WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.200 If you want to find a 3000 year old ancient Egyptian 00:00:03.200 --> 00:00:06.360 relic, you could, you know, search the endless, 00:00:06.459 --> 00:00:09.199 heavily guarded marble corridors of the Louvre 00:00:09.199 --> 00:00:11.439 in Paris. Right. Or the British Museum. Yeah. 00:00:11.500 --> 00:00:14.199 Or the massive halls of the British Museum. Or 00:00:14.199 --> 00:00:16.920 you could look inside a cardboard box marked 00:00:16.920 --> 00:00:19.820 miscellaneous sitting in the back room of a small 00:00:19.820 --> 00:00:23.780 volunteer run stone building in an isolated Scottish 00:00:23.780 --> 00:00:27.839 fishing village. It is. Quite the contrast. I 00:00:27.839 --> 00:00:29.399 mean, I'm actually looking at some historical 00:00:29.399 --> 00:00:31.559 maritime maps of the Orkney Islands right now 00:00:31.559 --> 00:00:33.740 just to sort of set the scene for the listener. 00:00:34.560 --> 00:00:37.000 The sheer geographical isolation we are talking 00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:40.119 about here is it's striking. It really is. You 00:00:40.119 --> 00:00:43.159 have this small coastal town of Stromness surrounded 00:00:43.159 --> 00:00:45.079 by the rough waters of the North Sea and the 00:00:45.079 --> 00:00:48.359 Atlantic. And yet the local museum there holds 00:00:48.359 --> 00:00:50.479 an inventory that spans from ancient African 00:00:50.479 --> 00:00:54.409 civilizations. all the way to like highly experimental 00:00:54.409 --> 00:00:57.149 Arctic exploration gear. Which is just wild to 00:00:57.149 --> 00:00:58.969 think about. And that's why today's deep dive 00:00:58.969 --> 00:01:02.750 is entirely focused on this one location. We 00:01:02.750 --> 00:01:06.049 are taking a single Wikipedia article about the 00:01:06.049 --> 00:01:09.530 Stromniss Museum and uncovering how this one, 00:01:09.670 --> 00:01:12.870 I mean, seemingly niche independent institution 00:01:12.870 --> 00:01:16.250 acts as a secret portal to the entire world's 00:01:16.250 --> 00:01:18.290 history. Yeah, it's a perfect example of how 00:01:18.290 --> 00:01:21.409 interconnected everything is. Exactly. And for 00:01:21.409 --> 00:01:23.170 you listening right now, if you are looking for 00:01:23.170 --> 00:01:26.069 that sudden aha moment, you know, that feeling 00:01:26.069 --> 00:01:28.920 of seeing how global history connects without 00:01:28.920 --> 00:01:31.379 getting bogged down in an overwhelming sea of 00:01:31.379 --> 00:01:33.480 dates and textbook chapters. This is exactly 00:01:33.480 --> 00:01:35.260 the story you want to hear. Because this one 00:01:35.260 --> 00:01:38.340 building neatly organizes thousands of years 00:01:38.340 --> 00:01:40.540 of human endeavor under a single roof. It really 00:01:40.540 --> 00:01:42.739 does. Okay, let's untack this. Where exactly 00:01:42.739 --> 00:01:44.819 does the story of the Stromness Museum actually 00:01:44.819 --> 00:01:47.200 begin? Well... To understand the museum, you 00:01:47.200 --> 00:01:48.560 really have to understand what was happening 00:01:48.560 --> 00:01:51.000 to the town astronomers in the mid 19th century. 00:01:51.060 --> 00:01:54.500 Right. The 1850s brought this explosive population 00:01:54.500 --> 00:01:57.540 boom to the Orkney Islands. And that growth wasn't 00:01:57.540 --> 00:02:00.000 driven by industry in the traditional sense, 00:02:00.340 --> 00:02:03.060 like like coal or steel. It was fish. Right. 00:02:03.239 --> 00:02:05.459 Yeah. It was driven entirely by the herring fishing 00:02:05.459 --> 00:02:08.520 industry. The waters around Orkney were incredibly 00:02:08.520 --> 00:02:11.599 rich and the sheer volume of fish being pulled 00:02:11.599 --> 00:02:14.979 from the sea brought massive, unprecedented wealth 00:02:14.979 --> 00:02:18.050 into this remote community. And obviously, when 00:02:18.050 --> 00:02:20.870 a town suddenly gets an influx of wealth and 00:02:20.870 --> 00:02:23.930 people, the local infrastructure has to adapt. 00:02:24.389 --> 00:02:27.949 Precisely. The growth was so rapid that by 1856, 00:02:28.389 --> 00:02:30.509 Stromness officially became what was known in 00:02:30.509 --> 00:02:34.349 Scotland as a police burg. A police burg? That 00:02:34.349 --> 00:02:37.210 sounds... what exactly does that mean? So essentially, 00:02:37.330 --> 00:02:39.629 the town had grown too large and too complex 00:02:39.629 --> 00:02:41.750 to be managed by a distant county authority. 