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Speaker 1: My Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production

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Speaker 1: of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 1: And today we're going to be doing one of our

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Speaker 1: invention episodes. We're gonna be talking about locks and keys.

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Speaker 1: I've got a question at the beginning here, did you

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Speaker 1: rob ever play with a like combination lock or any

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Speaker 1: kind of locks sort of in a fidgety, almost fidget

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Speaker 1: spinner kind of way when you're a kid, Because I

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Speaker 1: definitely did. I had one that I would just lock

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Speaker 1: and unlock over and over again. Uh yeah, I remember that.

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Speaker 1: I feel like any house is going to have a drawer,

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Speaker 1: and in that drawer, well, hey, you're gonna have a

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Speaker 1: bunch of keys that you have no idea where they go.

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Speaker 1: They've completely lost their locks. But then you may well

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Speaker 1: also have a spare key lock or a spare combination lock,

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Speaker 1: and those are instantly fascinating because yeah, you're getting to

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Speaker 1: turn a little wheels and arrange numbers on them, or

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Speaker 1: it's the kind of the dial and you're you're you're

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Speaker 1: going back back and forth on it. You know, they're

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Speaker 1: they're they're fascinating bits of security technology. They're the one

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Speaker 1: I played with and I remember was a combination lock.

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Speaker 1: But it had a little uh, I think it had

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Speaker 1: a little catch, like it had a button that was

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Speaker 1: pleasing because it would make the you know, the bar

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Speaker 1: release and in the hand. Okay, so I guess we

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Speaker 1: we should talk about the lock itself. And when we

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Speaker 1: talk about anything in our invention episodes, we like to

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Speaker 1: start by talking about what came before. Yeah, so this

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Speaker 1: is this is interesting to think about and and to

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Speaker 1: read about. One of the first places I turned to

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Speaker 1: was the book The seventy Grade Inventions of the Ancient World.

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Speaker 1: I will stand by. Yeah, I keep coming back to

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Speaker 1: because it's just a great book. Brian and Fagan just

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Speaker 1: a name that's that's difficult to avoid if you're looking

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Speaker 1: into ancient technology technology the ancient world. And he wrote

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Speaker 1: a lie at a right up in this book on

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Speaker 1: ancient security technology. And he wrote it with William H. Manning,

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Speaker 1: whose expertise I believe is primarily in in Roman innovations

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Speaker 1: in Roman gadgets. Um. But you know that they point

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Speaker 1: out that passive security technology in the ancient world first

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Speaker 1: took the form of city walls. But city walls address

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Speaker 1: outside threats, not threats within the city itself, so it

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Speaker 1: becomes essential to raise still other walls, other gates, and

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Speaker 1: so some of the earliest bits of security technology in

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Speaker 1: this fashion would have been, of course, high walls, more

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Speaker 1: of them guards, human guards if you could afford them,

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Speaker 1: or of course be them the meat tech for security.

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Speaker 1: But then one of the big developments here the barred door,

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Speaker 1: the mighty wooden bar, the greatest invention of all time,

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Speaker 1: this inanimate carbon rod. Pretty much that's the same principle. Um. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So we'll get back to the are in just a bit,

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Speaker 1: because the wooden bar is faculous, but it goes without saying.

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Speaker 1: But before we can have locks and keys or even

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Speaker 1: the bar door, we need doors themselves. And Fagan and

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Speaker 1: Manning right that the doors made to turn on pivots

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Speaker 1: set into the threshold developed long before the true hinge,

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Speaker 1: and this could be accomplished and was accomplished in cases

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Speaker 1: entirely with stone um and it allowed for the door

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Speaker 1: to be opened and to close. Now, a true hinge

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Speaker 1: was an Iron Age advancement that allowed the same thing

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Speaker 1: at a bar slotted into bolt holes on the inside

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Speaker 1: and you have a really effective means of locking a

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Speaker 1: door again from the inside. And this is an approach

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Speaker 1: that is still used to this day all over the world. Right,

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Speaker 1: So I mean that's gonna be extremely effective security. You've

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Speaker 1: got a bar that crosses from the door to the thresholds,

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Speaker 1: the door cannot really be open unless you essentially have

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Speaker 1: to destroy the house and the door to get in. U.

