

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Let me try it one more time. Just in his make a podcast. It's a podcast of Justin Hits Made. If you're listening to this podcast, it's a podcast against an hits made.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

Hey, what's up? Hey, what's up? I'm patting a little little Kirsty kitten.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Aww. It's a cube. What's up with you? I'm uh scrolling through my notes. Cool, cool, cool. And trying to get my tablet to not uh fall. You know what? I'm just not gonna bother with the holder.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Okay. Here we go. Look at this little kitten. Look at her doing her little pause. Oh, she's doing little airbags. I like you so much. I miss my kittens while we were gone.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

I know. Because we were gone. We were gone. We were in Mexico for four days and on the beach. It was great.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

Jess's parents. Yeah. For that trip.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

It was great. It was wonderful. Yeah. Much needed. And we don't like being back home. But also like our animals are here. We do.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

And that's good. We have our kittens and Cake and Bowie. And we're just happy to be with them.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Yep. Now, if we could have taken all of them and just stayed at the beach. Stayed on the beach, that would be awesome. That would have been so great. Yeah. That would have been so fun. So cute.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

Kiersey has all of the cats have just been like a very affectionate. We have the cats that actually miss you when you're gone.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

And it's wonderful. It's the weirdest thing ever. I've never had a cat actually like pretend like they liked me before. Well, no, I had cats like me before, but yeah. I mean they always like you, but they're just like kind of aloof. Yeah. These cats are not. They're like, we're so happy. We missed you. And cake is always just cake is just wonderful. Happy. Just a happy dog. Yep. So anyway, Mexico is fun. Oh, Mexico is so fun. We meant to do research while we were in Mexico, but that didn't happen. Because you just go sit on the beach and there and we just wanted to relax and actually have a vacation.

SPEAKER_02 2:40

I got to do some painting and some drawing. Yeah. And I'm very happy with that.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

I didn't do either of those things. Okay. But I sat on the beach and watched the ocean, and we saw dolphins and we saw Stingrays? Stingrays. My dad got stung by a stingray on his foot. And uh he's fine now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

We saw we saw founders, which I've never seen in the wild. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Which was really about them. And tiny little shrimp in the in the tide pools. Crabs. Lots of hermit crabs. Always lots of hermit crabs. Um but yeah, fun fact, if you didn't know, if you ever get stung by a stingray, uh hot water baths help.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, your dad said that was like the only time it's that didn't hurt.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Yeah, he said it was the weirdest thing he would like like he did get like uh the condo place we were staying at, the office there called an ambulance and they did come and treat him. They kind of numbed it a little bit and bandaged it up and cleaned the wound and everything. Um, but they said, yeah, hot water baths to uh help the pain. And my dad said that like he could tell once it reached below a certain temperature because the pain would just come back. But he'd raise the temperature again, he'd refresh the water. So wild. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. I remember though when I got stung by a jellyfish um uh twice in one trip, two different days. Uh the the thing that helps the most with that was a hot shower. Oh just hot water. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:21

That's so wild. Yeah. This is why I don't like the ocean because things bite you and sting you and cause you pain. It's so pretty. I do. I know. I love going, I absolutely love going to the beach. I love the ocean. I am terrified of the things that I can't see in it. Um, but I actually did get in the water again this year, so that was good. Baby, baby steps. Yeah. Every every three years we go to the beach and I get a little bit deeper in the water.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Yeah. It was fun. There was one day, this was actually, we were doing this while my dad was off getting stung by stingray. But we were sitting in like shallows, the shallow water, and a little school of thousands of tiny little fish came and surrounded us. And so, like, we kind of knelt down in the sand and just watched them. It was so cool.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

They would stay like four or five inches away from us, but they would just go, there were four of us, and they would just swim between us, but like they had that little buffer zone.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

And then your dad was like walking towards us, and we're like, Stop, go away, and he's like, I've been stung.

unknown 5:32

Go away.

SPEAKER_02 5:34

Oh, man. Sorry. Yeah. It turned out okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

So that that was our uh well, that was only four days of the two weeks since we last recorded a podcast. Yeah. Or released a podcast. Uh, what else has happened? Um It was all just cleaning the house leading up to the trip, and then the trip, and now we're back.

SPEAKER_02 6:02

I have blonde hair.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Yeah, there's that too. You bleached the crap out of it.

SPEAKER_02 6:06

Bleached the crap out of it, and I got like, I was like, I'm gonna dye it before we go to Mexico. And so that Friday I was like, bleach it, and then I didn't ever put any color in it. Yeah. So it's it looks kind of I kind of am liking it. Yeah, I gotta do, I got some more bleach coming because I got roots. My hair grows crazy fast. Yeah, mine does. It's ridiculous. I it's like three days after I bleached it, I started having roots. I'm like, what the heck? Anyway.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Not much else. Yeah. I can't really think of any big news that has happened. So our lives are pretty boring when we're not like podcasting.

SPEAKER_02 6:53

Doing this or yeah. Yeah. That's it. That's cool. You know, I a boring life is is okay. I don't know if I could handle like lots of stress and anxiety or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_02 7:10

Oh, I still I I guess I've just been full of conspiracy theories because I've been listening to uh the gets weird podcast you told me about.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

And uh yeah, that's wild. Yeah, and then last episode you covered a conspira conspiracy theory. So yeah. Right? That was last yeah, the trees, the giant trees. That feels like it was forever ago.

SPEAKER_02 7:31

It does feel forever ago. It was three weeks since we recorded that.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Oh, I guess three weeks since we recorded, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:38

Okay, yeah. It's it's been a while. Yeah. We've done a lot since then. So shall we get into this one? I don't have anything else to tell you.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

I guess so. Yeah. I've got the Uno cards ready.

SPEAKER_02 7:50

Oh, hey, this is uh in case you don't know what podcast you clicked on.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

This is welcome to episode 18 of Jess and Hidz Make a Podcast. I'm Jess. I'm Hidz. And we made a podcast.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

Season two, episode eighteen.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

Season two, episode eighteen. Yes, it's actually episode 69. Uh-oh. Womp, womp, womp. Anyway. Insert crude joke here. And uh yeah. All right. Do we draw cards? Yes. Okay. The Uno cards. Higher number goes first. Is that how it works? Yes. What'd you get? You have to show your card. Eight. I have four. Okay, fine. Although I should make you go first this time because I went first last time.

SPEAKER_02 8:39

But that's no, but hey, we did have a a member in our Discord say they were glad you went first because my episode just kind of broke a lot of people's brains.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

So it's cool that everybody would have forgotten about Orangy the Cat. I know. If uh after the fact, like or just not what it would have been like what I can't even process.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

There's a cat now. What did the cat do? Yeah. Orangy the cat is who chopped down the trees.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Yes, that's what we decided. Yeah, the the trees were bombarded with cat claws. With Orangy's claws.

unknown 9:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 9:14

Okay. So I've been watching you do all your research and uh all your stuff uh this afternoon.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

So because we didn't do it on vacation. Yeah. All right. So I did not go with a topic that was uh on the card that I drew.

SPEAKER_02 9:31

Oh, did you wild magic search?

SPEAKER_01 9:33

I had a bit of a wild magic search because uh my mom sent me a uh Facebook post. Thanks, mom. It was a random Facebook post by a page that claims to post real historical stories, but you never actually know if the stories they post are legit. Yeah. Because you don't know where they're pulling their sources, and it's just like this cool thing happened. And like there's always an image with people.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

Cite your sources, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

And there's always like an image with it, but you can't tell if it's like a generic image or like a possible rendering of this historic event or whatever, and like you just never know because they never they never give sources anyway. It's one of those kinds of pages. Okay. Um, and I will link that post in the show notes. Uh I did some digging and usually if those posts, if the stories in those posts are real, you can learn about it pretty quick. Also, if they're fake, you can learn about it pretty quick. Um But for this particular story, I'm not I'm I'm still not a hundred percent sure, even though like I'm like, we'll say I'm like 98% sure. And the only like as far as I can tell, it's legit. The only holdup I had is that the people involved in this story, the supposedly like real life historical people, they don't have Wikipedia pages. And like I know Wikipedia isn't like the end all be all of like truthful sources, but it's just it's still kind of weird.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

Yeah. Because this thing happens, things just about historical will be in there.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Yeah. So like I even like Googled their names and like the sources that I do have might be legit. But it's really the articles, the articles I found telling this story also seemed like they embellished a little bit. So like it's kind of hard to tell. I wanna say it's true.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

So we or we could just preface this entire segment with allegedly. Allegedly. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Yeah, but also I'm I'm inclined to believe that it's true for reasons that I'll talk about later. Okay. Um what is it?