00:02:42.430 --> 00:02:44.729 Becoming a police burg meant they had the legal 00:02:44.729 --> 00:02:47.349 right to establish their own local municipal 00:02:47.349 --> 00:02:49.569 government. Ah, okay. Yeah, to handle things 00:02:49.569 --> 00:02:52.090 like paving, lighting, cleansing, and, well, 00:02:52.289 --> 00:02:54.189 actual law enforcement. Which means they suddenly 00:02:54.189 --> 00:02:56.449 needed a place to put that new government. Right. 00:02:56.629 --> 00:02:58.949 They needed a headquarters. So the newly formed 00:02:58.949 --> 00:03:01.330 local borough council commissioned a town hall. 00:03:01.650 --> 00:03:04.229 It was completed in 1858, and it was designed 00:03:04.229 --> 00:03:06.509 to reflect their new civic pride, you know? Yeah. 00:03:06.509 --> 00:03:08.750 They built it in this very imposing neoclassical 00:03:08.750 --> 00:03:11.349 style, constructed entirely out of ashlerstone. 00:03:11.479 --> 00:03:14.080 Let's pause on that for a second. Ashler Stone 00:03:14.080 --> 00:03:16.599 isn't just like a pile of rough rock stacked 00:03:16.599 --> 00:03:19.639 together, is it? No, not at all. Ashler refers 00:03:19.639 --> 00:03:22.419 to stone that has been carefully cut and worked 00:03:22.419 --> 00:03:25.659 until it is perfectly square and smooth. Oh. 00:03:25.979 --> 00:03:28.379 Yeah. When you build a facade out of Ashler Stone, 00:03:29.159 --> 00:03:31.699 you are intentionally trying to create a formal, 00:03:32.180 --> 00:03:35.060 permanent, and highly structured look. It was, 00:03:35.159 --> 00:03:37.879 frankly, a massive architectural flex for a fishing 00:03:37.879 --> 00:03:41.379 town. A huge flex. Definitely. In fact, it's 00:03:41.379 --> 00:03:43.659 such a significant piece of historic architecture 00:03:43.659 --> 00:03:46.060 that today it's a category B listed building, 00:03:46.439 --> 00:03:48.419 meaning it's officially recognized and protected 00:03:48.419 --> 00:03:51.180 on a national level in Scotland. So they build 00:03:51.180 --> 00:03:53.199 this grand town hall for the new government. 00:03:53.639 --> 00:03:55.460 But the local council didn't actually get to 00:03:55.460 --> 00:03:57.860 keep the building to themselves, did they? They 00:03:57.860 --> 00:03:59.840 ended up in a bit of a roommate situation right 00:03:59.840 --> 00:04:02.219 from the start. They did, yeah. You see, the 00:04:02.219 --> 00:04:04.439 Orkney Natural History Society had actually been 00:04:04.439 --> 00:04:07.800 founded two decades earlier, back in 1837. Oh, 00:04:07.800 --> 00:04:10.520 so they were already around. Exactly. By a group 00:04:10.520 --> 00:04:12.939 of passionate local scholars and collectors. 00:04:13.699 --> 00:04:15.879 So when this grand new town hall was finished 00:04:15.879 --> 00:04:19.860 in 1858, an arrangement was made. The Burke Council 00:04:19.860 --> 00:04:22.459 took over the ground floor to handle all the 00:04:22.459 --> 00:04:24.860 municipal paperwork and local law enforcement. 00:04:25.180 --> 00:04:27.680 While the Natural History Society moved their 00:04:27.680 --> 00:04:30.220 growing museum into the first floor upstairs. 00:04:30.600 --> 00:04:33.040 It sounds a bit like a modern tech startup sharing 00:04:33.040 --> 00:04:35.500 a co -working space with the local city council. 00:04:35.639 --> 00:04:37.420 It's actually a great way to put it. You've got 00:04:37.420 --> 00:04:39.319 the bureaucratic machine operating downstairs 00:04:39.319 --> 00:04:41.879 and upstairs you have this passionate slightly 00:04:41.879 --> 00:04:45.120 obsessive group of people just hoarding natural 00:04:45.120 --> 00:04:48.470 history specimens and the museum the startup 00:04:48.470 --> 00:04:51.529 in this scenario, they ultimately won the real 00:04:51.529 --> 00:04:54.009 estate battle. They completely outlasted their 00:04:54.009 --> 00:04:57.029 landlords. Yeah. Fast forward to the 1920s and 00:04:57.029 --> 00:04:59.370 the Burke Council ended up relocating to a different 00:04:59.370 --> 00:05:01.730 facility. Leaving the whole place empty. Right. 00:05:02.129 --> 00:05:04.149 That allowed the Orchee Natural History Society 00:05:04.149 --> 00:05:06.189 to acquire ownership of the entire building. 