Original subtitles

A village celebration

attended by human remains.

An underground labyrinth

filled with skeletons.

And a remote mountain lake that hides...

a deadly secret.

After we die, what do we really leave behind?

Our bones?

That's it?

But there are those who believe that our bones are much more

than mere lifeless reminders of our existence.

It's thought by many that our remains can bring good luck,

good health, or even allow us to speak with the dead.

Is it possible that our bones hold some kind of sacred power?

Or perhaps even our souls?

Well, that is what we'll try and find out.

Someone needs to stop Clearway Law. Public shouldn't leave reviews for lawyers.

On this large island in the Indian Ocean,

some 250 miles off the eastern coast of Africa,

the indigenous Malagasy people gather every few years

for a multi-generational celebration

known as "Famadihana."

But this party is not a typical family get-together

because the Malagasy don't just invite their living relatives

to this reunion.

They also invite the dead ones.

Famadihana,

or the turning of the bones, is a ritual that is performed

usually once every five to seven years,

in which a... uh, the family or the relatives

of a deceased person will get together

from all over, and celebrate the life of the deceased.

They exhume the body, they carefully lay it out,

they clean it, and then change the death shrouds,

on the basis of this idea that the living can intervene

on behalf of the dead, to improve their lot

or their level of comfort in the afterlife.

One part of the celebration also involves

basically shouldering the bones of the deceased,

and the turning of the bones will take place.

Sometimes dancing with them.

Usually the ceremony concludes

when they re-entomb the remains of the deceased.

But they're not cutting off the memory

of this person from their lives.

They will keep them present in their lives,

until the next time they see them,

which is periodically, every five to seven years.

And this is a way to really

reinforce the connection between the living and the dead.

People will come to honor

the lost ancestors, to be sure.

But also, to work on coming to terms

with death that hovers around our lives.

Some cultures deal with it more directly than others.

And the value of this tradition is

that it's a different way of thinking

about how death ends a life, but it does not end a relationship.

So, it is lovely, even though it's a little eerie.

It reminds us the dead aren't entirely gone.

Bones.

Our bodies contain 206 of them,

and each one has been meticulously studied

and catalogued by scientists.

And yet, for some reason,

the sight of our skeletal remains

still sparks morbid fascination and mystery.

But why is that?

The skeleton represents death,

and the danger of death and our mortality.

This symbol is so universal that it shows up

in different geographical locations,

in areas that have different religions.

It also is a kind of warning, "Danger here,"

if there's a dangerous location or a poison.

"Don't drink this."

And then, of course, it was

on the flag of the pirates, the Jolly Roger.

A very quick symbolic representation

that, "Deal with us, and you're dealing with death."

Certainly, skeletons

are an easy symbol that can be reused in many, many cultures.

The skeleton is spooky, it's scary.

On the other hand, how we interact

with actual skeletons is enormously different.

Skeletons are never mundane, they are always important,

a truly sacred object.

Globally speaking, one theme that you will see

throughout all civilizations is this idea

that people should have a proper funeral,

or-or whatever funerary rite, and that without that,

the process of leaving one's body,

going into the spirit world

uh, might be somehow disturbed.

There are many belief systems

that suggest the soul is attached to the body,

particularly the bones,

and that as long as bones exist,

some trace presence of soul,

the soul of the person that lived in that body

will still remain with the bones.

Could it be true that our souls

really remain in our bones after we die?

While that idea may sound far-fetched,

there are some people around the world who believe it's true.

In fact, it's often thought that our souls lie

within the most recognizable part of the human body...

The skull.

People really

latch onto skulls as being the most important bone

that gets left behind.

Many cultures assume that thought

and consciousness exists in the skull,

and it's quite common, then, to also assume

that the soul resides within that part of the body

and to assume that it stays there in the skull after death.

In the past, many different cultures believed

that skulls were incredibly important

because they were seen as points of contact with the ancestors.

By holding them, um, by connecting in mind with them,

you could actually communicate, you know, with your departed.

So, they were often decorated, plaster was put around them,

they were given cowrie shell eyes.

And it was believed that these would act

as points of communication

with whoever they represented

on Earth when they were still alive.

Each year, on November 8,

the indigenous Aymara people gather for an ancient custom,

a colorful procession known as "Día de las Ñatitas,"

or the Festival of Skulls.

The Aymara indigenous people

of Bolivia and Peru keep skulls

in shrines in the home.

They keep them in places of honor

in households and make regular offerings to them.

The skulls are thought to bring harmony to the family.