SPEAKER_02 11:48

So I'm so curious now.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

I I'm talking about a woman named Lady Elizabeth Cathcart. And the story doesn't start until Elizabeth was 53 years old, but I'll give you a bit of background on her real quick. She was born Elizabeth Mallon, M-A-L-Y-N, in 1691. She was the daughter of a brewer in London, and one of my sources stated that she uh she had navigated the world with a beauty that captivated admirers and a resolve that secured her fortune.

SPEAKER_03 12:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

So, humble beginnings. Uh, I don't know much about her early life, but I do know she was married several times. Her first marriage was to James Fleet. He was the son of a Lord Mayor and had a grand estate in Hertfordshire, England, called Toin Water.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

The marriage ended with his death in 1733. I'm not even sure the date of the marriage. I just know 1733, he dies, leaving her the estate. Her second marriage was to Colonel William Sabine. He was super wealthy, and on his death in 1738, she inherited all of it. So her third marriage was to Lord Charles Cathcart, a military commander. This marriage granted her a title, Lady Cathcart, uh, but the marriage ended swiftly with his death at sea in 1741. So three marriages. No, no. It's there's like no mention, not even any suspicion thrown on her. But like you'll you'll get to know her a little bit more um as we go on. And I'm I'm I don't want to say that she killed her husbands just because of what happens to her next. Okay. Uh the first three marriages of the first three marriages, number one had been to please her parents. It was sort of arranged. Number two had been for fortune, and number three for rank. Now at 53 years old, she wanted to marry for love. And then in the city of Bath, she met Colonel Hugh McGuire. He was a 35-year-old Irish officer whose charm promised love. She was immediately swi smitten, not sweetten. Switten. She was immediately smitten, and on May 18th, 1745, she married him. So 35-year-old Hugh, 53-year-old uh Elizabeth. Cougar. 15 years difference, I think. I don't I don't know. Um well, was she a cougar or was he a gold digger? I would go with he. Yeah. Uh as a gift to herself and to mark the occasion of her wedding, she had a ring made engraved with the defiant jest, if I survive, I will have five. So she's already like, haha, I'm gonna be married a fifth time. Oh my goodness. It's kind of funny. Um, so the happy couple lived in two and water for a while, where Lady Elizabeth gave her new husband half of the income from the wealth and property she had inherited from her previous husbands. Okay. The honeymoon glow faded when it became obvious that Hugh was more interested in Elizabeth's wealth than in her. So definite gold digger situation here. He blew through the money that she had already given him, then he held her at gunpoint and demanded more. What a jerk. Yeah. So he demanded her jewels and the deeds to all of her properties, and she refused.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

Okay, well, good for her.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

Yeah. Uh this happened, apparently, this happened several times, and she hid her valuables. She um she wove her diamonds into her wig and she quilted her gems into her petticoats.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

And so you're saying hand sewing is a good skill to learn.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Yeah. She uh she concealed the deeds to her properties behind a secret panel in her favorite room at Toin Water. T-E-W-I-N water. Okay. Toin. To win. Yeah. Um, so he was pissed when she did that. When she refused to give up, how dare she refuse? I know. So he spirited her away to Ireland and held her captive in the attic of his former home. What a jerk face. Yeah. So Tempo House is where he took her, or possibly Kara. Kara, uh, another property he inherited from his mother near the Ferminog Monaghan border. Um, my sources were unclear about where exactly she was held, either Tempo House or Kara. Okay. Um, but I do know she was kept there for seven years. What? And was then moved to Castle Nugent, N-U-G-E-N-T, in County Longford, which I assume is another of his family properties, or maybe it's one that he purchased with her wealth. I don't know. What the heck? Yeah. This guy's a first-class turd. Yeah, for sure. So the attic she was being held in was sparsely furnished. It had a single window. He gave her a prayer book and just an old newspaper for entertainment. Uh, she was denied pen and paper. So she pricked her thoughts into the wallpaper with a pen. She would memorize conversations to preserve her sanity and just pick them into the wallpaper.

SPEAKER_02 17:46

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Yeah. And that kind of that kept her sane. That's what she did. Uh while she was being held there, Colonel Hugh entertained the neighboring gentry. He held lavish parties and balls. Um, far from seeking to hide Elizabeth's presence upstairs, he would ask the assembled company to drink her ladyship's health. And a servant, dispatched to deliver his compliments, would return conveying her ladyship's thanks. So, like, he did all this convincing everybody that she just wasn't feeling well, and that's why she's unable to attend the party or whatever. So, like, yeah, and she would always like like she she probably knew that whatever servant is relaying these messages couldn't say, Oh, she's being held captive.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and the servant probably never actually, he probably just like went up, go away for a couple minutes and come back. Yeah. And never even go up there.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

Yeah, that's that's possible. I think if I were a servant in that household, it would be a rough time. Because like, on the one hand, you want to help her, but on the other hand, what you know, the class difference and like at this time, like during this time period. Like you didn't have many options. Yeah. Yeah. You couldn't defy a a lord or whatever. Colonel, uh Colonel is his title, I think. But like, yeah, she had the title. Hashtag eat the ring. Yeah. Okay. Um so he would also bring her meals, and when he did, he would come in with a pistol, each time demanding the location of her valuable jewels and the deeds to her properties. Uh, the world outside uh kind of moved on without her. In England, Till and Water was let by Hugh's agent, his attorney, and her absence was dismissed as a retreat abroad. Ugh. What a jerk face. Yeah. At some point in her imprisonment, she bundled up all the jewels. She picked them out of her wig and her petticoats and and she tossed them out of the attic window to a poor woman named Mrs. Johnson who was passing by asking her to safeguard them for Whoa. Yeah. So she she ditched her valuables.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

Hi, can you hide these from my jerk-faced husband and pretend you never saw me?

SPEAKER_01 20:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:16

Random person on the street.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Again, if I were that woman, I don't know how long I would have held on to them. Yeah. Like it did say, like it specified she was a poor local woman. So like I don't know if she could have even raised awareness.

SPEAKER_02 20:31

Yeah, she may have known of the family. Yeah. But not yeah, what is she gonna do?

SPEAKER_01 20:37

Yeah. Cause like even if she had said something to somebody in a position of authority, they would have been, oh, you stole them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:45

And then now you're gonna go to jail. Yeah. Or worse. Or whatever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

Yeah. Oh, you're a witch. You're a witch. Not a witch. So the years stretched into decades. Um Elizabeth, who was once vibrant, grew frail. Her red wig um was a stark contrast to her worn, pale frame. Hugh's tactics grew desperate. He bribed highwaymen to rob messengers who were sent to contact Elizabeth and staged cruel hoaxes to try to scare her or just rattle her enough to give up the information that he wanted. Uh she was held captive for nearly 20 years.

SPEAKER_02 21:28

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

The sources say 21 years, but so in 1760, it was from Yeah, this yeah, the sources say 21 years. If I do the math on the dates, that was the year she got married to him. So I don't know if all of this happened in the first year of their marriage or if it took a while. Right. I don't know. It it's possible that he just like flipped the switch and was like, Oh, you're rich, give me all your money, and yeah. So So possibly 21 years. Um, I'm I'm not sure. So in 1766, when Elizabeth was 75 years old, she finally relented. She revealed the deed's hiding place behind a wall in in the wall panel at Two In Water. So Hugh rushed off to Hert Hertfordshire. He found the secret panel only to be blocked by a rusty lock. And he pulled out a knife and accidentally cut himself when he tried to pick the lock. And in an amazing case of karma, he developed blood poisoning from that.

SPEAKER_02 22:42

Good for him.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Colonel Hugh McGuire died a few weeks later from lockjaw. Good for him. Yeah. Stupid jerky face. I know. Um the news of Hugh's death reached Elizabeth, but she hesitated, thinking that it was just in the another. Another hoax, yeah. Yeah. Uh her attorney was dispatched to Ireland from England to find her. And he said that when she finally came down from the attic, she was she barely had enough clothes to cover her body. They were all ratted and just 20 years they were disintegrated.

