#ALSO WOOF IT'S BEEN AWHILE SINCE I POSTED ONE OF THESE!!!!!!!!!!!! YIKES!!!!!!!!!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

radiojamming · 7 years

Text

HISTORY WITH DJ: Franklin Expedition Mummies

So you’re on a jolly good vacation up in the Arctic, right? Because that’s your ideal vacation and nothing makes you happier than miles and miles of ice, loose gravel, ice, snow, polar bears, more ice, and the occasional seal carcass. You’re in your fun vacation boat, happily bobbing your way over by Cape Riley in Nunavut. “Beechey Island!” says your handy-dandy map, and that sounds oh-so fun because it must have a nice beach! A misspelled but otherwise fun beach! Turns out, you’re late to the party and a couple guys have been chilling there for awhile.

“GET YOUR OWN GRAVEL PATCH, SHITLORD!” they call from beyond the grave.

The thing is, not only would 2/4 of these guys probably not hesitate to call you a shitlord because they were a couple youngin’s and memes would probably be hilarious to them but, uh

they’re still

kinda fresh.

By that, I mean 3/4 guys were buried in 1846, and as far as we know, since 1986, they still look pretty good! Or, in the phrasing of one memorable article, one in particular looked “more cold and sleepy than dead”.

And these three-outta-four are the famous Franklin Expedition mummies. (We won’t be talking about number four. He hopped in later and intruded on their cool permafrost party.)

Now, I won’t be posting any pictures of the mummies specifically, because they can be very disturbing and I remember the first time I saw them, I about hit the ceiling because I didn’t expect it. However, I’ll be describing them in detail and putting some other pictures in. You’re free to look them up at your own discretion, though. But again, fair warning, THEY ARE DEAD AND A FEW OF THEM LOOK THE PART. They were thawed out of the ice and they certainly look like it.

So let me introduce you to the three fabulous young men hanging out underground at the moment, and some background on them.

Much credit first to Kristina Gehrmann for making these gents look so darn lively! Her art’s awesome! (Also woof, Mister Hartnellllll~)

The Beechey Island trio were all part of the infamous lost Franklin expedition launched in May of 1845. Britain sent out two now-famous ships, the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, to ply northern Canada for the Northwest Passage. Shit hit the fan awful fast, though, and there’s a reason it’s called a lost expedition. Like, uh, no one came back. People probably ate people. It was a bad time. And the three guys up there were the lucky ones.

Introducing:

JOHN SHAW TORRINGTON - AGE 20; OCCUPATION: PETTY OFFICER, LEAD STOKER (HMS TERROR)

Torrington, the younger half of the Johns, is kind of the face of the expedition, mostly because he was the first person who was exhumed. Dr. Owen Beattie, a forensic anthropologist from the University of Alberta, decided to exhume him in 1984 in an attempt to figure out what the heck went way wrong in the expedition. Now, his team knew they were probably going to find something interesting, considering the gents had been refrigerated in permafrost for a century and some change. They just didn’t know that all the guys would look as fresh as daisies in forensic-land when they pried the lids open. And Torrington was the supreme surprise.

With an expression kind of like :O, he had both eyes open (and he looked kind of ticked, like someone woke him up from a nap), blue patches on his face from the blanket that had been placed over his head (not frostbite), all of his clothes on, and a fun little piece of fabric tied around his head so he wouldn’t get the ol’ skeleton-scream face going. Aside from being tied up like a Christmas present, Torrington just looked exhausted, and more like the guys on the HMS Terror had pranked him than dying of horrible causes.

We don’t actually know much about his life, but we do know he was the lead stoker (fireman) on the HMS Terror, servicing its repurposed locomotive engine. Like the other two, he certainly had tuberculosis and pneumonia. The troubling part was, his hands weren’t very calloused, suggesting he had only worked for a short time and had been down for the count longer than he’d been on for it. Even though it had only been about seven months since they had left England, it was pretty clear Torrington had been sick for awhile already. He died on New Years’ Day at the age of 20.