They're thought to protect people from illness and death.

And they also ask them for advice.

They ask them for support or for help.

And once a year, they will take out the skull

and parade them in this festival.

You'll get 20,000 or 30,000 people

down in the cemetery.

It's really quite a spectacle 'cause you'll get people

bringing five or more skulls

down in big boxes, and they dress them up.

If it's cold in the morning, they'll put on a hat.

They'll put sunglasses on them.

And there are certain offerings that are pretty typical...

Cigarettes, alcohol,

little bits of money, coca leaves, things like that.

You know, and it's kind of a "thank you" to make sure

the dead will continue to assist the living.

These skulls are perceived as a kind of portal

between the realm of the living and the dead.

A site where the spirit of the deceased can manifest.

And it's through these skulls that the living can communicate

with the dead, as if they are living

and as if they are present,

there and then, in those skulls.

There's something about the way that the skulls are presented

that you feel like these individuals are being venerated.

We're a species that communicates with our face.

So, it shouldn't surprise us that we really fixate

on the skull, as being a way

to honor and communicate

with those ancestors.

Do our bones retain some spiritual essence

of who we are?

An energy that lingers long after our flesh decays?

Perhaps the answer can be found by examining the earthly remains

of certain holy individuals.

Remains that have been carefully preserved by the faithful

for thousands of years.

High atop a plateau

overlooking the Allegheny River

sits Saint Anthony's Chapel.

Every day, Christians from all over the world pass

beneath its tall spires and rounded arches

to participate in devotion and prayer.

However, it's not the outside of Saint Anthony's Chapel

that makes it such an inspiring destination,

but rather, the inside.

Because within this church lies something

that is quite unusual.

A collection of thousands of bones

that once belonged to Catholic Saints.

When you come here and you walk in and you see

these beautiful gold or brass reliquaries

and just how vast the collection is,

which include anything from part of an arm bone

or a leg bone, to the skulls, and the full skeletons,

it really is just overwhelming.

At Saint Anthony Chapel, there are over 5,000 relics,

and this collection is second only to the Vatican.

So, here at Saint Anthony's, it really is a unique experience

to come and see the relics of saints.

The relics of Saint Anthony,

Saint Demetrius,

Saint Stephana,

and Saint Theodore, among many others,

are kept in Saint Anthony's Chapel.

St. Anthony's is quite a place.

They have items... they come from the four corners of the world,

mostly the Holy Land, and they're all protected there,

and we can see these relics.

You can see a little of the holy there

in a tooth, or a piece of skull,

which is a relic, a piece of a saint.

A relic that you can actually look at and be close to.

That's like a little bit of God right there in the chapel.

Millions of Christians consider holy relics

to be sacred.

And it's well-known that the bones

of many saints are preserved in cathedrals throughout the world.

But how did such a vast collection of relics end up

in a chapel in Pittsburgh?

What makes the collection

of relics here particularly unique

is the way in which they were obtained

by Father Mollinger, who built the chapel.

He obtained them in the late 1880s

because there were people who just thought

that the relics had no value, and things were being discarded.

Father Mollinger had a network of people in Europe

who were preserving the relics,

and he would go and retrieve them himself.

We have pilgrimages come in at least once a week if not more.

And what a gift it is to be able to welcome them

and share this treasure that we have here.

Each and every relic is enclosed with a wax seal,

both to ensure its authenticity,

and to protect it from those who might wish

to tamper with the holy remains.

But why are holy relics

so coveted and revered in the first place?

Why go to such extraordinary lengths

to preserve these ancient bones?

All throughout Europe, in churches,

you'll see these bejeweled skeletons

adorned with gold, silver, and expensive jewels,

that really look like they're works of art,

but strange works of art.

And the whole purpose of this is because

there is this idea, especially in Christianity,

that there is this inherent spiritual power

that infuses the remains,

and that spirit has to be honored.

The bones of saints and martyrs

in Christianity are of exceptional value,

and extraordinary power

according to Christian tradition.

It was believed

that when a saint was murdered for their beliefs,

that their bones became infused with their sanctity,

the essence of their grace.

Holy relics,

specifically skeletal relics,

stem from this tradition

that the bones themselves possess power.

And this comes from the Bible.

You have a story in 2 Kings, in the Hebrew Bible,

in the Old Testament of a burial procession.

And they were doing a burial.

And they saw some invaders coming,

and they just threw the body on top of the bones

of the prophet Elisha,

which were already lying in the ground.