SPEAKER_02 23:19

The guy could not even bother to give her clothes.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:22

Like she still had her it was a painful death.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

I know. I mean, lockjaw can't be a great way to go. Quick Google to find just how horrific Lockjaw is.

SPEAKER_02 23:35

Uh the jaw is cramping up and experience muscle spasms that are involuntary, uncontrollable. Patients may even experience fever and breakout and cold sweats from the pain. Good. Oh. I feel sorry for anyone who likes has locked jaw and is not a an evil, wicked person, but this guy deserved it.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

What oh. Okay, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

So she still had the red wig, um, and her attorney said she looked scared. Her understanding seemed stupefied. She said she scarcely knew one human creature from another.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

Oh my gosh. So I mean she hadn't seen anyone but him. Yeah. And the lady she tossed the jewels out of the window. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I like this was a a hundred, two hundred, I don't know how many years ago, and I'm I would go find this man and punch him in the face if I could. Time travelers. I need a time time machine. Yeah.

unknown 24:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

That's you know what? Theory here. He while he was picking the lock, a time traveler appeared behind him and went, uh, and that like scared him, and he jumped, and that's what slipped and cut his hand. So that works. Time travelers, you did good. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're I still want to kind of punch him.

SPEAKER_02 25:00

It's still the little, you know, there could have been a little fine-tuning and done that like a year after, or you know, sooner in the Yeah, sooner in the imprisonment.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

That would have been great. Time travel's tricky. Yeah. So with the help of her attorney, Elizabeth went home to Toon Water to recover from all of the trauma and just all the things. So over over the course of a few years, legal legal battle m legal battles happened as she reclaimed her estate from Hugh's agent, who had sold all of her possessions and had been renting out her home. She found and generously rewarded the woman who kept her jewels for 20 years.

SPEAKER_02 25:44

You know what? Girls stick together. I know. Yeah. Women of the world lift each other up. Yeah. That's amazing. It's crazy that she kept them.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

I think I don't know if I would have.

SPEAKER_02 25:58

Especially like being poor and like knowing that there were riches right there.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

But also Yeah, that raises the question of like, could she have discreetly sold them for money? Yeah. Without raising raising suspicion on herself.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

Yeah. She may not have had the option to even dispose of them in any way. Yeah. I am going to think that she knew this woman would be safe outside. She was gonna hold true and be a good good human. Yeah. And just be like, she told me to keep them and I'm gonna keep them safe.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

Yeah. That's what I like to believe, does it? That's that's what I'm going with. Yeah. Um, by age 80, Elizabeth was again enjoying dancing and carriage rides.

SPEAKER_02 26:45

You go, girl.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

At age 90, it was said that Elizabeth danced with all the sprightliness and gaiety of a young woman.

SPEAKER_02 26:52

Aww.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

So the ring that she had gifted herself on her wedding day when she married Hugh, uh, the inscription on it, if I survive, I will have five, it remained unfulfilled. She never took a fifth husband. Good for her, choosing instead to live for herself. Good for her. Yeah. I love that. She died on August 3rd, 1789. She was 98 years old.

SPEAKER_03 27:16

Whoa.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

And her obituary, along with the story of everything she had gone through, was published in an issue of The Gentleman's Magazine, which apparently is a magazine that exists in the world. I don't know. Uh, she left her fortune to charities and to her servants. Aww. Yeah. So her her kindness and her good works marked her final years and kind of served as a quiet little rebuke to the greed that that she had to endure that like almost broke her.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

Like you, you tried. You tried, you tried, you tried, and here I am. I'm out, you're dead, I'm out having a good time. Yeah. Going for carriage rides, going to dances, living my life, being the best me.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:03

That's fabulous.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

Yeah. Um, so the story, like I said, as far as I can tell, it actually happened. And if it does sound familiar, it's possible that you read something like it in a fictional novel called Castle Recrant, written by Maria Edgeworth. It was published in 1800. So I don't know if we have any uh people who enjoy books published in 1800 among our listeners.

SPEAKER_02 28:31

But yeah, there's a probably very wordy.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

Uh I it said it was a short, fairly short novel. Okay. Um so the uh the fictional character in the novel, Sir Kit Recrent, was inspired by Colonel Hugh McGuire. And in the book, he held his wife, Jessica Recrent, captive for seven years until he died. Um, so Maria, the author of this book, never met Lady Cathcart, but it seems like she had some personal knowledge in what happened to Elizabeth, and it played an important part in her book. Yeah. Maria's father, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, uh said he knew all about Hugh and had spoken to some of the people involved in the case.

SPEAKER_02 29:20

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

So it seems like this is real.

SPEAKER_02 29:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

If this author is saying, Oh yeah, my dad knew of this Hugh guy and had, you know, met some people that were involved in all of that. Um Okay, so maybe well, I'm gonna go with this.

SPEAKER_02 29:40

Yeah, I'm with it. Yeah. And like I mean, it it tracks that this guy would do that. I mean, it just tracks that a guy would be like, give me all your money, or I'm gonna lock you in a room for the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:56

Stupid.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Uh yeah. Uh last thing, I have a neat little thing about this this book, Castle Rackrant. It's sometimes regarded as the first historical novel.

SPEAKER_02 30:09

Oh. Yeah. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

So the book actually follows four generations of Rakrents through uh it's told from the perspective of a footman who worked for the family. Okay. And so this Kit Rakrant character was only one of the generations. And it was a a seroton si satirical novel, uh, sort of highlighting the the mismanagement by the rich of their estates, because eventually they all lose their money. Yeah. And um yeah, it it was also considered, no, it was the first regional novel in English, the first Anglo-Irish novel, the first big house novel, which I'm not sure what that is, but maybe big in-house or capitalized. Maybe like a big publishing house? Oh, yeah, maybe. I'm not sure. I should have looked that up. Um uh it was also the first saga novel.

SPEAKER_02 31:11

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 31:12

Yeah. Wow. Well, like told over generation, I think.

SPEAKER_02 31:15

Uh yeah. Um I've always heard that about like the generational, like the first generation makes the wealth, the second generation has to manage it, and the third generation loses it. Yeah. Yeah. Which is like, yeah. If you if you look around, like if you look through it, that's how it does just kind of yeah. Interesting. I I kind of want to read that now. I I know I'm very like written, very word-like.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

I'm sure it would be hard to get through. Yeah. I might have to like listen to it instead of read it. But also, like, sometimes even listening to that is hard. I tend to tune it out if it doesn't like if the language doesn't grab me. Yeah. Um so another neat little thing, William Butler Yeats pronounced Castle Racrent, one of the most inspired chronicles written in English. And Sir Walter Scott, who met and carried on a correspondence with Maria Edgeworth, the author, credited her novel for inspiring him to write his Waverly series of novels.

SPEAKER_02 32:17

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

Wow. That's that's pretty cool. I thought that was cool. And yeah, I kind of I I'm curious to read it because it seems it's uh satirical, and I love that it's told from the point of view of a servant in the household.

SPEAKER_02 32:32

Yeah. Well, I'm gonna just try to figure, I might try to find that book. Yeah. Oh, there's a Maria Edwards Center.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

Oh, you know what? I think it's actually it's uh the book popped up on the Gutenberg Project website, which is a site where they take uh they transcribe. It's it's you could read it for free, pretty much. Yeah, they it's a database of um oh my gosh, books that are out of the they're free. Public domain. Public domain, okay, public domain. Yeah, books that have moved into public domain domain. It's a yeah, it's a collection of that. And a lot of those books are just like uh classic literature and stuff.

SPEAKER_02 33:19

Okay, cool. I'll have to go check that out.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

Yeah. Excellent. I forgot that that popped up in my search. I was tempted to read it, but then I was like, oh, you know what? We have to record this podcast. I can't read this podcast. I can't do it.