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Speaker 1: But but I see a major flaw to that. What

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Speaker 1: if you want to leave the house and have nobody home,

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Speaker 1: but still have nobody get in there while you're gone.

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Speaker 1: That's right? Yeah, the bar is great if you're inside,

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Speaker 1: but then you you can imagine the wheels turning early on.

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Speaker 1: Um that to use a technological metaphor, like, how do

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Speaker 1: how do I make my door be barred if I

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Speaker 1: am not home? Or you could you could leave somebody

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Speaker 1: inside it, But then you're getting into the guard situation, right,

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Speaker 1: I need to spare human to do this for me? Right?

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Speaker 1: Why you even have a bar? Then you can just

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Speaker 1: have a guard and leave your door open. Yeah, So

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Speaker 1: this is gonna lead to the development of most of

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Speaker 1: the inventions we're gonna end up talking about in this

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Speaker 1: in this episode. Um, but Yeah, the bar was was

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Speaker 1: highly effective widespread. We see lots of examples, for instance

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Speaker 1: in Roman Pompeii. Um, but this is interesting. They also

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Speaker 1: write that an additional level of security was afforded in

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Speaker 1: the ancient world via wax technology. You would seal a

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Speaker 1: storeroom or container which would not serve as a real

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Speaker 1: physical barrier, but it would serve as an instant sign

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Speaker 1: that had been opened. Ah. This is like in the

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Speaker 1: James Bond movie when he he's about to leave his

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Speaker 1: hotel room and he plucks the hair from his head,

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Speaker 1: wet's it with his tongue, and then spreads it across

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Speaker 1: the gap in his closet doors, so he will know

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Speaker 1: when he comes back if someone has gone through his

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Speaker 1: closet while he was gone, because the hair will will

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Speaker 1: have been dislodged. I remember. Um, this is often used

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Speaker 1: in in thrillers. I believe in factors into Stephen King's

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Speaker 1: misery as well. Um, she leaves I think I think

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Speaker 1: that's right. Yeah, she leaves traps all over the house

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Speaker 1: to see if he's actually getting out of bed and

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Speaker 1: leaving the room where she's keeping him, and she discovers

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Speaker 1: that he's left the room, but she also thinks he's

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Speaker 1: he's made it to rooms that he actually hasn't ventured

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Speaker 1: too just because of the fallibility of the safeguards. The

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Speaker 1: hair is not foolproof. Yeah, but the wax seal, you know,

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Speaker 1: pretty pretty good, I think, you know. Uh. And and

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Speaker 1: also it's something where someone's going to break into it

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Speaker 1: that you could perhaps observe them doing it as well. UM.

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Speaker 1: So we apparently see lots of examples of this in

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Speaker 1: remains from the Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean. UH.

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Speaker 1: The tomb of Tuton, common in the Valley of Kings,

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Speaker 1: was a rare surviving example of this sort of of seal,

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Speaker 1: dating back to the second millennium BC. UH and the

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Speaker 1: authors add that the practice carried over to Greek and

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Speaker 1: Roman UH in the Greek and Roman period, with signet

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Speaker 1: rings used to mark the wax. And of course this

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Speaker 1: survives survived well beyond those days as a means of

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Speaker 1: sealing envelopes and packages and whatnot. UM and Unultimately, I guess,

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Speaker 1: products of all kinds, of all kinds to this day.

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Speaker 1: You know, when you go into the your grocery store

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Speaker 1: and you buy some sort of food product, or you

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Speaker 1: buy you a bottle of Thailand. All then what are

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Speaker 1: you encountering your accounting some sort of a seal. Right,

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Speaker 1: that's a good point. I mean, the signet ring not

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Speaker 1: only shows you that it is it is closed and

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Speaker 1: has not been opened, but it shows you who closed it. Right,

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Speaker 1: So maybe you could imagine a letter being tampered with

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Speaker 1: or a door being opened, and then somebody else puts,

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Speaker 1: you know, new wax on it or gives them a

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Speaker 1: new envelope with new wax, and you know, and then

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Speaker 1: you could be fooled, except they probably won't have the