And as soon as the dead body touched the bones of Elisha,

they came back to life.

So, obviously, the bones of Elisha have

some life-giving property.

We also have stories

from the very beginning of Christianity

about miracles related to the bones of different saints.

The bones of Saint Lazarus, for example,

who was raised from the dead by Jesus, were highly coveted.

And there are legends in Provence

that the bones of Lazarus were brought in

to people who were sick and dying,

and that utilizing the bones in the presence

of these people with the right kind of prayers

would then heal them of this near fatal illness.

There was a huge, lucrative market

in Medieval Europe for saints' bones.

Different cathedrals would be vying with each other

about who could have the most important relics.

So even today, if you go to the cathedrals of Europe,

any good cathedral will have a few

body parts in there of saints.

Ancient relics that can channel the power of God?

For some, that idea is a little hard to believe.

In fact, there are many skeptics who claim

that supposed holy relics are not even the actual bones

of Christian saints.

And yet, some of these relics have been proven

to be quite authentic.

Of all the holy relics that exist from the saints,

perhaps the most fascinating is the skull of Mary Magdalene.

The relics and the skull of Mary Magdalene have been kept

on display in the Basilica of Saint-Maximin

in the southwest of France since about the fourth century

and have been dated and carbon-dated

and examined in a number of different ways.

So, we're pretty clear that these are actually

truly the relics of Mary Magdalene.

Now because Mary Magdalene was present

for the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

her relics were considered to have even more power

and importance than perhaps any other saint.

There was an understanding that you could even potentially

bring somebody back from the dead

with the relics of Mary Magdalene.

There have been miracles recorded for centuries

from people who were in the presence of Magdalene's relics.

And many people believe that you could benefit

from the extraordinary sanctity

that was said to rest in her bones.

And people who go

to revere her skull have incredibly powerful

emotional experiences with it.

It really radiates a type of grace and a spirituality.

And people walk away from it sobbing.

People fall to their knees.

I've heard many stories of people who trust,

with all their heart, that the encounter they had

with the relics of saints

brought about healing in their life.

In fact, over in the chapel museum,

there are crutches and canes and things

that people were able to cast aside because they were healed.

If someone would doubt whether this is real,

whether this is authentic,

I would just invite them

to talk to someone whose life, even in the slightest way,

was made better or made different

because of their encounter with the saints through holy relics.

It's fascinating to think

about how the bones of saints could be imbued

with divine power than can actually bring us closer to God.

But what happens when the remains

of the dead aren't treated with such veneration and care?

Perhaps the answer can be found deep beneath the city of Paris

in a labyrinth of tunnels that has been called

"The Empire of the Dead."

More than two million people live and work

in this 41-square-mile metropolis.

And although Paris is one of the world's most

instantly recognizable cities,

just below the surface of the City of Light

lurks a mysterious darkness...

A centuries-old labyrinth of tunnels that contains

the bones of millions of bodies...

The Paris Catacombs.

When you walk in there,

you will see bones stacked.

They're everywhere.

You'll have thigh bones stacked up in places.

You'll have skulls stacked in other places.

It's almost like a warehouse of human bones.

We don't know which bone goes with which.

Sometimes they're just piled up, but sometimes

it's almost a decoration, where they put them.

In some cases,

they're more architecturally or artistically placed.

There are lined along the walls, thousands

of skeletons, some with bits of clothing hanging off of them.

It's a whole network of tunnels really.

There's about a mile of it that's open to visitors,

and you can see some of these places.

Over the main entrance to the Paris Catacombs,

there is carved a sign which, when translated, reads,

"Stop. This is the Empire of the Dead."

According to some estimates,

the Paris Catacombs hold the bones

of more than six million people.

But why did Parisians decide to stack all these bones

together in the first place?

In Paris, you had people being buried

in a traditional sense in a graveyard.

But those are finite locations.

And they started running out of space.

So, if that is the case, after a certain amount of time,

individuals are going to get dug back up

to create space for new burials,

and you have to do something with those bones.

So, they started to utilize catacombs as a way

to relocate those bones.

In the Parisian Catacombs,

very often bones have been rearranged,

made into even sculptural sort of forms.

In many ways, this conflicts with that Christian idea

of keeping the body together.

The one thing

most funeral practices have in the world

is some kind of respect for one's ancestor,

or some kind of feeling that this is one last act of charity

that needs to be completed for the soul to move on properly.

On the other hand,

the Paris Catacombs was not a sacred site.

They are going to get rid of the old bones,

and they don't want to have this problem again.