SPEAKER_02 33:31

Yeah. That's so cool. Well, I am going to also believe that that is a true story. Yeah. Um and yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:41

I will link all of my sources in the show notes. Okay. And uh yeah, you can decide for yourself. One of the sources I will say it's from a website called Scams Now. Oh okay. But it it's written from the the article is written by a guy uh who writes a lot of um he's like a he's like a hmm. Nope, the words are leaving my brain. He is a guy who is he writes things. Yeah, no, he's a doctor. Um, I want to say he's a therapist of like relationship trauma and abuse. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. So that's that's pretty much what the article is about. It's like here's this case of this, and here's like a, you know, she went through all of this, but still managed to, you know, keep keep her uh I wouldn't say she didn't stay, like I'm not gonna say she stayed optimistic through the whole ordeal, but yeah, like she she recovered from it. She recovered, yeah. Yeah, it's a it's a recovery story. Um that's really scams now. And like this website like uh offers help to people who have been scammed, either through relationships or yeah, so it's not saying that this story is a scamp. Yeah, yeah. That's that's the point that I was going with all of that. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:15

Well, that's cool. So you said she died in 179 something. Hang on, let me find it.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

1789. 1789. Okay. Yeah, she was 98 years old.

SPEAKER_02 35:28

Okay, that's where I got the 90s. So okay. Well, my topic actually kind of sort of begins in 1798. Oh. I think wait, that doesn't make sense. Okay. 1898. I'm sorry. I wrote the wrong number. I was like 1798 and 1901. No one that okay. I saw well darn. I thought we were gonna have a little bit of synchronicity because I also have synchronicity in my topic. Um so a hundred years later, my topic begins. Never mind. Edit that part out, just cut that. It's terrible. Gonna do that. I know.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

I'm not gonna cut out my little brain fart that I had. It's okay, no. Yeah, it's cool. I like that.

SPEAKER_02 36:20

Yeah. Not scam. Um he's he's actual like a cool. Anti-scam. Uh okay. Well, so so I'm gonna talk about a thing that uh kind of spans some centuries and is uh not centuries. Yeah, saga, if you will. Uh it was a influential moment in history that carried on. It spanned centuries? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

It's a big moment.

SPEAKER_02 36:52

Okay, look. Sorry. Listen here.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

I mean, my topic didn't take up much time. I'm just trying to riff for a little bit. Okay, good. Do that.

SPEAKER_02 37:00

Um, so this I think I actually put this on the l list like when we first started making the list, because it's one of the things that I am passionate about. An old school topic. An old topic. Um, and the crazy thing is, okay, so I got this topic three weeks ago when we recorded. And um that today when I was catching up on four weeks of and that's why we drink, M started talking about this, and I was like, stop it. That's my topic. But they were talking about like this was tangential to their topic. Tangenti tangential? Yeah, tangential. Thank you. Yeah. Words are hard. Tangential. Don't I will just tangential. I'll just start like repeating that word over and over. Okay. It is a weird word. I'm gonna talk about the Egyptomania. Ooh. The Egyptian craze in Victorian Europe.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

Sweet. Yes, that's fun. I love and hate this. You know what? If I had gone with one of my original topics, we might have had some synchronicity there.

SPEAKER_02 38:20

No way. That's awesome. Um I I love this. I love this because I have always just since childhood loved all things Egyptian, like the and I'm not I'm talking like pharaohs and pyramids, ancient, ancient Egypt. Yeah. Um, I love that stuff. I love learning about it. I love reading about it. Um, and I love the architecture. And I love seeing seeing that architecture from like the 19, early 1900s, 1920s. Uh-huh. That's what I think.

SPEAKER_01 38:53

Massively influenced by Egypt, like ancient Egyptian. Massively in a big way. That's when they were uncovering the tombs and everything, the 20s. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:02

Yeah. So it started, um, and this is what this is the synchronicity that M was talking about. Um they were talking about the Egyptian theater in Boise, Idaho, which is a one of the last single-screen theaters left in the country. Oh. And it's I can name a couple here in Arizona. Yeah, it's there's not many left, but it it was built like in 1910, I think, or 19 somewhere 1910 to 1920 in that time frame. Okay. Um, and of course, you know, they focused on the haunting, but they talked about how uh the craze of Egypt kind of influenced this architecture and they had all this, all this design, this uh aesthetic and everything. Yeah. And Christine, I was like, what? So Christine uh last year went to Egypt. The other host of the city. The other host of that's why we drink. Yeah, sorry, this is my this is my synchronicity, and then I'm gonna dive into my stuff. Um but Christine met the man who was a boy that worked for Howard Carter. Whoa. And he is actually the boy who found the entrance to Tut's tomb and told Howard Carter about it. Holy crap. And of course, was then erased from history because the white great white man has to take all he found it. Howard Carter found the tomb, but actually it was this man, and Christine got to talk to him. That's really cool about that, and stuff which I was just like, what? That is so crazy. I mean, I was sitting there today listening to this, and I'm going, I have got to talk about this in my in the vodcast today, just to say criticity of me doing all this research, and uh I'm gonna mention Howard Carter later and everything, but and then M's like, so I learned this, and I was like, that's awesome. Dude, let me just let me. I had I was sitting there like, wait, you're wrong on that, but right on this. So let me tell you what I learned now. Um I kind of think they're better researchers, they probably are. They have a team, yeah, you know, they they get a lot more in, but they there were a couple things that I was like, oh, that's not what I I read. It's fine. Um in 1898 and 1901, Napoleon had two major campaigns in Egypt, and this is what really kicked it off uh the Egypt Egyptomania in Europe because I didn't know Napoleon had anything to do with that.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

I don't know enough about Napoleon. I yeah, I'm not sure where all he tried to conquer the world.

SPEAKER_02 41:42

Yeah. I mean the world. Yeah. So um so he was down in Egypt, had these two major campaigns, and they're coming, you know, he's coming back with treasures and things that they have taken from uh Egypt to to put in museums in, you know, to be like, look what we've discovered. Museums and rich people's houses. Yes, and rich rich people's houses is the key. Um, and they also so this is starting, these items are starting to come in, and people are like, wow, look at this. This is wild, and this is you know very interesting and cool. And then they discovered the Rosetta stone, um, which is a stone that helped to decipher the old Egyptian writings and hieroglyphs. Yeah. So now we're getting all this information about what is written on these scrolls and the monuments and the temples and the buildings and the tombs and all this stuff. Um, cute she squeaked, too. That's so cute. I love when she squeaks. Um one of the big this guy actually um is kind of the first person to be designated as an Egyptologist and actually kind of kicked off the uh Egyptology as a discipline, as a as a field of study. Oh, sweet. Like kind of um his name is Giovanni Battista Belzoni, and he used to be an Italian circus strongman. Oh my gosh. That's and awesome. He became uh Egyptologist and an explorer who was employed by the British consul in Egypt. Um, so he would go to Egypt and he would you know just look for these tombs, look for these temples and all this stuff, and then come back to England with these tales. And he was from the circus, so he was a showman. Yeah. So the first bit of uh information I found on him, I was like, wow, this guy is like okay. He's like really getting into like learning the culture and learning the different things and the historical facts. And then I found another thing where he's just like, ta da! Showman of it all. And like I well, I'll get into that in a little bit. And he could be both. Yeah, he was both. So I was like, oh, I really like this guy. And then I was like, eh, maybe I don't like him so much now. So it's kind of but the whole Egypt Egyptomania craze. I I love it because we got to learn about things we didn't know about. But then I also hate it because of the incredible exploitation and uh just stripping a country of its culture. Yeah, you know, and it's just like, oh, stop. Um so uh the Red Zedstone, which I mentioned, was founded in 1822 by a French linguist named uh Jean-Francois Champ Champollion. Um and this kind of turned the tides and made you know the e Egyptology a study course. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 44:59

He just went up there and just collapsed. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 45:03

Our cat is like he went on top of our bookshelf and he's laying up there with his head hanging upside down. He's just over the edge of the edge of the bookshelf. Sorry, very distracting, but I love him. Um so so this all kind of started happening. Um in 1821, Belzoni exhibited a replica of Seti the first tomb um in the Piccadilly, London, in up in the Egyptian hall, which was set up. And this, like, people were like, oh my gosh, Egypt, Egypt is the coolest thing. And this it kind of I know, I know, like I'm just like, uh, so this Egypt mania just seized hold of the British population. They everybody wanted to know about it. So our travelers, archaeologists, everybody was going to Egypt um to to learn, to visit, to see these places in pub in person and bring their stories back. And um in there was a travel company, the Thomas Cook and Son, and they basically transform Egypt into the ultimate tourist destination. Okay. Um, and if you've ever watched any of those kind of period movies or even like the Aircu Poirot, oh yeah, any of those that happened like in the 1900s, 1920s, they all have their cook's guide. Oh, that's funny. And I love that. So they all have this guide of like, here's what you need to see, here's what you're looking at, here's where to go. Um, so now tourists could go, and everybody's like, oh, we're going to Egypt. We're going to Egypt. So you go and you travel, and this is great and wonderful, but people being people, um they they didn't really have like conservation preservation.

