If These Bones Could Talk

Sidedoor

Smithsonian Institution

Sidedoor, National Zoo, Exhibits, National Museum, Zoo, Washington, African American History And Culture, Postal Museum, Exhibit, Society & Culture, American History, Pop Culture, History, Art19, Air And Space, Science, The Smithsonian, Tony Cohn, Museum, Smithsonian, History Of The World, Natural History, Dc

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 21 June 2017

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Explorer, scholar and 19th Century Smithsonian darling Robert Kennicott seemed destined to lead a full and adventurous life. Then, at the age of 30, on an expedition to Russian Alaska in 1866, Kennicott was mysteriously discovered dead by a riverside. Rumors of all colors circulated about the cause of his death, although, it wasn’t until 135 years later, in 2001, that two Smithsonian forensic scientists cracked the case.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey team I wanted to wish you all a very happy new year.
0:03.0	Right now we're busy reporting new Side Door stories that will be coming to you in 2018
0:07.8	and trust me you're going to love them.
0:10.0	But in the meantime, we wanted to rebroadcast an episode from earlier in the season that we think you're really going to like.
0:17.0	It's this mind-boggling mystery more than a hundred years in the making.
0:21.0	So enjoy, and we'll be back with a from PRX.
0:38.0	I'm Tony Cohn. One day this spring I visited Kari Brule-Hyde at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History here in Washington, D.C.
0:51.0	She's one of the Smithsonian's leading anthropologists. She studies bones and
0:55.0	figures out the stories that they have to tell. And we like to think of our work as
0:59.2	not only being an advocate for the people who we study, but as solving a mystery, telling the human story.
1:09.0	And we're with Kari to visit a man named Robert Kennecott in the museum's new objects of Wonder exhibit.
1:15.0	And you know when we started the project, I didn't even know who Kennecott was, which is the
1:20.1	amazing thing because he did so much not just for the Smithsonian but you
1:26.4	know the work that he did was responsible in part to our purchase of Alaska.
1:31.0	So this is Kennecott. Oh, there he is. Wow. His skeleton is in
1:38.9	beautiful condition. And oh yeah, Robert is dead. He has been for 151 years. He used to be one of the Smithsonian's collectors, but now he's actually part of an exhibit, surrounded by whale earwax, gorilla skulls, and a lion shot
1:55.5	by Teddy Roosevelt.
1:57.2	His complete skeleton is on display at the place where he worked for all the world to see.
2:01.8	It's laid out as if the person is lying on their back.
2:07.2	A lot of times we get a question of why are his bones black?
2:11.7	And that relates to his burial environment. He was in an iron coffin and the iron
2:18.1	salt... This time on Side Door, who is this dead man who's on public display at the Smithsonian?
	...

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