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Speaker 1: ring to stamp the exact design you're looking for. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So already you know, we're getting into ideas of of

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Speaker 1: like ownership regarding the seal, our ownership regarding the lock,

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Speaker 1: even if it's not a true lock, a true physical barrier,

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Speaker 1: but something symbolic. And I guess that still carries on

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Speaker 1: into a lot of things that are in in our

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Speaker 1: world that are you know, only there's only some marginal

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Speaker 1: level of security there, technological or not. But it creates

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Speaker 1: a line in the sand. You know, are you willing

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Speaker 1: to cross this line? Yeah, that's a good point. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I would imagine like the door on a mailbox. You know,

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Speaker 1: somebody else can easily open your mailbox and get the

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Speaker 1: mail out and mess with it or steal it or whatever.

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Speaker 1: But there there's sort of the door is a marker.

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Speaker 1: That's like, if you open the door on somebody else's mailbox,

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Speaker 1: are clearly doing something wrong at this point, unless you're

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Speaker 1: I don't know, putting something in to give to them. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but I get creeped out

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Speaker 1: of I'm gonna walk through the neighborhood and somebody's mailboxes open,

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Speaker 1: it has mail in it. I'm I'm I'm like, oh

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Speaker 1: my goodness, this is not right. I've got to shut it.

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Speaker 1: Um And at the same time, I'm afraid that they'll

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Speaker 1: look out the window and see me shutting it and

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Speaker 1: think that I'm snooping in their mailbox. Right, Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I know that exact feeling. Actually. Um So, I was

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Speaker 1: thinking about locks and sort of in line with what

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Speaker 1: we've been talking about already, locks to me seem to

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Speaker 1: exist on a continuum of an ever shrinking circle of

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Speaker 1: easy access to spaces. Um So, of course, you know,

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Speaker 1: you you've got early technologies like walls and structures and containers,

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Speaker 1: artificial containers, artificial buildings, and these have to have doors

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Speaker 1: or gaps so that you can put things in and out,

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Speaker 1: or so that you can come and go from a building.

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Speaker 1: So obviously an improvement over just a wall or a

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Speaker 1: container with a with an easey with a gap in

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Speaker 1: it is a solid door with a latch like we've

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Speaker 1: been talking about now. By latch, I'm interpreting this in

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Speaker 1: the broad sense, meaning everything from the kind of spring

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Speaker 1: bolt that you would find, you know, opera that you

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Speaker 1: operate with your door knob on the front door of

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Speaker 1: your house. So this is a spring tension latch that's

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Speaker 1: got an angled edge on one side, and it allows

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Speaker 1: the door to slide gently from the open position to

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Speaker 1: the closed position, but not vice versa. And there are

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Speaker 1: all kinds of latches, you know, the hook bar that

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Speaker 1: you see on a screen door that holds it closed.

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Speaker 1: A latch is just any mechanism for holding a door

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Speaker 1: closed until you perform some operation to allow it to open.

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Speaker 1: And in a way, I think it makes sense to

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Speaker 1: think of a latch as a narrowing of the circle

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Speaker 1: of who or what can access the space behind a door,

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Speaker 1: because once a door has a latch, Basically, any human

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Speaker 1: can open and close the door because they've got problem

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Speaker 1: solving skills and dexterous fingers. But the door cannot be

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Speaker 1: opened by weather or by wild animals. So a gust

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Speaker 1: of wind isn't going to blow it open because the

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Speaker 1: latch is holding it closed, or a coyote can't push

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Speaker 1: through it because it's not gonna be able to figure

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Speaker 1: out how to work the latch. So the the access

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Speaker 1: circle to the interior space has shrunk. I like this,

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Speaker 1: So yeah, you get it to the point where, okay,

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Speaker 1: now only humans can open this door because of the latch.