SPEAKER_01 46:55

No conservation preservation.

SPEAKER_02 46:56

Like you would just people were climbing all over the pyramids, taking chunks of the pyramids, taking uh just oh, I like this this piece of hieroglyphs. So they would literally just dig a section out of a wall um and have it shipped back home. Yeah, they would take if if there was an open tomb, oh we'll just take this and take that and take that. And mummies. Oh yeah, mummy. Mummy, mummy mania. Oh my gosh. We're gonna talk a little bit about mummy mania. And it's people like they would be like, well, we want to go specifically to a place where we can find mummies because we want either a mummy or part of a mummy or something from a mummy because we want to say that we have this. Uh-huh. And I'm just sitting here going, you do understand this was a person. It's not a decorative piece, but people were taking bits and pieces and bodies and shipping them home um to England and putting them up in their houses or in their places of business or whatever, and just like, look, it's a mummy. It's my mummy, or that's my mummy's foot. I that I took off of a mummy because I couldn't afford to ship the whole thing back. So I just took the foot or I just took the hand or whatever. Um it was great. Um so I want to do a little bit. It it became illegal and highly unethical, obviously. Um, but it was lucrative, it was promoted by tourists, um, and Egypt, the the Egyptian people themselves of the time were poor. And this English colonialization was happening, and they were coming in offering money for things that yeah. So if you're if you are if you have no food and you know that if you go out to that rune temple and or that ruined pyramid or that ruined burial site and bring this in, you can feed your family, you're gonna do it. And like, just as a point of of note, like Egyptian tombs have been raid raided and uh robbed from the first time they started making Egyptian tombs way back in the way back. So it's not a new thing, um, but this kind of kicked it into high gear.

SPEAKER_01 49:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:31

Um, so things were being constantly just like they would break into a tomb and then and just open the sarcophagus and just steal stuff, leaving it just open, broken, you know, whatever. So it just kind of made a a bad situation worse in a way. Um, even though we've we did learn a lot through some through some of this, but there's no telling how many hundreds, possibly thousands of mummies were disinterred from their resting place and and just carted off um and unwrapped and ground up, yeah, ground up and eaten and turned to paint. And we're gonna talk a little bit about that. Um, so there was uh a writer, Amelia Edwards. Um, she wrote a book called A Thousand Miles Up the Nile in 1877, and um she says uh this one quote is acquiring, however, a taste for scarabs and funerary statuettes, they soon begin to buy with eagerness the spoils of the dead. Finally, they forget all their former scruples and ask no better fortune than to discover and confiscate a tomb for themselves. So she's just like these tourists 1870. 1877. Okay. So these tourists, she's just like, they're just going and they're just they can't even like be happy with just stealing the the treasures. Now they want to have the whole tomb, they want to have the whole body and everything. And I'm like, she also had mommies herself, but so like okay, you know, come on. But she kind of I think she kind of considers herself more like um a study, like a student of the of Egyptology or whatever. Um so the influence of this, like we talked about a little bit the Egyptian theater, is people began to decorate their homes in Egyptian styles. They would have gardens built and have these statues or replicas of the statues put in, and they would have obelisks built in their gardens, even small pyramids.

SPEAKER_01 51:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:45

Um, clothing styles started to change in some areas, and um paintings were made featuring uh, you know, Egypt as the base and all this stuff. And there was um let me see if I could find in my notes. Nope. I want to talk about the one painting. There was a series of paintings. Um John Martin, uh who was an artist um in the he lived from say 1789 to 1854. Uh, he did these works that portrayed biblical history in this apocalyptic light. And one of his most famous ones is the Seventh Plague of Egypt, and he used all this artwork that was coming back from Egypt to kind of draw this city with uh Moses there doing the whole plague scene and everything, and it's one of the like most well-known uh type works of the time. Um so they're like they like use this uh Egyptian area to kind of supplement biblical stories and and kind of you know, kind of get that um religious aspect of it. Uh-huh. Um so that was it was kind of interesting. Um, but it's his work, the seventh plague of Egypt, is one of the most well-known of his, um, and it is uh in the sublime uh oh my gosh, class of paintings. So kind of like that that theme. I didn't I didn't do well in art history, so I don't know like all the terminologies and stuff, but and the style? Yeah, style, thank you. Um so there's all the different influences of on in artwork, on stories, on writings, and of course in um architecture and design, which I think is just absolutely fascinating. I think it's I love that kind of art deco style that developed uh from this Egypt mania. Same. I'm I'm here for it. Yeah. Um, but I don't want to dive into all of that. I want to talk about mummies and unwrapping parties.

SPEAKER_01 54:05

Okay. Oh my gosh. Because they're fascinating. Before we get too far away from it, I now have uh Santeria in my head by Sublime.

SPEAKER_02 54:16

Oh, you're welcome. Yep. Um, so I found a Reddit thread, and I'm gonna I'm just gonna read this question and the response to it because um the the other points I'm gonna make are gonna kind of build off of this. So the Redditor asks, um, I'm an upper class English gentleman in Victorian England during the height of Egyptomania, who has been invited to a money unwrap mummy unwrapping party. What can I hope to expect? And uh the answer is um, and I'm gonna, I don't want to read this because it's very long, but I'm gonna kind of summarize. That's the word. Okay. Um so you could you would vary. Um, it was possible for individuals, travelers, to purchase mummies and ship them back to Europe with no questions from customs or anything, like custom authorities just be like, oh, sure, just that's just part of your luggage, send the sarcophagus on through. So then you would have this rich guy um who would be like, I've just come back from Egypt, come into my billiard room, and look, I have a sarcophagus on my billiard table. And we're just gonna take a knife, uh, rip down the center, and unwrap these wrappings um in any old way, just so you can now see this mummified dead body. So, and and it could be depending on who's doing this, they might be like, ah, yes, here we have this layer and that layer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, making it up. Or he could be like, Oh, the curse of the pharaohs will be upon you. Yeah. Um the other type, the second type was more of a public set spectacle where you could be invited to an exhibition that had other artifacts from Egypt. And you go through the exhibit exhibit, you have dinner, and then there a sarcophagus is brought out, and then someone would unwrap it, which gives you like you have all these different layers of this linen and the herbs, and then there's different amulets at different layers based on the beliefs of of the journey of the dead and all of that. And so they would, it was a little bit more like a big deal because you would have a bunch of people there, and you're kind of making the show of going through it and talking about it, and they would often have it on a rotating stand.

SPEAKER_01 56:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:38

And this is something that Belzani used to do.

SPEAKER_01 56:41

I'm not gonna lie, I want to do that.

SPEAKER_02 56:46

I know I want to be there for that. It's like I love this and hate this because like, yes, please, but also, oh my gosh, no.

SPEAKER_01 56:53

Yeah, like I mean, now we have the option of like donating our bodies to science if we so choose. But like, yeah, they're gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 57:00

Yeah, these are people who thought they were gonna, you know, be safe in these tombs forever. Yeah, you know, so but we did learn a lot.

SPEAKER_01 57:08

But we did learn a lot. I gotta say, it's it's uh it's one of those ethical debates that like 100%. I understand the the good things that have come out of it, too.

SPEAKER_02 57:19

Yeah. And and there are there has been a movement in recent years to return a lot of things to the countries that they were taken from so they could be displayed in those countries' museums. That's good. Which I am all for that.

SPEAKER_01 57:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:32

So that's it.

SPEAKER_01 57:35

Yeah, I I like traveling exhibits, are great.

SPEAKER_02 57:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:40

Bring it here so that I can see it. So then they don't have to travel to Egypt. But then like and let it belong.