00:05:06.750 --> 00:05:08.870 They expanded their exhibits downwards, taking 00:05:08.870 --> 00:05:11.649 over the old government spaces and hosted a grand 00:05:11.649 --> 00:05:14.949 reopening in February 1931. And that was a pretty 00:05:14.949 --> 00:05:17.750 big deal, right? Oh, absolutely. It was officiated 00:05:17.750 --> 00:05:20.610 by Alfred Bakie, the Lord Lieutenant of Orkney 00:05:20.610 --> 00:05:23.230 and Shetland. Which means he was the British 00:05:23.230 --> 00:05:25.529 monarch's personal representative in the region. 00:05:25.790 --> 00:05:28.269 That gives the whole operation a very serious 00:05:28.269 --> 00:05:30.769 stamp of royal approval. It really does. And 00:05:30.769 --> 00:05:32.629 the museum is still operating out of that exact 00:05:32.629 --> 00:05:35.790 same building today, right? Yes, it is. But its 00:05:35.790 --> 00:05:38.069 operational structure is what makes it so unique 00:05:38.069 --> 00:05:41.790 now. Today, it is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated 00:05:41.790 --> 00:05:45.100 Organization, or SCIO. But more importantly, 00:05:45.519 --> 00:05:48.199 it is managed entirely by a volunteer committee. 00:05:48.379 --> 00:05:50.839 Just volunteers? Yeah. If we connect this to 00:05:50.839 --> 00:05:53.579 the bigger picture, the fact that this is a volunteer 00:05:53.579 --> 00:05:56.339 enterprise completely shifts how we usually think 00:05:56.339 --> 00:05:59.490 about historical preservation. We have been conditioned 00:05:59.490 --> 00:06:01.870 to assume that world -class knowledge preservation 00:06:01.870 --> 00:06:05.069 requires a massive, faceless, steep bureaucracy. 00:06:05.209 --> 00:06:06.949 Right, with millions of dollars in centralized 00:06:06.949 --> 00:06:10.410 funding. Exactly. But the Stromness Museum proves 00:06:10.410 --> 00:06:13.290 that history can be driven by a passionate, local, 00:06:13.370 --> 00:06:15.589 grassroots community. This isn't a state mandate. 00:06:15.930 --> 00:06:18.720 It is a labor of intense local pride. And that 00:06:18.720 --> 00:06:21.420 local pride makes a lot of sense when you consider 00:06:21.420 --> 00:06:24.600 what was actually coming into their harbor, because 00:06:24.600 --> 00:06:27.240 the same sea that brought the herring and the 00:06:27.240 --> 00:06:30.279 wealth to build that town hall also brought global 00:06:30.279 --> 00:06:32.680 traffic. Oh, absolutely. Stromas wasn't just 00:06:32.680 --> 00:06:35.620 a secluded fishing village. It was a major maritime 00:06:35.620 --> 00:06:38.720 crossroads, which brings us to the actual artifacts 00:06:38.720 --> 00:06:42.079 inside the building. This is exactly where the 00:06:42.079 --> 00:06:44.500 deeply local narrative expands into a global 00:06:44.500 --> 00:06:47.850 one. The ethnographic and exploration collections 00:06:47.850 --> 00:06:50.990 held in Stromness rival what you would expect 00:06:50.990 --> 00:06:53.430 to see in a major national capital. Let's talk 00:06:53.430 --> 00:06:56.110 about Captain James Cook. His third voyage, the 00:06:56.110 --> 00:06:58.769 one famous for exploring the Pacific, actually 00:06:58.769 --> 00:07:01.569 has ties to this small Scottish town. It does, 00:07:01.709 --> 00:07:03.990 yeah. When Cook's ships, the Resolution and the 00:07:03.990 --> 00:07:05.829 Discovery, were finally returning home to Britain 00:07:05.829 --> 00:07:09.430 in 1780, they actually landed in Stromness. And 00:07:09.430 --> 00:07:11.629 artifacts from that specific voyage are sitting 00:07:11.629 --> 00:07:13.889 in this local museum today. Which is incredible. 00:07:14.029 --> 00:07:17.009 It is. They also have ethnographic items collected 00:07:17.009 --> 00:07:19.930 by prominent Orcadians who traveled the world, 00:07:20.449 --> 00:07:22.629 like William Balfour -Bakey, who explored the 00:07:22.629 --> 00:07:25.829 Niger River in Africa, and Jack Renton, who had 00:07:25.829 --> 00:07:28.230 this unbelievable journey living in the Solomon 00:07:28.230 --> 00:07:30.389 Islands in the South Pacific. The breadth of 00:07:30.389 --> 00:07:33.509 the collection is just staggering, but the true 00:07:33.509 --> 00:07:36.170 crown jewel of their exploration history is tied 00:07:36.170 --> 00:07:38.750 to the Arctic. Right, the Arctic expeditions. 