I would question whether the Paris Catacombs are respectful

to the dead or not.

Did the builders of the Paris Catacombs

desecrate the souls of the dead

by moving their bones from cemeteries

to the dark tunnels beneath the city?

There are many who believe the answer is "yes,"

and there's a local legend which says that moving the bones

of so many deceased people

unleashed a dark and malevolent force

that still haunts the catacombs.

It is believed that if you're there in the hours of darkness,

after midnight, that you hear whispers

coming from the spirits of the skeletons,

drawing you deeper and deeper and deeper into the catacombs,

where you get so lost, you will never get out.

The system of tunnels is really elaborate.

You can get turned around down there and get lost.

There's a legend in the city of Paris

that there was a doorman at a hospital

named Philibert Aspairt,

and he went on an errand down a staircase.

One rumor is that he was going to the wine cellar

to get a certain cognac. We don't know.

But there were various points of entry into the Paris Catacombs,

and apparently, he went down the wrong staircase.

And he got himself in there and turned around and lost,

and never came out

and died in there.

And they didn't find his body for 11 years.

So, they buried him right there in 1804.

Paris Catacombs really were designed

to be a spectacle and a tourist attraction.

You know, they were not designed to have a sacred function.

You didn't go down in there and pray.

They designed it to be a famous macabre site.

And the whole point of it was, like, you know,

you look in this room, and you cannot tell

the king from the pauper.

You cannot tell the wise man from the fool.

Death is this great leveler.

Understanding that aspect of death is an incentive

to live right.

If you think about it, the Paris Catacombs are

a pretty grim reminder that we have no control

over what happens to our bones after we die.

But there's another location, high in the Himalayas,

that is even more unsettling.

A place where the bones of hundreds of people can be found

beneath the waters of an icy lake.

High atop the Himalayan Mountains

sits a small body of water called "Roopkund Lake."

For most of the year, the lake's waters are frozen.

But during the summer months,

as the snow and ice slowly melt away,

a bizarre spectacle is revealed.

Roopkund Lake is a place high up

in the Himalayan Mountains in the northern part of India.

It's close to the second highest mountain in India.

And it is mostly unremarkable,

other than the fact that we have thousands

of human bones scattered around the shores of this lake,

and that really is something which is exceptional.

Now, these bones have been known about for a very long time.

The site is visited by locals

and by tourists and backpackers

who have interacted with the bones.

As people have come by, people have picked the bones up,

they've stacked them into piles,

and in many cases, walked off with them.

So, this location is an interesting example of

how humans interact with bones.

There are still a lot of unanswered questions.

Did all those individuals die there,

or were they taken there from somewhere else?

Is it possible that in the past, there were ceremonies

about disposing of bodies in this location

that have been lost to time?

I know that we have the remains

from something like 600 to 800 human individuals.

These bones are from adults,

and for many years, there was a common assumption

that all of these individuals had all died

as a result of one catastrophic event.

Most mass graves that we see around the world

are the results of one event.

A mass slaughter, a mass catastrophe.

In the case of Roopkund Lake, you see something different.

Looking at the bones, people have been able to figure out

that there are several different population groups

that are located in this lake,

separated by hundreds, possibly even 1,000 years.

So clearly, it was not one event.

Clearly, there was a series of events

around this lake that led to people being here.

Experts have had trouble explaining

why so many groups of people journeyed

to this lake at different times,

over the course of centuries, and died.

It's a fascinating story, and recently,

the collection of bones has become even more mysterious.

In 2019, scientists from Harvard University conducted

a DNA study and found that some of the people

who died at this lake came from far away.

Very far away.

Most people are from South Asia,

but one significant population group seems to have been

from Greece, specifically from an island of Crete.

So one big question is, what was a bunch of

people from the island of Crete

doing up in northern India even to begin with?

Let alone, how they ended up at the bottom of Roopkund Lake?

The only thing which really makes any kind of sense

is the idea that they were on a pilgrimage

through the mountains.

Now, this is documented and known in recent times.

There is a pilgrimage which is made

by people following the Hindu faith,

who will travel through these mountains.

Is it possible the bones in Roopkund Lake

are the remains of unlucky travelers

on pilgrimage through the Himalayas?

And if so, what caused their demise?

Some experts believe a clue may be found in a local legend

involving a Hindu goddess named "Nanda Devi."

Nanda Devi is a mountain goddess

that oversees the second tallest mountain in India.

There are shrines built to her throughout the mountain.