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Speaker 1: But then with our next step, you you you close

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Speaker 1: that circle even tider, and you say only humans with

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Speaker 1: the right sort of stick can open this door, right

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Speaker 1: exactly because another key invention to keep in mind again

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Speaker 1: I use key here, uh because it's so such a

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Speaker 1: part of our our language, in our way of thinking

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Speaker 1: about things. But uh, an innovation to keep in mind

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Speaker 1: here is is not only the latch, but the latch lifter,

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Speaker 1: a curved rod that could be inserted through a slit

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Speaker 1: in the door and then manipulated in such a way

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Speaker 1: as to lift that interior latch either by practice, because

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Speaker 1: this is your door, and you know exactly how to

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Speaker 1: stick the latch lifter through and lift it, or of

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Speaker 1: course by trial and error, because you're a crap the

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Speaker 1: thief who possesses their own latch lifter and knows that

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Speaker 1: if you mess around with it long enough, you'll manage

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Speaker 1: just fine. And so we see examples of this in

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Speaker 1: ancient Greece in ancient China from roughly the same time

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Speaker 1: period the first millennium BC. Oh like the latch lifter

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Speaker 1: the credit card in the door trick basically yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean yeah, and um and and again I guess

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Speaker 1: you could. Yeah. I like the idea of thinking about

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Speaker 1: this tightening circum circle. Only people with sticks with the

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Speaker 1: right stick can can open this door. And if you're

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Speaker 1: messing around with a door that is not yours, you

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Speaker 1: have to be willing to cross that line and be

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Speaker 1: that weirdo who is suspiciously fishing around in somebody's latch

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Speaker 1: lifter slot. All right, well, what if you want to

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Speaker 1: narrow it even further, so you want to keep out

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Speaker 1: the weather, you want to keep out wild animals that

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Speaker 1: you want to keep out humans who would come around

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Speaker 1: and operate the latch, who you know, who would you know,

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Speaker 1: reach behind the door and operated, or or who would

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Speaker 1: just be brazen enough to operate an outward facing latch.

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Speaker 1: So you want to keep out some humans too. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: this is where the lock comes in. It narrows the

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Speaker 1: circle of access even further to only humans who can

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Speaker 1: operate the lock. And the main things here would be

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Speaker 1: that either they have something in their possession that allows

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Speaker 1: them to operate the lock, which is a key, or

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Speaker 1: they have knowledge of an obscure algorithm like a combination

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Speaker 1: or a mechanical trick to open the door. Now, presumably

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Speaker 1: only the people who are supposed to have access to

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Speaker 1: the space will be able to operate the lock once

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Speaker 1: you have gotten to this level. But of course, as

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Speaker 1: we know, there there's sort of a lock picking spirit

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Speaker 1: within the within the mind. That's always a part of humanity.

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Speaker 1: And I think I would have to bet that there

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Speaker 1: have been professional or or at least hoppyist lock pickers

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Speaker 1: as long as there have been locks. Yes, I believe so. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, and before we did this episode, I was

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Speaker 1: thinking a lot about about hory Leuis Borges and uh

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Speaker 1: and about labyrinths and uh, you know, the Minotaur of course,

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Speaker 1: and um, I momentarily looked around Steve he had a

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Speaker 1: poem where he talked about keys and locks. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: of course he can't help but bring them up, because

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Speaker 1: there's such a part of our language. But I didn't

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Speaker 1: run across or or or remind myself of anything in

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Speaker 1: which he really dwells on it. Well, doesn't he say

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Speaker 1: several times in the house of Asterion? Like he he

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Speaker 1: forcefully says in the voice of Asterion, the minotaur who's

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Speaker 1: speaking the speaker in the story, says several times that

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Speaker 1: there are no locks in his house. Yeah, And I

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Speaker 1: think this is what's really interesting. You can think of

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Speaker 1: the labyrinth as the is the lock in large, and

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Speaker 1: the lock and key mechanism is kind of the labyrinth

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Speaker 1: and small. Because think about the ways that you solve

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Speaker 1: the labyrinth. You have to use Uh, you have to

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Speaker 1: have special knowledge, or you have to have you know,

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Speaker 1: exceptional problem solving abilities, or you have to have good tools.

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Speaker 1: You know that the thread that you leave through the

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Speaker 1: labyrinth as you wind your way through, and much the

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Speaker 1: same can be said for the lock. That's a good comparison. Uh.