Some interesting things about him:

-He was a petty officer at age 20! Go Torrington, go! -The gold-looking things around his head are wood shavings, but have often been confused for his hair. There is some light brown/blond hairs sticking out from under the fabric tying his jaw shut, but it was probably short. -He, unlike John #2 and William, had his pants on. No word back yet on why that is. -He’s the only body to not have a Bible verse on his headstone. No word back yet on that either. -We do know he was from Manchester, and had enough family to have living relatives now. (The anthropology team asked them for permission to exhume him.) -He probably smoked, judging by the state of his already whacked-out lungs. -People around the world were so fascinated by him that Iron Maiden, Margaret Atwood, Sheenagh Pugh, and a ton of others have written songs, poems, and stories about him. Most of it was owed to the fact that of the three mummies, he was the most intact and lively-looking. Some people seem to have crushes on him, too. I don’t blame them. -Torrington’s eyes were most likely light blue! They were hardly discolored and were probably very accurate to when he was alive.

WILLIAM BRAINE - AGE 32; OCCUPATION: PRIVATE, ROYAL MARINE (HMS EREBUS)

Out of all the guys in the permafrost, we probably know the least about William Braine, and he seems to have drawn the crap lot as far as health and state of his body. He was the last to be exhumed in the following 1986 expedition, after Hartnell was exhumed. But, for sake of following the picture up top, we’ll talk about him before Hartnell.

William died, as the others did, of tuberculosis and pneumonia. Unfortunately for him, he seemed to have had to deal with it far longer than the other two. By the time he died in April of 1846, his TB had advanced enough to contort his spine, which would have been hella painful. He was extremely sick at the end, and chances are, he had been sick for most of the trip into Nunavut. The other sucky part was that his body had clearly been laid out for awhile before he was buried, and the crew seemed less prepared for him than they had been for the first two. He was kind of haphazardly shoved into his coffin, with one arm having to be tucked under his body because he was a big guy. He also, like Hartnell, had no pants on. Huh.

Some signs of him waiting on ice (pff) before being buried were that he showed more signs of decomposition than the other two. His lips had already receded (Torrington and Hartnell had dehydrated lips like most mummies), he showed discoloration, and there are signs that something had been, um, gnawing on him before he was buried. Ew. Again, there’s very few details about his life, which is kind of sad considering he was the oldest of the three. But here’s a few interesting tidbits! -He was buried with a red handkerchief over his face, and there’s been some suggestion that the handkerchief was a possession of his that he may have prized. -He had some rocking facial hair when they found him. Sweet muttonchops, Will. -Like I said, he was a big guy. There’s plenty of signs that they had some difficulty getting him into his coffin successfully. He even had a squashed nose because the lid of the coffin pressed against it all that time. -He was buried deeper in the permafrost than John #1 and John #2, and no one knows why. He was also buried at an angle. This is strange because getting through permafrost is extremely difficult with shovels and pickaxes. Some have suggested that the crew knew someone else was going to die while they were on Beechey Island and had more time to make the last grave. -He has no descendants or relatives that we know of, and never married or had children of his own. -Braine was right around 88 lbs. at death and was severely emaciated. Yikes. D:

And now, for the one I know the most about!

JOHN HARTNELL - AGE 25; OCCUPATION: ABLE-BODIED SEAMAN (HMS EREBUS)

Now of all the mummies buried on Beechey Island, I find John Hartnell the most interesting, and probably the most tragic. (I’m actually writing a book on him, so there’s that.)

Poor John Hartnell had it rough from childhood. His dad was a shipwright in Gillingham, Kent, and when he died, it seemed that John was the one to look after his mother and four younger siblings. Records show that at one point, he was a shoemaker before he was a sailor, and he had a Crown debt to pay off that today would be worth $13,000. It may have been back taxes or a loan, and it may have been inherited from his dead father. Either way, John eventually got coaxed to joining the Navy by his younger brother, Thomas, who had been in for awhile. The Hartnell brothers were apparently close anyway, as they were written on the 1841 census as being the same age despite being two years apart. Mathematically, on an able-bodied seaman’s pay, if the two of them served three years apiece on the Erebus, they’d be able to pay off $12,000 of the debt. So off John went, first on the HMS Volage, then on the Erebus with his younger brother in tow.