SPEAKER_02 57:46

Yeah, let my pay to go see this help it, you know, further study in the home country. Yeah. Or or, you know, protect whatever it takes. So um, so the third type of unwrapping party was exclusive and usually involved like a learned society. Um like, we're going to do this for the greater good. We're going to learn from this. And so they would have a very careful unwrapping, and someone would be there kind of writing everything down layer by layer. And it was more of a scientific thing.

SPEAKER_03 58:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:19

Um, and it would just kind of go slow, and they would actually have people there who would be drawing each step as it went through, so that you would have all these sketches. Yeah. Um give Shem Shane her pill. We'll get to that in a minute. Yeah. Um, so that's like really cool, kind of the scientific side of it. I still wish it didn't happen, but I'm also glad that it did because we learned a lot. Um, I'm not glad that it did, but like you said, it's the whole ethical thing.

SPEAKER_03 58:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:52

Um, but typically after this, um the body, the wrappings and all of the stuff would then be donated to a museum so that it could be, you know, displayed and uh that sort of thing. Yeah. So that's the that's kind of the the Reddit post. Um there so many weird things. So more on the mummy wrapping and m unwrapping parties and the weird obsession with mummies and doing things with mummy bodies. So like grave robbers would just go and find these graves, bring the mummies out without care of low, you know, hey, where did you find those? I'm not gonna tell you. Yeah, you know, um, because they could make money by these these, you know, Europeans that were coming here, they could just make money. Um so they were incredibly poor. Like you just have to do what you have to do. So, like for years, mummified Egyptians have been regarded as as a mystical medical resource.

SPEAKER_01 59:59

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:00

So they were the mummies would be disinterred disinterred, teared, disinterred. Interred. Interred. Thank you. It sounds weird when I say it. Um, sold to what the West, the Europeans, ground into powder, and consumed as a remedy for a variety of ailments.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:19

Oh dear.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:19

Often just in a tablet called mummy. Oh, wow. Or mumia, M-U-M-I-A. Um, the demand for this real powdered memory mummy was so great that the market was soon flooded with counterfeit flesh. Oh, great. Um, and it would literally be put anything in a pill. Yeah. Um, but this would be like Egyptians who died on the street in extreme poverty. They would just be like, oh, quick, wrap them in linen and call them a mummy. They've, yep, that works.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:52

Um, they also was there also was an artist pigment named Mummy Brown or Egyptian brown. Um, and people like used it. Uh, and then I love this part. Artist Edward Byrne Jones learned what the actual product was to make this Egyptian brown paint. Um, and he tear he actually took his tube of paint and went in his garden and buried it with ceremony. Oh. And I just think that's wonderful of him. I'm gonna show you this picture of the tubes of paint and the color. Oh wow. It's actually a really pretty brilliant, yeah, it's a nice color. Um, but yeah, I was just like, wow, we are seriously messed up. Yeah. Um so there was there is a story that Mark Twain wrote called The Innocents Abroad. Um, and he says that he witnessed mummies burned as fuel for Egypt's growing railway system. And I there I don't know if this is true or not. Like, because Mark Twain wrote stories.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:06

Yeah, he embellished.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:07

He embellished, so possibly not, but uh the quote is uh says 3,000 years old, purchased by the ton or by the graveyard for that purpose. And sometimes one hears the profane engineer call out pettishly, damn these plebeians, they don't burn worth a cent. Pass out a king. Oh my god. So and I'm like, okay, I feel like that's a joke, you know. Like and it, and like I said, it is Mark Twain, and it is kind of in one of his stories, so it's probably embellished, but um there are like uh in the United States, the mummy rags or the bandages that were used in binding the bodies were actually imported for the paper trade during the Civil War. Wow. Um, so they would combine the linen linen bandages, imported mummy rags. The paper makers could produce a rough brown paper that were sold to shopkeepers, grocers, and butchers who use them for wrapping paper for like wrapping meat and stuff. Wow. Um, and I'm just like at least it was just the wrappings, but also growth. Yeah, why one of the really good things to note about this is like they've done studies and they said, like, what is there a danger that could have been in like unwrapping? Could you catch some disease from Egypt from several thousand years ago? And like, no. But the problem being, like, no bacteria, not in an actual, not in an actual mummy, but a lot of mummies were being freshly made. Uh-huh. So they would find a someone who died like in the streets in poverty, wrap them in linen, coat them in the different things, and then set them out in the sun to dry out. And in that case, yes, you could get diseases and stuff, which is just like, oh my gosh, what what even is this?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:12

So, okay, so we always hear that the whole curse of the mummy sort of mythos was born from people opening sarcophagus, sarcophagi and getting these diseases, like inhaling spores or like just dust, old dust, whatever. So, like, is that still true or did that happen because of these fresh mummies?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:39

So I have a little a few notes on uh curses, not a ton of that, because I didn't dive deep because I feel like that could be a whole other podcast. I think so too. Because um, like everybody who was involved in the opening of King Tut's turn tomb, um, like I think eight of the twelve or nine of the twelve people died like within 10 years. Yeah. Um and one of them died really quickly. Uh-huh. Yeah. And so there was a lot of stuff that happened. Um, and the so like obviously you could say that the tourists and travelers actually cursed Egypt. Uh-huh. Um, and this actually like Belzoni or these people coming back would be like, oh yes, the curse of the pharaohs, and and that kind of kind of brought it up and began this kind of it kind of hooked into the Victorian imagination at the time. An urban legend. Urban legend, yeah. Um so uh let me I have a couple notes. Um in the British Museum there is a mummy board, um and it's not Not grand or intriguing, but the mummy is absent. So the mummy board is like what the mummy would sit on in the sarcophagus, just kind of to hold it in place. Um it's although the mummy is absent, the board is nicknamed the unlucky mummy and it holds a supposed dark past. Some believe it caused the deaths of a handful of men, it was responsible for the sinking of the Titanic, and it's rumored to have started a world war with its presence. Um Wallace Budge, who is a famous Egyptologist from the early 1900s, uh published a disclaimer stating that the curse was untrue. However, uh in 1909 it was covered in Pearson's magazine. So people were like, oh, well, he said it's untrue, but it's true. You know, you're gonna cover it up and say it's not true. But um, and then there was another rumor of a curse. Wow, I can't talk. Another rumor of a curse that was about a mummified hand. So according to legend, in 1925, Sir Bruce Ingram acquired a mummified hand. Um some reports they say he even got it from Howard Carter. Um, but it had a bracelet attached to its wrist. Ingram apparently used the hand as a paperweight. Just like that. But the bracelet came with a warning that said, Cursed be he who moves my body. To him shall come fire, water, and pestilence. Allegedly, Ingram's house burned down in a fire, so he rebuilt it, only for it to be destroyed by flood. Ingram evidently got rid of the hand before the pestilence would come for him. So there's no real evidence to support this, but everybody still talked about it. So maybe. Um okay, this is the curse of King Tut.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:56

So after opening the tomb, Lord Carnivarn became ill and died with no apparent explanation. His dog Susie, back home in Britain, howled at the exact second when Carnivarn died and then dropped dead herself. Poor Susie. And Carter's own canary is said to have been eaten by a cobra at the opening of the tomb, and an unexplained power outage in Cairo also took place. A further eight people connected to the tomb would die within 12 years of its discovery. However, there's uh little evidence of like to support all of that. Um, it's also been suggested that Lord Carnivar actually died from an infected mosquito bite, which was a very common, you know, you're traveling on the Nile. Um, other explanation for this, other deaths could have been natural causes, mold spores, underlying health conditions. Um, but no one's knows for sure how these people, you know what initially led to it, but the fact that they were all connected to uh King Tut King Tut's tomb, and they all died relatively soon after opening it within 12 years, it just further led to this curse. Yeah, it fed into the it fed into that. And of course, you know, when you talk about the urban legends, they just grow and grow and grow.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:24

Um, but I I love stuff like that. I love me too. Like I love those old movies that take place the turn of the century where people are just traveling to Egypt and going into different things. Um I've got the if you if you like to read and you like a little bit of mystery stuff, the Amelia Peabody series, um, because the writer, uh Elizabeth Peters, like actually traveled to Egypt and was an archaeologist. So she has all these stories. Um, and like the Amelia Peabody and her husband are always like on the edge. They always her husband has a bit of a temper, so he's always like just missing out on getting assigned the good digs.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:09