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Speaker 1: You know, I was thinking about all different kinds of

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Speaker 1: ways that the lock fits into bigger pictures like this,

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Speaker 1: and and in one way that I started thinking about

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Speaker 1: it was that the lock is a physical emblem of

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Speaker 1: the historical development of social distrust. And I think this

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Speaker 1: is probably a problem that arises only once you reach

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Speaker 1: a point in history where there are large settlements in

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Speaker 1: which the inhabitants don't all know each other well, Like

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Speaker 1: if you are part of a small band of people

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Speaker 1: living a mobile foraging existence, you're hunting and gathering. First

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Speaker 1: of all, you quite possibly don't have any boxes or

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Speaker 1: buildings to lock in the first place. But even if

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Speaker 1: you did, there's gonna be little opportunity for illicit access

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Speaker 1: to spaces by unknown persons, Because I don't know, It

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Speaker 1: just seems like that that there's a situation a more

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Speaker 1: constant total vigilance of each other and knowing everybody. But

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Speaker 1: once humans are living a settled existence in one place,

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Speaker 1: gaining wealth based on agriculture, and forming conglomerations of humans

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Speaker 1: containing persons of unknown trustworthiness, you can imagine a desire

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Speaker 1: for something like a locking mechanism just being a natural

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Speaker 1: consequence of that that increase in social complexity. And this

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Speaker 1: also makes me think about locks in the context of

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Speaker 1: one particular hypothesis about the origins of certain types of religion,

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Speaker 1: and by this time referring to what you might call

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Speaker 1: the big Gods hypothesis. We actually talked about this in

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Speaker 1: our episodes on the question of whether Santa Claus counts

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Speaker 1: as a god. I think we recently republished those as

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Speaker 1: we did episodes. Yeah, we did. We did a two

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Speaker 1: parter and we we repackaged it as a single massive

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Speaker 1: episode came on December. Well, I'll try to do the

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Speaker 1: much shorter version of explaining the hypothesis here, So it

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Speaker 1: goes something like this. UM, a couple of common features

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Speaker 1: of the major gods that people believe in today. One

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Speaker 1: is that they are moralizing God's meaning, they care whether

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Speaker 1: you do right or wrong, and they treat you accordingly,

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Speaker 1: so bad people get punished, good people get warded. And

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Speaker 1: they are omniscient, or at least to some extent, they

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Speaker 1: can see what you're doing when you're alone. And it's

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Speaker 1: natural for people today to assume that all gods throughout

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Speaker 1: history would have had these same features, but that's just

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Speaker 1: evidently untrue. Historically, lots of God's have been more limited

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Speaker 1: in their knowledge. Uh, and they have been totally or

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Speaker 1: mostly unconcerned with the moral behavior of the people who

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Speaker 1: worship them. You know, if you look at the Roman gods,

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Speaker 1: there there are a few exceptions here and there where

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Speaker 1: they take moral stands, but form for the most part,

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Speaker 1: the Roman gods really don't care if you're a nice

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Speaker 1: person or not. They only care about whether you're praying

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Speaker 1: to them and performing rituals for them. Now, I think

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Speaker 1: it's important to emphasize that this does not mean that

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Speaker 1: people who believe in gods of this kind were immoral people.

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Speaker 1: It just means that they got their sense of morality

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Speaker 1: from places other than the gods. They might get it

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Speaker 1: from philosophy or common sense, or have you know, folk

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Speaker 1: tales or stories within their culture that convey a sense

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Speaker 1: of morality. There's just not this idea that the gods

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Speaker 1: are interested in your moral behavior and will will you know,

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Speaker 1: react to you accordingly. Now, to a lot of scholars

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Speaker 1: of religion, it looks pretty strongly like there was a

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Speaker 1: major shift across history. So through time there's been this

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Speaker 1: shift from mostly these a moral religions with God's not

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Speaker 1: very concerned about moral behavior, to moralizing religions and the

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Speaker 1: question is why did this happen? UH. A popular hypothesis

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Speaker 1: goes like this, I mainly know of it associated with

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Speaker 1: a book by the Canadian psychologist Dr Erain norn Zion UH,

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Speaker 1: and it's a book called Big Gods, How Religion Transformed

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Speaker 1: Cooperation and Conflict. And so the hypothesis is that these