00:07:39.110 --> 00:07:41.500 Yeah. During the 19th century, there was a massive, 00:07:41.939 --> 00:07:45.060 highly publicized effort by the British to map 00:07:45.060 --> 00:07:47.300 the extreme north and navigate the northwest 00:07:47.300 --> 00:07:50.240 passage. A huge deal at the time. Oh, the space 00:07:50.240 --> 00:07:52.899 race of its day. The museum holds items related 00:07:52.899 --> 00:07:55.980 to the famous Orcadian explorer John Ray, who 00:07:55.980 --> 00:07:57.920 actually discovered the final portion of that 00:07:57.920 --> 00:08:00.170 passage. They also have a fascinating collection 00:08:00.170 --> 00:08:02.370 of artifacts belonging to the indigenous peoples 00:08:02.370 --> 00:08:04.490 of northern Canada, which were brought back by 00:08:04.490 --> 00:08:06.930 these same explorers. And the survival gear they 00:08:06.930 --> 00:08:09.810 have on display is mind -blowing. The sources 00:08:09.810 --> 00:08:12.290 highlight something called a halkit boat. Ah, 00:08:12.310 --> 00:08:14.850 yes. An incredibly rare piece of engineering. 00:08:15.269 --> 00:08:18.250 The museum has one of only two halkit boats known 00:08:18.250 --> 00:08:21.209 to still exist anywhere in the world. For you 00:08:21.209 --> 00:08:24.329 listening, imagine a 19th century precursor to 00:08:24.329 --> 00:08:27.740 an inflatable survival raft. but highly experimental. 00:08:28.040 --> 00:08:30.480 Very. It was designed to be worn like a heavy, 00:08:30.519 --> 00:08:33.120 waterproof cloak or carried like a specialized 00:08:33.120 --> 00:08:36.220 umbrella while trekking across the frozen Canadian 00:08:36.220 --> 00:08:39.759 tundra. Then, when the explorer reached a freezing 00:08:39.759 --> 00:08:42.860 river, they would inflate the cloak using a bellows, 00:08:42.899 --> 00:08:45.299 turning it into a one -man rubber boat. It's 00:08:45.299 --> 00:08:47.840 bizarre. It is bizarre, it is genius, and it's 00:08:47.840 --> 00:08:50.580 sitting in stromness. They even have an authentic 00:08:50.580 --> 00:08:53.679 Arctic medal awarded to the legendary and ultimately 00:08:53.679 --> 00:08:56.960 doomed explorer, John Frank - Yeah, the Franklin 00:08:56.960 --> 00:08:58.960 Expedition. I have to ask the obvious question 00:08:58.960 --> 00:09:00.720 here, though. Captain Cook was sailing for the 00:09:00.720 --> 00:09:03.159 British Admiralty. John Franklin was a national 00:09:03.159 --> 00:09:05.940 hero. Wouldn't the Crown demand that all of these 00:09:05.940 --> 00:09:08.179 incredibly valuable artifacts go straight into 00:09:08.179 --> 00:09:10.740 the vaults of the British Museum in London? Like, 00:09:10.840 --> 00:09:13.120 how did a small town council manage to legally 00:09:13.120 --> 00:09:15.700 capture and keep all this world history? Well, 00:09:16.279 --> 00:09:18.360 it wasn't a matter of legal maneuvering, really. 00:09:18.740 --> 00:09:20.639 It was a matter of practical geography and human 00:09:20.639 --> 00:09:24.250 nature. Look at where Orkney is positioned. In 00:09:24.250 --> 00:09:27.269 the 19th century, Stromnus was the literal last 00:09:27.269 --> 00:09:30.690 stop of civilization before ships sailed into 00:09:30.690 --> 00:09:33.470 the terrifying unknown of the Arctic ice. It 00:09:33.470 --> 00:09:36.250 was the edge of the map. Exactly. It was the 00:09:36.250 --> 00:09:38.929 ultimate frontier outpost. If you were commanding 00:09:38.929 --> 00:09:41.549 an expedition, Stromnus was the last place you 00:09:41.549 --> 00:09:44.330 could take on fresh water. And crucially, the 00:09:44.330 --> 00:09:47.110 last place you could hire experienced Orcadian 00:09:47.110 --> 00:09:49.909 ice navigators who actually knew how to survive 00:09:49.909 --> 00:09:52.769 in freezing waters. That makes total sense. And... 00:09:52.860 --> 00:09:54.840 If you were lucky enough to survive the Arctic, 00:09:55.320 --> 00:09:58.440 Stromnus was the very first piece of solid civilized 00:09:58.440 --> 00:10:00.840 ground you stepped onto when you returned. So 00:10:00.840 --> 00:10:03.019 the explorers formed personal relationships with 00:10:03.019 --> 00:10:05.259 the town. They did. They stayed in local lodging 00:10:05.259 --> 00:10:07.379 houses. They traded. They drank in the local 00:10:07.379 --> 00:10:09.879 pubs. Many of these artifacts weren't official 00:10:09.879 --> 00:10:12.059 government property. They were personal souvenirs. 