So there is this legend of a king and queen

and, uh, their many attendants

making their way up the mountain

to one of these shrines.

They were being boisterous and festive

as they approached the shrine.

And Nanda Devi was insulted by that.

She felt that they weren't

respectful enough of this sacred space.

So, out of anger, she called on these iron balls

to rain from the sky onto the king and queen

and their entire party.

Now, this is believed to be the explanation

for at least some of the human remains

that were found at the bottom of this lake on the mountain.

Many of them died from blunt force trauma to the skull.

This is an area without a lot of tree cover,

without a lot of shelter, and it's also an area

that is known for intense hailstorms.

Hailstorms with hail as big as your fist.

And you can imagine if you're out in a caravan

or a pilgrimage, and all of a sudden,

this massive hail comes down in this area,

that could take out people regularly

over a thousand years' time period.

It's plausible.

But what's also clear is that when people started

seeing all these skeletons together,

all sorts of stories were developed

as to who these people were and why they were there.

And I think this reminds us

that if people see something anomalous,

you seek an explanation.

If you see a whole bunch of skeletons in one place,

people are going to try to explain it.

Whether or not the people who traveled

to Skeletons Lake were the victims of an angry goddess,

or just freak hailstorms,

perhaps the real lesson of Skeletons Lake is

that our bones tell stories even after we're dead.

And that's certainly the case with an ancient skull

that was recently discovered.

A skull that calls into question the origins of humanity.

Paleontologists from China's Hebei GEO University

analyze an astonishing discovery

from the bottom of an ancient well.

Their study is of the largest human skull ever found.

The extraordinary find makes headlines around the world

and sparks intense debate about this ancient skull,

which scientists have nicknamed the "Dragon Man."

The Dragon Man skull is arguably the most mysterious cranium

that's ever been discovered in this world.

It is the largest ever.

It's actually around nine inches long by six inches across.

It was discovered in 1933 by a Chinese workman.

And because at the time, that part of China was occupied

by the Japanese, he felt that the best thing to do was

to hide it away in a well.

And it was left there until 2018 when he revealed the location

to his grandson.

The grandson went and dug it up,

and it was still there in absolute perfect condition.

And he gave it to a local university,

and it obviously came to the attention

of the scientific community.

The Dragon Man skull is interesting because

the cranial shape is shaped like an American football

being very elongated,

whereas a modern human skull, Homo sapiens,

would be more rounded in shape.

The skull is generally very robust,

including a very pronounced brow ridge.

The eye sockets on Dragon Man are also very large

and more square in shape versus a modern human's

which are smaller and more rounded.

Based off of what we know about the skull,

it probably dates to around 200,000 years ago.

Dragon Man is such a new discovery

that lots of ideas are coming out of the field

about exactly what did this population look like

and how do they relate to us?

The Dragon Man

is bringing us face to face for the first time

with a new Asian version of human,

which very likely we also interbred with,

and whose DNA we probably also carry in us today as well.

It's one of these finds which occasionally comes along

which is really changing what we know about our human story.

Experts agree that the discovery of the Dragon Man

redefines our understanding of humanity's past.

And there are some researchers who believe

that further investigation of the skull

will reveal shocking truths

about this previously unknown cousin of man.

There is every indication

that the Dragon Man may well have been not only large

in size but also of great height.

Possibly as much as seven to seven and a half feet tall.

And if you want to imagine them, just think

that in the past you'd have had the small guys

that would have been the Neanderthals,

who were about five to five and a half feet tall,

you'd have had our own modern human ancestors

that were around six feet tall,

and you'd have had the much bigger,

much stronger Dragon Man.

With the discovery of the Dragon Man skull,

we might have the first real evidence

that giants once walked the Earth.

Is it possible

that the Dragon Man was actually a giant?

Perhaps clues can be found by examining

the numerous historical accounts of people claiming

to have encountered ancient giants.

Giants are a stock character of folklore throughout the world.

For example, the Bible clearly states

that there were giants on the Earth.

In North America, the Native American cultures

have many of these giant stories.

For example, in Mi'kmaq tradition,

we find stories of giants that would hunt people and eat them.

We have similar stories in the Algonquian-speaking Natives

of North America as well, and traditions,

even up to relatively recent time,

would honor these ancient giants.

And this is something that's just prevalent

in different parts of the world.

There are many skeptics

who write off tales of giants as nothing more

than exaggeration or fantasy.

But there are others who insist

that giants were, in fact, quite real.

And as evidence, they point to accounts of large human bones

being discovered throughout North America.