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Speaker 1: big gods, these powerful omniscient moralizing gods, arose at certain

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Speaker 1: points in history UH to allow increasing social complexity and

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Speaker 1: UH and the natural surplus of social distrust that comes

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Speaker 1: along with social complexity. So in the ancient world, as

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Speaker 1: settlements got bigger, with larger populations, you'd be surrounded by

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Speaker 1: more and more strangers, and there'd be more and more

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Speaker 1: trade between strangers across longer distances. There was just more

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Speaker 1: freedom in that context to cheat and steal and get

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Speaker 1: away with treating each other bad. And this led to

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Speaker 1: social unease and distrust, which made it difficult to engage

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Speaker 1: in the kinds of trade and social cooperation that make

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Speaker 1: big civilizations possible. And so this hypothesis says that big

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Speaker 1: moralizing gods would fill that gap. They would allow societies

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Speaker 1: to grow big and get more complex, and they would

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Speaker 1: make complex civilization possible by ensuring that people were basically

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Speaker 1: all believe there was an all knowing, supernatural police force

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Speaker 1: who would punish all wrongdoing even if nobody saw you

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Speaker 1: do it, and would reward people for honesty and pro

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Speaker 1: social behavior. Uh. It's an interesting hypothesis. I'm not sure

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Speaker 1: if I'm convinced by it, but you know, it's definitely

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Speaker 1: worth considering. And the question is, are are there any

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Speaker 1: ways to look for confirmation of this. One way I've

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Speaker 1: seen people trying to test this hypothesis is just looking

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Speaker 1: at existing societies today and saying, you know, are there

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Speaker 1: any measurable pro social benefits to believing in moralizing gods

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Speaker 1: versus not. One of those studies, though, that looked into this,

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Speaker 1: took a historical survey approach, and we talked about this

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Speaker 1: one in the Santa God episode. Basically, it just tried

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Speaker 1: to do a historical so survey and say, hey, as

365
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Speaker 1: society has become bigger, with larger populations and more trade,

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Speaker 1: do these booms in social complexity correspond with historical evidence

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Speaker 1: for the emergence of big gods? And this one study

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Speaker 1: that was by white House at All in twenty nineteen

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Speaker 1: and the journal Nature. Uh, found that the answer was

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Speaker 1: sort of not perfectly. Basically, what they found is that

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Speaker 1: there was a chronological historical correlation between big moralizing gods

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Speaker 1: being the dominant religions and increases in social complexity and

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Speaker 1: a region as would have been predicted by the hypothesis,

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Speaker 1: but it was chronologically inverted. So they say, quote, our

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Speaker 1: statistical analysis showed that beliefs in supernatural punishment tend to

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Speaker 1: appear only when society's make the transition from simple to complex,

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Speaker 1: around the time when the overall population exceeds about a

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Speaker 1: million individuals. Um. So there is this chronological historical association,

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Speaker 1: But it seems like on average the religious changes tend

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Speaker 1: to come about after the formation of big complex societies, UH,

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Speaker 1: not before them to enable them to exist in the

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Speaker 1: first place, which is still very interesting to me. But

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Speaker 1: to bring it back to locks, it seems like if

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Speaker 1: there is anything to this big God's hypothesis, it seems

385
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Speaker 1: like an almost perfect kind of mental or spiritual complement

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Speaker 1: to the technological innovation of locking mechanisms. Right that there's

387
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Speaker 1: there's this this increase in distrust that comes with UH

388
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Speaker 1: being surrounded by strangers and having all this social complexity

389
00:21:03,440 --> 00:21:06,439
Speaker 1: that's you know, psychologically threatening to you and you know,

390
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Speaker 1: represented in your mind as a constant threat and vulnerability,

391
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Speaker 1: and the the implementation of these measures to soothe that

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Speaker 1: and allow you to engage in a complex society and

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Speaker 1: cooperate and trade and do all that kind of stuff

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Speaker 1: without being overwhelmed with this this kind of paranoia. The

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Speaker 1: big gods could be one part of that. Locks could

396
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Speaker 1: be another. Yeah, I know, I think that that makes

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00:21:29,200 --> 00:21:31,040
Speaker 1: that makes perfect sense, you know, and you you do