00:10:12.080 --> 00:10:15.620 Oh, I see. Yeah. An explorer might use an ethnographic 00:10:15.620 --> 00:10:18.700 carving from the South Pacific or an Inuit artifact 00:10:18.700 --> 00:10:20.919 from the Arctic to pay a local family for a month 00:10:20.919 --> 00:10:24.200 of lodging. Over decades, those individual items 00:10:24.200 --> 00:10:26.940 trickled out of local living rooms and were donated 00:10:26.940 --> 00:10:29.200 straight to the Orkney Natural History Society. 00:10:30.019 --> 00:10:32.399 So the geography made Orkney the perfect jumping 00:10:32.399 --> 00:10:35.519 off point for explorers. But that exact same 00:10:35.519 --> 00:10:38.200 geography, being this vital strategic harbor 00:10:38.200 --> 00:10:40.919 at the top of the British Isles, also made it 00:10:40.919 --> 00:10:43.519 a massive focal point when global warfare broke 00:10:43.519 --> 00:10:46.440 out a few decades later. Yes, the narrative of 00:10:46.440 --> 00:10:48.980 Stromness shifts very suddenly here from the 00:10:48.980 --> 00:10:51.840 peaceful, well, peaceful but dangerous scientific 00:10:51.840 --> 00:10:54.960 exploration of the 19th century to the violent 00:10:54.960 --> 00:10:57.519 mechanized global conflicts of the 20th century. 00:10:57.740 --> 00:11:00.539 Right in Orkney's backyard. The museum has an 00:11:00.539 --> 00:11:03.019 entire collection dedicated to local naval history, 00:11:03.220 --> 00:11:05.120 specifically centered around Scapa Flow. And 00:11:05.120 --> 00:11:08.240 for context, Scapa Flow is a vast natural harbor 00:11:08.240 --> 00:11:11.000 surrounded by the Orkney Islands. It is sheltered. 00:11:11.080 --> 00:11:13.259 deep and large enough to hold an entire armada. 00:11:13.720 --> 00:11:15.799 Wow. Because of that, it became the primary base 00:11:15.799 --> 00:11:17.960 for the British Grand Fleet during both the First 00:11:17.960 --> 00:11:20.980 and Second World Wars. And the Stromness Museum 00:11:20.980 --> 00:11:23.580 holds artifacts pulled directly from that water. 00:11:24.039 --> 00:11:26.639 They have items from sunken Royal Navy ships, 00:11:26.639 --> 00:11:30.240 but also artifacts from the scuttled German fleet. 00:11:30.440 --> 00:11:32.940 That's a huge piece of history. It is. After 00:11:32.940 --> 00:11:36.460 World War One, 74 ships of the German high seas 00:11:36.460 --> 00:11:39.340 fleet were interned at Scapa Flow, believing 00:11:39.340 --> 00:11:41.179 that the British were about to seize the ships 00:11:41.179 --> 00:11:44.340 permanently, the German commander ordered his 00:11:44.340 --> 00:11:47.200 own men to intentionally sink the entire fleet 00:11:47.200 --> 00:11:49.879 in a single day. The wreckage is still down there. 00:11:50.240 --> 00:11:53.179 It is a profound historical event to have situated 00:11:53.179 --> 00:11:55.559 just a few miles from your town hall. The sources 00:11:55.559 --> 00:11:57.860 mention one specific artifact that caught my 00:11:57.860 --> 00:12:00.679 eye. It's an instrument recovered from the dreadnought 00:12:00.679 --> 00:12:04.159 battleship, HMS Vanguard, which tragically blew 00:12:04.159 --> 00:12:07.480 up while anchored at Scapa Flow in 1917 due to 00:12:07.480 --> 00:12:09.879 an accidental magazine explosion. Yes, a terrible 00:12:09.879 --> 00:12:12.139 tragedy. The artifact is called a Dumaresque. 00:12:12.299 --> 00:12:14.799 Now, a Dumaresque sounds like a very delicate, 00:12:14.899 --> 00:12:17.139 highly sophisticated French dessert. It does 00:12:17.139 --> 00:12:19.600 sound like that. But it is actually a vital piece 00:12:19.600 --> 00:12:21.779 of naval technology, isn't it? It is entirely 00:12:21.779 --> 00:12:25.059 mechanical, yes. A Dumaresque was an analog calculating 00:12:25.059 --> 00:12:27.840 instrument. Right. It's essentially an early 00:12:27.840 --> 00:12:30.899 mechanical targeting computer. Imagine a highly 00:12:30.899 --> 00:12:34.899 complex brass slide rule covered in dials and 00:12:34.899 --> 00:12:36.759 moving parts. Yeah, that's a good way to picture. 