The cause of death for 128 members of the Franklin expedition has long puzzled archaeologists, but a new study has brought them one step closer to the truth.
A new study, recently published in the journal PLOS One, disproves the long-held theory of the crew’s cause of death.
Researchers began to re-investigate the real cause of the sailors’ deaths on the fateful train.
The body of John Torrington – a member of the expedition preserved intact in the ice was discovered in 1984.
In the summer of 1845, two British ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror , left Greenhithe (England) to begin their journey to North America in the hope of finding the legendary Northwest Passage between the Atlantic Oceans. and the Pacific Ocean.
John Franklin.
The two ships and 134 men, led by seasoned explorer Sir John Franklin, became known as the Franklin Expedition .
Although adventurers have carefully prepared the necessary equipment for the next 3 years, everyone understands that every expedition is never a walk.
The expedition lasted a few months when some of the crew became ill, they left the team and were sent home.
But the fate of the sailors who stayed on the ship and continued the journey that year, exactly what happened to them, has become a mystery nearly 175 years later.
Arctic explorer John Franklin and his crew circa 1845.
The last ship was forever unable to dock because the wreck was found trapped in the ice in Victoria Sound, located in the middle of the Arctic archipelago, Canada.
All members of the crew were also dead.
After the shipwreck disaster, some clues gradually emerged. In 1850, three graves of the Franklin Expedition sailors were found. In 1854 Scottish explorer John Rae met the Inuit residents who owned a number of items belonging to the crew of the expedition.
They also showed Rae the piles of human bones found in the area, which fueled rumors that the last people on the Franklin expedition might have turned into cannibals during the great final days. hope.
John Torrington was among the crew. In 1984, John Torrington’s mummy was found in unbelievably perfect condition. Researchers rely on this mummy for clues.
After analyzing bone and tissue samples, they discovered that Torrington’s body had lethal levels of lead, which could have come from the crew’s poor quality canned food.
According to Gizmodo, previous research on bone, hair and tissue samples from preserved corpses revealed many causes of sailors’ deaths. But poisoning is still the top possibility, some say that the sailors were poisoned. The latter case also gradually sank into oblivion.
A recently published study disproves most of this hypothesis. The team of researchers came up with three other hypotheses to test the lead poisoning theory.
The team of researchers came up with three other hypotheses to test the lead poisoning theory.
If it is true that lead poisoning is the main cause of death, sailors who live longer will have higher levels of lead in their bodies, bones, tissues, etc. than other sailors during that time and their bodies. lost.
To verify this, researchers used high-tech bone X-ray imaging technology. The results showed that the level of lead in the body did not have a big difference. Therefore, lead poisoning is now unlikely to be the cause of death for the Franklin Expedition.
A cause of poisoning has been ruled out, but researchers still don’t know exactly what killed the crew. The death of 128 people in the expedition remains a mystery.
Researchers are now reopening their “investigation” into the shipwreck more than 100 years ago, and we’ll see what they find.