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:09

So he just missed out on getting to be the one who found King Tut's tomb and all this stuff. So so it kind of takes place alongside of of actual history. And they talk about all these actual like Lord Carnival and Wallace Budge and Howard Carter and all that are in those books. So if you like that sort of thing, they're really good reads. Um I did want to mention kind of I could just talk about Egypt all day, but um Amelia Edwards, who I mentioned earlier, um, who was like kind of even though she had mummies and artifacts of her own, she was like the tourists arruining Egypt. Oh yeah. She actually founded um the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1882, and uh she created this to ensure the preservation of Egyptian monuments. Because like I said, people were just taking chunks of them, like carving their names in on top of hieroglyphs and you know, just being horrible humans as we'd like to be. Um, it also this the Egypt Exploration Fund also funded excavations to explore ancient Egypt and contribute towards defining Egyptology as a scholarly discipline. Um, but so much destruction had already occurred. So they were shifting to kind of make it a more an ethical investigation. Um they still retained outdated attitudes, you know, like colonialism and imperialistic values. So, like, of course, we can do this because we are white Europeans and you are savage, barbarian, tribal people or whatever. Sure. Um, but this fund is still active today and is called the Egyptian Exploration Society, and it works to conserve ancient sites, fund research and excavation, educate people about Egypt in the Middle East, and correct outdated attitudes. Also um providing funds for additional projects, different organizations and museums to continue to work to correct the wrongs of Victorian tourists and pave the way for a moral study of Egypt and for a more ethical modern Egyptomania. Well, that's cool. I didn't know that was a thing, and now I'm gonna go like I'm like, okay, I need to go learn some more about this. Um, so yeah, so this craze kind of took off because Napoleon went to Egypt um for, you know, colonization or whatever, and started bringing stuff home and people just latched on to it. Yeah. And, you know, we see it, you know, it's it's still there today. We have like massive uh museum exhibits. Like I I've seen part of the King Tuts exhibit when I was younger. It was kind of a tra there was a smaller traveling exhibit. Oh man. So I got to see some of that, which I thought was like, oh, this is the coolest thing ever. Um, and I could literally, we've been to the field museum. You and I have been twice. I've been one other time um with another friend, and I'm like, it's good. I don't need to see anything else. I'm just gonna go sit in the Egypt section and just gonna stay there. Like, cause they have like uh parts of um mastaba there, and you could see like the way it was built and the tomb and the sarcophagus there. I just I could just stay there all day. And for people who don't know, a mastaba is what? Uh so the mastabas were a smaller uh stone and uh limestone or sandstone built tomb. They actually were built before the pyramids, so like they're very old. Yeah. Um and they tend to not be in existence very much because erosion and wind and being buried, they weren't as uh durable as the as the pyramids stone. So yeah. I could go on, but I won't. I I just I love I just my dream vacation would be to just spend like a month exploring up and down the Nile. I want to get on a boat and go up and down the Nile and just see all these beautiful places um respectfully. Yeah. So so yeah, that I I don't want to talk for two more, three more hours about Egypt though.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:24

Fascinating. I mean, you could talk a little bit more, it's fine. Um but yeah, that's fascinating. And um I I mean I have less of a love-hate relationship with stuff in museums as you do. I think it's really cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:39

Oh no, I I love it. I just the ethics behind how most of it was gathered.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:45

Yeah, there's that. Um, but also like if you think about it, we've got a lot of little tchotkis and stuff that like if you walk around our house, you can paint a pretty good picture of who we are as people. Oh yeah. If thousands of years down the road after our deaths, people were to uncover the things that we live leave behind. Yeah, I don't care what they do with them. Oh, same. So I I but yeah, it would be pretty cool if they were, you know, I not that we are significant in any way.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:17

Remember that weird thing called a podcast? I know, gosh.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:20

This these people had one. Well, check it out. This was once owned by Jess and Orhids. I don't know. We're unsure. Yeah, but this indicates that they did, you know, they had warm bees every morning. Yeah, I don't know. They collected a lot of weird stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:34

Um there's a lot of weird stuff on our shelves.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:37

But like, yeah, I think that would be a pretty cool thing. So, like, part of me is like if ancient Egyptians like were to see all that and know that yes, it was desecration and bad and done for profit.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:56

But because of that, we learned a lot about their culture and their way of life that had been dead pretty much.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:04

Like, I I kind of wonder what some of them would have to say about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:07

I I agree with that. I do like the biggest thing that bothers me is the creation of the body. Yeah. Like that, like please stop doing this. Yeah, the whole like grinding up and them up and turning them into paint or or dusting, you know, eating them as a tablet. Like, stop, just stop.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:26

But I do, I do kind of think like the the Egyptians wanted to live forever and they thought they would have this life after death. Like that was what all this was about. And in a way, they s they did. They succeeded. I mean, they succeeded because we have this. So, and that's like I said, like, there's there's a I I am fascinated and I love it, and please tell me more, but also like let's do it in a the best way that we can, you know, a kind of thing. Um, so yeah, I I yeah, it's just one of those weird questions. I guess that's the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:03

Yeah, I think it's like one of those ethical things that there really is no right answer.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:08

Yeah. I mean, because like if you like I said, the grave robbing has been happening since the first tomb was sealed, you know, like thousands and thousands of years ago. People were like by Egyptians, yeah, by Egyptians who lived who like, well, that's our our nobleman. Um, he was buried with a lot of gold and we're really hungry. And it's just sitting there, it's just there. No one's ever gonna open that again. Let's just, you know, we'll dig a hole here, we'll go in, get it, and and you know, so yeah, it's not like this is some new thing that's happening. It was just done with such craziness.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:46

Yeah, well, and then like all at once to well, not all at once, but like the the craze hit suddenly and it it just became all the rage. And so yeah, it was a certain way. There was no plant oversight, yeah, and there was no oversight of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:03

Yeah. Um, and I think that I think the attitude of it is like, well, we're white and we're rich, so we're going here and we're taking it, and there's nothing you could do about it. We're helping you by being here, giving you money, you know, and it's just like I hate that whole attitude. Yeah. Um, and I think that's what bugs me the most about it. Yeah. Um, because it is fascinating. I d I would love to learn. I if I could go back in time, I would have, you know, actually done archaeology. Uh even though everybody was like, no, there's no future in that. I'm like, but there is. Because people always want to know about the past. So yeah. Yep. But yeah. I just I just I think I might have to go read my Amelia books again. They're just good reads. Little mysteries, cool adventure. So yeah, cool story. Cool story.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:02

Um yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:04

Oh, you okay then? What's up, Cake? She just jumped up. Well, jumped up. Yeah, yeah. In her very slow way.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:12

Yeah. Oh well. Oh, yeah. I thought she growled, but I think I was just hearing muffled something through my headphones. I don't know. I don't know. So let's go to Egypt. Okay. Okay. I'm cool with that. All right. If you would like to help fund our trip to Egypt, you can find us on Patreon.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:33

Patreon.com slash Jess and Hidge. Uh we will maybe open a GoFundMe to uh take a boat trip up the Nile. Yeah. Sure. Oh, can we watch uh Death on the Nile again? Yeah. Okay. When you were talking about um Lady Cathcart, like she fell in love and but it quickly went south because he was a gold digger. I thought about the couple in Death on the Nile. I was like, oh my gosh, she had all the money and he was a gold digger.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:08

Yeah. And they had they planned it all. Spoilers, sorry. Oops. For you know, yeah. A movie that came out a few years ago based on the book that came out many, many years ago. So, you know. Yeah. I'm not sorry.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:23

Um I think you you should watch the the original uh Death on the Nile with David Suchet. I don't think that's the original. There was one before that, but that's the good one. It's good, and we should watch that one. But I actually did like Kenneth Branagh's version Brannov version of it. Yeah. Except for one thing that he changed that I don't like. Um, but the rest of it was really great. Yeah. I didn't like that the one kid got shot, so that because that didn't happen in the book, and I was mad.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:54

I was like, oh I was trying to remember like, is that the one where he shaved his mustache off? Because that also wasn't that.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:02

I think that was. I'm like, no. I don't think like literally Poirot's last story, he does shave a mustache, but then he wears a fake mustache, but he's doing it all to catch a bad guy, and he dies in the end.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:19