00:12:36.860 --> 00:12:39.179 It was designed to calculate the geometry between 00:12:39.179 --> 00:12:41.179 your moving battleship and an enemy's moving 00:12:41.179 --> 00:12:44.080 battleship so you could figure out exactly where 00:12:44.080 --> 00:12:46.860 to aim your massive naval guns to hit a target 00:12:46.860 --> 00:12:50.720 miles away. So what does this all mean? When 00:12:50.720 --> 00:12:52.740 you take a piece of rusted targeting equipment 00:12:52.740 --> 00:12:55.059 off a sunken dreadnought and put it in a local 00:12:55.059 --> 00:12:57.620 museum, I mean, does having pieces of these massive 00:12:57.620 --> 00:13:01.019 warships change how we process the sheer terrifying 00:13:01.019 --> 00:13:04.159 scale of global naval warfare? I think it alters 00:13:04.159 --> 00:13:06.419 our perspective completely. When we read about 00:13:06.419 --> 00:13:08.360 the world wars in traditional history books, 00:13:08.539 --> 00:13:10.860 the numbers are so large that they become abstract. 00:13:10.980 --> 00:13:13.460 Yeah, just statistics. Exactly. Hundreds of ships. 00:13:13.629 --> 00:13:16.470 Thousands of sailors, vast oceans, the human 00:13:16.470 --> 00:13:19.049 brain struggles to process that level of industrial 00:13:19.049 --> 00:13:20.809 conflict. It just becomes a list of numbers. 00:13:20.929 --> 00:13:23.049 Yeah. But when you walk into a quiet stone building 00:13:23.049 --> 00:13:26.190 in Stromness and you look at an intricate, oxidized 00:13:26.190 --> 00:13:28.649 brass dial from the HMS Vanguard, it gets it 00:13:28.649 --> 00:13:32.070 real. It strips away the abstraction. It grounds 00:13:32.070 --> 00:13:35.750 those massive conflicts into a very visceral, 00:13:35.929 --> 00:13:39.269 tangible reality. The rusted metal of world -altering 00:13:39.269 --> 00:13:41.690 wars was pulled straight from the local bay. 00:13:41.799 --> 00:13:44.600 For the people of Orkney, global history isn't 00:13:44.600 --> 00:13:46.759 something that happened over there on a distant 00:13:46.759 --> 00:13:50.360 continent. It is deeply, physically local memory. 00:13:50.620 --> 00:13:52.759 You can almost feel the weight of the steel and 00:13:52.759 --> 00:13:56.360 smell the oil. It's heavy. But here's the twist. 00:13:56.879 --> 00:13:59.159 As fascinating as the naval battles and the Arctic 00:13:59.159 --> 00:14:02.019 survival gear are, the museum's most shocking 00:14:02.019 --> 00:14:04.379 secrets don't actually involve ships at all. 00:14:04.539 --> 00:14:06.600 No, they involve the ground beneath our feet 00:14:06.600 --> 00:14:09.080 and the archives behind the exhibition doors. 00:14:09.399 --> 00:14:11.679 Here's where it gets really interesting. Let's 00:14:11.679 --> 00:14:13.799 look at their natural history collection. Remember, 00:14:14.039 --> 00:14:16.080 the Orkney Natural History Society was founded 00:14:16.080 --> 00:14:18.399 way back in 1837. Right, they've been at this 00:14:18.399 --> 00:14:20.340 a while. They have been collecting biological 00:14:20.340 --> 00:14:23.000 specimens and geology for nearly two centuries. 00:14:23.600 --> 00:14:25.600 The foundational items are exactly what you'd 00:14:25.600 --> 00:14:28.580 expect from a Victorian -era society. Thousands 00:14:28.580 --> 00:14:31.460 of taxidermied birds, extensive fossil collections, 00:14:31.840 --> 00:14:35.340 and rare mollusks. And many of these were painstakingly 00:14:35.340 --> 00:14:38.179 gathered by dedicated local figures. You have 00:14:38.179 --> 00:14:40.740 individuals like Charles Clouston, a local clergyman 00:14:40.740 --> 00:14:43.279 and meteorologist who systematically recorded 00:14:43.279 --> 00:14:45.720 early weather data and collected geology. Oh, 00:14:45.820 --> 00:14:48.690 sure. Or Robert Rendell. a local poet and amateur 00:14:48.690 --> 00:14:52.190 contrologist who obsessively catalogued the shells 00:14:52.190 --> 00:14:54.509 and mollusks of the Orkney shores. They even 00:14:54.509 --> 00:14:57.169 hold a specimen of homosteus milleri, which is 00:14:57.169 --> 00:14:59.909 a massive, heavily armored fish fossil from the 00:14:59.909 --> 00:15:03.090 Devonian period, famously discovered by the pioneering 00:15:03.090 --> 00:15:06.129 Scottish geologist Hugh Miller. A very impressive 00:15:06.129 --> 00:15:08.789 piece. So far, this is a very standard, highly 00:15:08.789 --> 00:15:11.990 respectable 19th century natural history society. 00:15:12.210 --> 00:15:14.740 But let's fast forward to the modern era. The 00:15:14.740 --> 00:15:17.899 year is 2016. Someone is conducting a routine 00:15:17.899 --> 00:15:20.299 review of the museum's Scarabray collection. 