Based on the state of his grave, John Hartnell was a well-liked kind of guy. First, he was outstandingly tall for 1846, clocking in at a whopping 5′11″ 1/2 based on the admiralty records of the Volage. He had striking black hair (Thomas was a redhead) and hazel eyes, and judging by the face in the grave, he was pretty handsome to boot. He advanced quickly to becoming an able seaman, and based on the state of his shoulder bones in an x-ray, seemed to have taken to it enough to get whacked around a few times. When he died, his shipmates took extreme care with him. A pillow was sewn and stuffed with woodchips to cushion his head, a blanket was placed under his body and another was wrapped around him as a shroud, he was buried in three different shirts, and a wool watchcap was put on his head. All in all, he was very snug when they found him. Unlike William Braine, his casket was fitted to his body, so no stuffing him in was required despite how tall he was. Tape and paint made fake handles on the casket to give it a more refined appearance.

We know his little brother was with him when he died, as John’s body was clad in a shirt with ‘T.H. 1844′ sewn onto the shirttail, suggesting Thomas gave him his shirt. This may have been part of the reason why he was so cared for, but it’s also clear the crew cared about him quite a bit.

Poor John didn’t stand a chance, really. Samples taken have shown that not only did he die of tuberculosis and pneumonia like Torrington and Braine, but he also had a severe zinc deficiency. His stomach and intestinal contents were empty and he weighed under 100 lbs. at death, suggesting he was refusing to eat at the end and had severe muscle wasting. He was probably hallucinating and utterly feverish as well, and a theory poses that he, as well as the other crewmembers, may have also had lead poisoning. All of this points to a pretty gnarly end.

His body ended up being like the Christmas present of the entire exhumation project. First, when they took his hat off (to which I’d be pissed because he looked comfy as hell in there anyway), he still had all of his hair. It was pitch black and still styled and combed under his hat. He was also missing an eye and had a gouge in his right arm from an exhumation attempt in the 1850s. By the time they dug up Hartnell in 1986, his expression kind of looked like, “YEAH HI, PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE I AM EXHAUSTED.”

Second surprise was that, after disrobing him (poor guy), he had already been autopsied before. Not only that, but the Y incision was reversed, all his organs were upside-down, and his ribs and sternum were flip-flopped too. This made the radiographers hella confused, and at first they thought it may have been the doing of the surgeon on board the Erebus. Turns out, it was probably the wonky exhumation attempt that stole his eye. In short, they hecked up Hartnell bad, and he deserved better. But his body told Dr. Beattie and his team plenty, and they snugged him right back up and reburied him on June 21st, 1986.

Fun facts, because I know way too much about this guy:

-His eyes were hazel, according to his records on the Volage. However, on his body, Dr. Beattie thought they looked more green. -He had impacted first molars in his jaw, but otherwise, had all of his teeth. Weird, considering able-bodied seaman got whacked in the face/head more than anyone else. -The 1850s exhumation also stole the nameplate off his casket as a souvenir. Like they didn’t do enough to him. -Because of his Crown debt, the Hartnells back in England weren’t given his Arctic service medal after his death. It wasn’t given to anyone until 1986. -There’s signs that not only did the crew dress him up nicely (still no pants, tho), but his hair had been combed and someone had cleaned his nails. His hands were also put in a funerary position, unlike Torrington and Braine. -Brian Spenceley, a physics professor from Lakehead, went with Dr. Beattie on the expedition, as Brian was a living relative of Hartnell and a descendant of his younger brother, Charles. One thing he immediately recognized was the ‘Hartnell nose’. If you do look up pictures of him, you’ll know it immediately. -Hartnell also had some facial hair along his jaw, but was otherwise pretty clean-shaven. -He was so well-preserved otherwise (even though there’s evidence that there was a little bit of delay burying him) that he had full flexion in his joints and tendons like an unconscious living person. Doctors and scientists had no trouble undressing him or turning his head and moving his arms for scans and examination. -He seems to be more of the face of the expedition than Torrington. If you look up the mummies, chances are that Hartnell is the first person you see. He’s recognizable for his nose, his black hair, and his extremely ‘I’m so done’ expression. -No kids, no marriages. His brother was the same. :( (I woulda married him in a heartbeat.)

Now there’s about a million theories as to what happened to all of them. Lead-poisoning is a chief one of Beattie’s due to the canned food onboard being soldered with lead. Really, it just seems like the Franklin expedition was a Murphy’s Law situation.

#franklin expedition #hms erebus #hms terror #ice mummies #history lesson #tw death #tw mummies #john torrington #john hartnell #william braine

134 notes · View notes