During the mid-1800s,

the Smithsonian Institution had an edict

where they would collect all the different skeletons

of Native American cultures from mounds,

from caves, from all over the country, basically.

And they started finding these remarkable skeletons

and discoveries that suggested

there was a very advanced race of giants

living in North America.

And even in their Smithsonian annual reports

in the late 1800s, specifically

the fifth and the twelfth annual reports,

they documented between seven and eight-foot-tall skeletons

that their Smithsonian employees actually dug up themselves.

And yet, in 1910 onwards,

when Ales Hrdlicka became the director of the Smithsonian,

he put a news report out saying

giants are no more, and tried to delete this idea

that giants ever existed, even though

they discovered some themselves in the late 1800s.

And so, there's a definite mystery here

when it comes to trying to find evidence

of these giant skeletons of North America.

Hundreds, perhaps even thousands,

of these giant skeletons have been unearthed,

but the problem with this is

that all of them today have been lost.

Everything that was inside the Smithsonian Institute had

to be given back, or they were just destroyed.

And so, the importance of the discovery

of the Dragon Man skull is in the fact

that this archaic human that once existed

in this region of China has been brought back

into reality and is being studied by the scientists today.

You can discover so much information

from just a single bone.

It opens up a whole world of opportunity

for what we can learn about

who humans are and where we came from.

Is the Dragon Man really the skull of an ancient giant?

It seems hard to believe.

But just imagine what it would mean

if we could actually prove that giants once roamed the Earth.

Something to ponder

while we investigate yet another collection of ancient bones.

Bones that might have the power to unleash a deadly curse.

While making their way across a snowy mountain range

spanning the border of Italy and Austria,

two German hikers make a gruesome discovery.

The body of a man, half-frozen in ice.

When scientists later remove the skeleton from the icy ground,

they come to a shocking realization.

The man, who they nicknamed "Otzi,"

lived over 5,000 years ago.

This is a really spectacular find,

because of the level of preservation here.

We have the full body preserved,

including all of his skin,

all of the internal organs, and all of the possessions

that he was carrying at the time.

And this, therefore, is giving us unique insights

into this individual

and also what life was like when he lived.

The recovery of Otzi's skeleton

made headlines worldwide,

and his bones became an object of intense fascination

and scientific study.

But then, unexpectedly,

a series of bizarre deaths took place in the years

after Otzi's bones were recovered.

There's something very mysterious going on here

with this Otzi Iceman since he was discovered.

In the early '90s, and going into the 2000s,

people have died who were involved

in the discovery or the presentation of Otzi.

A gentleman called Rainer Henn had the privilege

of placing Otzi's body

into a body bag at the discovery.

He died in a car crash.

Kurt Fritz, who was involved in the transportation of Otzi

from one place to another, died in an avalanche.

Helmut Simon, one of the discoverers of Otzi,

had fallen 300 feet to his death.

Several other people have died, as well.

All told, seven people connected

to the discovery of Otzi died.

Were their untimely deaths simply a coincidence?

Or is it possible

that the deaths were actually the consequence

of disturbing Otzi's bones, which had remained untouched

for thousands of years?

Some people believe

there may even be a curse associated

with this man buried in the ice.

Otzi had these very strange tattoos,

all these spirals and different designs.

If he was some kind of shaman or sorcerer,

did he place a curse over his body to protect him

from future generations digging him up?

It's known that it took four full days

to excavate him from the ice.

So there's an element of desecration of a grave.

There are many sort of curse stories and curse rumors

that follow the realm of archaeology,

because archaeology is often involving

digging people out of their graves.

Is that disturbing their peace?

Not allowing them to rest in peace?

What we can see is that this does reflect a popular belief

that maybe there is something wrong

with handling a body in this mundane sense,

as if it's an object to study.

When a body decomposes, what's left?

You have the skeleton.

If there's a real spiritual essence that's within the body,

it wouldn't fade away with the body.

It wouldn't fade away with the flesh.

It would remain with the bones themselves.

Obviously, life is finite.

We're only gonna be here for a certain amount of time.

So the big question remains, when we leave

and people view our remains, hopefully they honor us.

Whether it's a sacred skull or a holy relic

or a cursed skeleton, bones have a way of making us believe

that after we die, some part of us lives on.

But is that really true,

or is it just wishful thinking on our part?

Well, that my friends, is a fascinating question,

but it's one that, while we're still alive,

will remain... unexplained.

>>>>oakislandtk www.opensubtitles.org

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