00:15:20.879 --> 00:15:22.940 Scarabray being the incredibly well -preserved 00:15:22.940 --> 00:15:25.759 stone age settlement in Orkney, which just for 00:15:25.759 --> 00:15:28.179 context actually predates the Egyptian pyramids. 00:15:28.320 --> 00:15:30.120 Right. So a researcher is going through cardboard 00:15:30.120 --> 00:15:32.919 storage boxes from Scarabray and inside one of 00:15:32.919 --> 00:15:36.240 them they find a 5 ,000 year old Neolithic whalebone 00:15:36.240 --> 00:15:38.440 figurine. Just sitting there. Just sitting there. 00:15:38.500 --> 00:15:40.100 It was literally in what the staff described 00:15:40.100 --> 00:15:42.940 as the last box they checked. A completely priceless 00:15:42.940 --> 00:15:45.559 artifact of early human history that had long 00:15:45.559 --> 00:15:48.240 been considered completely lost. And if that 00:15:48.240 --> 00:15:51.360 isn't wild enough, let's jump to 2020. Researchers 00:15:51.360 --> 00:15:53.740 from the National Museum of Scotland are examining 00:15:53.740 --> 00:15:56.779 the Stromas collection and they suddenly identify 00:15:56.779 --> 00:16:02.679 two Egyptian phants, shabtis. Phants is this 00:16:02.679 --> 00:16:05.519 ancient crushed quartz paste that gets fired 00:16:05.519 --> 00:16:08.340 with a glaze. Usually a brilliant turquoise color, 00:16:08.340 --> 00:16:11.139 right? Yeah, exactly. And a shabti is a small 00:16:11.139 --> 00:16:13.799 funerary figure that ancient Egyptians buried 00:16:13.799 --> 00:16:16.220 with their dead, believing the figure would magically 00:16:16.220 --> 00:16:18.820 come alive and do manual labor for the deceased 00:16:18.820 --> 00:16:21.159 in the afterlife. And researchers found two of 00:16:21.159 --> 00:16:23.000 these ancient Egyptian figures dating all the 00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:27.519 way back to between 1145 and 986 BC. In Orkney. 00:16:27.720 --> 00:16:29.879 Sitting in a small museum in the Scottish islands, 00:16:30.279 --> 00:16:32.240 it is the equivalent of cleaning out your attic, 00:16:32.500 --> 00:16:34.580 moving aside a box of your old tax documents, 00:16:34.740 --> 00:16:36.919 and finding a literal dinosaur bone underneath 00:16:36.919 --> 00:16:39.460 it. It really is. But I'm struggling to understand 00:16:39.460 --> 00:16:42.419 something here. You mentioned this society has 00:16:42.419 --> 00:16:45.429 been running since 1837. How on earth does a 00:16:45.429 --> 00:16:49.269 museum simply lose a priceless 5 ,000 -year -old 00:16:49.269 --> 00:16:52.370 Neolithic whalebone carving or 3 ,000 -year -old 00:16:52.370 --> 00:16:55.309 Egyptian shabtis for an entire century? Weren't 00:16:55.309 --> 00:16:57.970 they keeping records? Well, this raises an important 00:16:57.970 --> 00:17:00.789 question, and it addresses one of the most fundamental 00:17:00.789 --> 00:17:02.870 misunderstandings about how historical archives 00:17:02.870 --> 00:17:05.910 actually function. The general public tends to 00:17:05.910 --> 00:17:10.220 view museums as, you know, pristine static display 00:17:10.220 --> 00:17:12.579 cases. Yeah, like everything is perfectly cataloged. 00:17:12.640 --> 00:17:14.740 Right. You assume that what is clearly labeled 00:17:14.740 --> 00:17:17.420 behind the glass is the entirety of the institution's 00:17:17.420 --> 00:17:20.519 knowledge. But the reality of archival science 00:17:20.519 --> 00:17:22.980 is incredibly messy. How messy are we talking? 00:17:23.079 --> 00:17:25.579 Think about the sheer volume of material. For 00:17:25.579 --> 00:17:27.900 over a century and a half, local citizens, returning 00:17:27.900 --> 00:17:30.480 sailors, board explorers, and wealthy travelers 00:17:30.480 --> 00:17:33.160 were constantly dropping off items at the museum's 00:17:33.160 --> 00:17:36.279 doorstep. Just a constant influx. It was a relentless 00:17:36.279 --> 00:17:39.369 tsunami of artifacts. Now, remember that this 00:17:39.369 --> 00:17:42.410 is a local volunteer -run society. They did not 00:17:42.410 --> 00:17:45.369 have an army of specialized PhDs or modern database 00:17:45.369 --> 00:17:48.349 software to properly identify, cross -reference, 00:17:48.549 --> 00:17:51.730 and catalog every single rock, bone, and carving 00:17:51.730 --> 00:17:53.250 that came through the door. They just had to 00:17:53.250 --> 00:17:55.349 triage everything. Exactly. Things got boxed 00:17:55.349 --> 00:17:57.650 up quickly to save space. They got labeled vaguely. 