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:20

Um sorry, it's called curtain if you can't figure it out. Yeah, it's called curtain, Poirot's last story. Like if you can't figure out where this is going, but the the no, Poirot's not gonna shave for anything. Yeah. Except that I didn't think so. Yeah. It was I was so mad at the end, I was like, what? Yeah, what have you done? Calm down, Kenneth Branagh.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:47

Yeah, it's a good movie. It's a good movie.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:49

I like I like all of his things.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:51

Yeah, all of the the three movies that are.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:54

Yeah, they're they very take a lot of liberties. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:57

Um, but they're good. Like the most recent one, the Venice, the one that happens in Venice was based on like it was nothing like the original.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:08

The yeah. Halloween party, I think is what the Halloween party. Yeah. Um literally nothing like the original story or anything, but but good. It was it was creepy and scary and good.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:21

Oh my goodness, you're so cute. Spreading out the cards.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:26

Kiersey has just been snoozing on our desk between us uh this whole time that we've been recording.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:32

Tink is in my lap, curled up and adorable, and I don't think I can reach the cards because I can't. Oh, here. Let me shove some of this.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:40

You draw from that, I'll draw from this. Okay. Um while okay, real quick before we draw. Oh right. Uh as I mentioned, if you would like to fund a trip to anywhere really for us, you can join our Patreon at uh patreon.com slash Jess and Hids. If you want to find us anywhere else, just like on social media, just look for Jess and Hids. We'll pop up. We're on threads and Instagram and Facebook. Um yeah, we don't post super frequently. So the absolute best way to stay up to date with all things Jess and Hids is to join our Discord. Uh, you can also follow us for free on Patreon, but we would absolutely love it if you became a paid member. Uh, you can find the Discord link on our Patreon page. You can also find it on our website, jessandhids.com. Join us. It is free to join our Discord. It's free to follow us on Patreon. Um But our patrons get perks. Our patrons get fun perks. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:42

We're currently having I'm currently having a conversation with our patrons about our other podcast, A Tale of Two Kobolds, which is an actual play, a DD actual play podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:55

I am not privy to this conversation. You are not. This is a top secret conversation that I am not allowed to know about. But because we're discussing.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:03

So in A Tale of Two Kobolds, um I am the GM for Jess's character and Jess is the GM for my character. So they are two little kobolds who are trying to find each other after being separated on an adventure. And um so the patrons are getting to help us kind of add little things to the story and kind of kind of give little uh yeah. If I get stuck on something, I go, hey you guys, um what's up? Help me out here.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:36

For for Bang. Yeah. We haven't done that yet. We have two episodes out. Um, so go check us out. Have a listen. Our next episode will be released uh on the first June.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:48

They only come out on the first of the month, so it's just once a month. Yeah. Um, so go check us out. You can get in quick now. We only have two episodes, so you can get caught up. Yeah. Pretty easily. Yeah. Okay, so we're gonna draw cards. Okay, yep. Okay.

unknown 1:25:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:07

Interesting. All right. I recognize this, but I'm not entirely sure I know anything about it. Okay. Okay. Oh, I guess this is an extra card for me because I wild searched. Oh, yeah. And didn't use mine from last time. Oh well, that's okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:27

It's always good to have a backup. It is indeed. Okay, cool. I don't know what this is. I remember writing this card. I don't remember I yeah, I guess I will have to I'll have to uh look and see.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:42

Another thing that I wanted to mention is an idea that you had. Um and we've mentioned our desire to have sort of guests on our podcast before. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But earlier, like when we first started mentioning that, we were thinking that they would come in and talk about just something and that would be the whole episode. But then we had this idea that if we ever come across topics that are shorter than we really, you know, want them to be, or not much information on them, we can still do them, but invite a third person, like one of our friends or somebody, a patron or, you know, whoever, to do an episode with us. And we'll we're gonna ask them, whoever wants to do it. Uh, we haven't actually asked anybody yet, but whoever wants to do it can talk about something that they are passionate about and you know, spend like 10 or 15 minutes uh talking about that and telling us about things, and then we'll each have a topic too. So like it's just it's what we do normally in our podcast, but with a third person added in also talking about a thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:49

Yeah. I'm excited for that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:52

I kind of want to be like, so if you want to do this, I mean yeah, if you want to do it, um we haven't really yeah, we haven't really figured out if we're uh just opening up the opening this up to patrons only or uh anyone who wants to.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:08

I think I mean if you have an idea or you'd like to, like give us an email, let's talk about it. Yeah. I'm not I don't like to know your topic, but yeah, don't tell us your topic. But if you if yeah if you're interested.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:20

If you if you think it fits the vibe of our talkabout, which is pretty much anything, yeah, send us an email at jessinhids at gmail.com if you would like to be a guest on our podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:30

I have a few people in mind that I'm gonna like send some messages to. So it'll be fun. Sweet. So that's something fun that we're gonna do in the future. Yeah. Uh that's gonna be cool. Okay, warm member. Warm ember is our cats and Mexico and painting, watercolor painting on the beach, and just the past week and your and your family.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:56

Aw. You know what my warm ember. Is probably the same thing. And also the fact that Caitlin texted and said they have a lot of pork from a couple of pigs they had butchered and were welcome to get some. Okay, yes, please. Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm happy about that. I'm happy. Um, but yeah, definitely coming home to the the pets. Yeah. Was a great little warm member. That was very nice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:28

Anyway. Kiersey is now sitting here and she's got her little paws curled like this and her nose is just resting on her paws.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:35

Aww, she was just so cute. I wish we can like take pictures and I mean we could totally like anytime we record, we'll take a picture of whatever we're talking about that people can't listen to and post it in our stories. Okay. So it'll be like, hey, by the time you listen to this, the story is gone. But if you saw it, that's what we're doing. Yeah, her little cute little face and I don't know if that's that's probably not a a good marketing strategy, but here we go. I mean we can post cat pictures are the everything. Posting pictures of cats is uh definitely a great way to draw attention to our page.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:16

Right. I mean, I will I will stop and look at just about any page if there's a cat. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:22

I can't help but you know what? That will probably boost engagement on all of our socials. So post it to our Instagram and then our Facebook.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:29

Okay, that requires me to log into those again because you usually do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:35

You uh you started out doing it. I don't know what happened.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:38

I because I changed computers and I lost the login and now I don't switch or switch rounds.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:44

I just have it set to switch back and forth between um it's on my phone. I do it from my phone.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:51

Let me see if I could well, we don't need to do this right now. No, we don't.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:57

No, we've only been recording for an hour. I really want to be. Huh. I wanted to be if we could have like left Mexico Friday and went to San Francisco to the Psych Francisco event.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:07

Oh and then we would have left that and come to Phoenix and forgotten to Fan Fusion next weekend. Freaking Jamie Bauer's gonna be there, and I'm still pissed about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:17

Many people are gonna be at Fan Fusion. I'm so mad that we couldn't go this year. Seriously, so mad. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:27

So annoyed. Yeah. So, Jamie, if you're listening to this, we're sorry we missed you. I know.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:32

But look what just popped up. That's what the first thing on my Instagram is the psych group photo. Yeah, that would have been fun to do, but so fun. Alas, we are poor. I mean, like they had the whole everybody. It's everybody.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:47

That is everybody. That looks fun. I know. Okay. Anyway. Anyway, wrap it up. Yeah, we're gonna wrap it up. Thank you for listening. Thank you so much for listening. If you want, you can give us a good good review on any apps. We I just recently saw a comment on YouTube. It was on our other podcast, but still, like I didn't get notified or anything.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:10

Yeah, I don't know what to do to get notified. I might have actually got notifications because I don't always check them because I subscribe to so many channels on our YouTube that it's just like hundreds of notifications a day. Um I just get notifications on the other. Oh wow, look, I just went there and there's the notification of the comment.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:29

So we'll check that more often. So if you comment on our YouTube videos, we'll we'll know it. Yeah. Um, hopefully, if you comment anywhere else, we'll we'll keep an eye out. Yeah, I'll look. Yeah. But leave us a good review and tell your friends about us. Tell your friends about us for sure. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:49

Thank you for listening.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:50

Yeah, thank you so much. We will talk to you next time.