00:17:58.190 --> 00:18:01.309 An incredibly rare 3 ,000 -year -old Egyptian 00:18:01.309 --> 00:18:04.599 shabti might simply be recorded in a dusty ledger 00:18:04.599 --> 00:18:09.000 as small carved green stone donated by Mr. Smith, 00:18:09.319 --> 00:18:12.640 1892. Oh, man. And then that box gets put on 00:18:12.640 --> 00:18:15.119 a high shelf in a back room. It can sit in the 00:18:15.119 --> 00:18:17.700 dark for generations, perfectly safe, but completely 00:18:17.700 --> 00:18:20.240 unrecognized. Just waiting. It just waits there 00:18:20.240 --> 00:18:22.900 until the right researcher, someone with a specific 00:18:22.900 --> 00:18:25.099 highly specialized expertise, to look at that 00:18:25.099 --> 00:18:27.440 green stone and instantly recognize its true 00:18:27.440 --> 00:18:30.180 historical weight. finally opens that exact box. 00:18:30.420 --> 00:18:32.579 So the museum isn't just preserving history from 00:18:32.579 --> 00:18:35.500 the elements, it's actively hiding history from 00:18:35.500 --> 00:18:37.660 itself until the time is right. It's a beautiful 00:18:37.660 --> 00:18:40.720 way to phrase it. Which perfectly wraps up exactly 00:18:40.720 --> 00:18:43.740 why we wanted to take this deep dive today. Think 00:18:43.740 --> 00:18:46.339 about the incredible sprawling journey we just 00:18:46.339 --> 00:18:49.359 took for you listening, all by examining the 00:18:49.359 --> 00:18:52.740 contents of one single building. It's been quite 00:18:52.740 --> 00:18:55.559 a trip. We started with an 1850s herring boom 00:18:55.559 --> 00:18:58.680 that forced a small Scottish town to build an 00:18:58.680 --> 00:19:02.259 ashler stone town hall. We saw that civic building 00:19:02.259 --> 00:19:04.539 become a roommate to a startup natural history 00:19:04.539 --> 00:19:07.589 society. We tracked Captain Cook's return voyage 00:19:07.589 --> 00:19:10.789 from the Pacific. We examined experimental inflatable 00:19:10.789 --> 00:19:13.369 lifeboats designed for Arctic survival. And we 00:19:13.369 --> 00:19:16.410 felt the heavy metallic ghosts of sunken dreadnoughts 00:19:16.410 --> 00:19:18.450 from the global conflicts of the 20th century. 00:19:18.690 --> 00:19:22.250 All of that existing alongside lost ancient Egyptian 00:19:22.250 --> 00:19:25.589 funerary figures and 5 ,000 year old Neolithic 00:19:25.589 --> 00:19:29.059 carvings. All of it contained protected and managed 00:19:29.059 --> 00:19:31.700 by a dedicated committee of local volunteers 00:19:31.700 --> 00:19:34.039 in Stromness, Scotland. It's just unbelievable. 00:19:34.299 --> 00:19:36.460 It serves as a profound reminder for you as you 00:19:36.460 --> 00:19:38.680 listen to this. True learning and world class 00:19:38.680 --> 00:19:41.000 history aren't just confined to the giant, heavily 00:19:41.000 --> 00:19:43.119 funded national institutions and major capitals. 00:19:43.440 --> 00:19:45.819 Knowledge is everywhere. It really is. It is 00:19:45.819 --> 00:19:48.119 woven directly into the fabric of small towns, 00:19:48.359 --> 00:19:51.039 and it is often preserved purely by the sheer, 00:19:51.279 --> 00:19:53.980 stubborn dedication of local volunteers who care 00:19:53.980 --> 00:19:56.619 deeply about their community's place in the wider 00:19:56.619 --> 00:19:59.039 world. The history of the world isn't always 00:19:59.039 --> 00:20:01.880 kept in an impenetrable vault. Sometimes it's 00:20:01.880 --> 00:20:03.759 kept in the room right above the Old Town Council. 00:20:03.950 --> 00:20:06.869 And that leaves us with a final lingering thought 00:20:06.869 --> 00:20:09.329 for you to ponder long after we wrap up today. 00:20:09.569 --> 00:20:12.170 If a tiny volunteer -run local museum in the 00:20:12.170 --> 00:20:14.750 Orkney Islands has ancient Egyptian artifacts 00:20:14.750 --> 00:20:17.349 and 5 ,000 -year -old Neolithic carvings that 00:20:17.349 --> 00:20:19.630 were just sitting safely in an unmarked cardboard 00:20:19.630 --> 00:20:22.630 box until a few years ago, what unrecognized 00:20:22.630 --> 00:20:24.950 world -altering history is sitting in the attics, 00:20:25.190 --> 00:20:27.390 basements, or local historical societies of your 00:20:27.390 --> 00:20:29.769 own hometown right now, just waiting for someone 00:20:29.769 --> 00:20:31.730 to finally open that last box?