398
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Speaker 1: see it reflected, and I don't I don't know how

399
00:21:33,119 --> 00:21:35,679
Speaker 1: much of it will go into in this in this

400
00:21:35,680 --> 00:21:37,639
Speaker 1: this is a look at it locks and keys, but

401
00:21:38,400 --> 00:21:41,320
Speaker 1: you see it reflected in the designs sometimes on locks,

402
00:21:41,840 --> 00:21:44,600
Speaker 1: and certainly in in the creation of walls and other

403
00:21:44,800 --> 00:21:50,760
Speaker 1: security structures. You know, you imbue them with various um

404
00:21:50,320 --> 00:21:54,639
Speaker 1: uh elements that have that that invoke the supernatural in

405
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Speaker 1: the defense of whatever is on the other side. Oh yeah,

406
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Speaker 1: I mean another way you could think about it is

407
00:22:00,080 --> 00:22:03,679
Speaker 1: um would like a curse with like a curse potentially

408
00:22:03,720 --> 00:22:07,280
Speaker 1: represent another side of the locking mechanism. Yeah, I think so.

409
00:22:07,320 --> 00:22:09,720
Speaker 1: I mean, the curse is kind of a natural extension

410
00:22:09,800 --> 00:22:13,800
Speaker 1: of the wax seal with the signet ring ring put

411
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Speaker 1: punched into it. You know it's uh, it's it's saying

412
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Speaker 1: thou shalt not pass. And here is why you know,

413
00:22:19,880 --> 00:22:22,320
Speaker 1: this is what will happen, you know, using whatever tool

414
00:22:22,359 --> 00:22:25,840
Speaker 1: you can to convince somebody that the crossing this line

415
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Speaker 1: will have consequences. We actually talked about this when I

416
00:22:29,040 --> 00:22:30,680
Speaker 1: think it was a couple of years ago. We did

417
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Speaker 1: an episode in October about curses. And one of the

418
00:22:34,440 --> 00:22:38,159
Speaker 1: interesting things about historical evidence for curses is that it

419
00:22:38,200 --> 00:22:40,720
Speaker 1: seems like they were often invoked not just because like

420
00:22:40,800 --> 00:22:43,160
Speaker 1: you were mad at somebody, but you would go pay

421
00:22:43,160 --> 00:22:47,440
Speaker 1: a priest to issue a curse specifically to like retrieve

422
00:22:47,480 --> 00:22:50,960
Speaker 1: a stolen item or to pay back somebody who had

423
00:22:51,080 --> 00:23:00,439
Speaker 1: like committed a crime against you. Thank all right, well,

424
00:23:00,520 --> 00:23:05,480
Speaker 1: let's let's move on to some of the first locks here. Um,

425
00:23:05,520 --> 00:23:07,800
Speaker 1: you know, getting beyond sort of protolocks and getting into

426
00:23:07,800 --> 00:23:10,080
Speaker 1: things that are more and more identifiable as a lock.

427
00:23:10,520 --> 00:23:14,600
Speaker 1: So latches and latch lifters were used throughout antiquity, but

428
00:23:14,640 --> 00:23:19,040
Speaker 1: additional security measures were obviously necessary, So wooden tumblers or

429
00:23:19,119 --> 00:23:22,560
Speaker 1: pegs were placed above the bolt, and they which dropped

430
00:23:22,560 --> 00:23:25,240
Speaker 1: into holes when closed, and you had to lift these

431
00:23:25,280 --> 00:23:29,040
Speaker 1: tumblers to free the bolt. So you needed a simple

432
00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:33,200
Speaker 1: pronged key called a lift key, which was inserted through

433
00:23:33,200 --> 00:23:35,440
Speaker 1: a hole in the door. And so this is where

434
00:23:35,480 --> 00:23:38,919
Speaker 1: we enter the world of the tumbler lock. Yes. Uh.

435
00:23:38,960 --> 00:23:41,760
Speaker 1: So we don't actually know who invented the first lock

436
00:23:41,840 --> 00:23:44,280
Speaker 1: and key, there is no record of that, but the

437
00:23:44,320 --> 00:23:47,560
Speaker 1: evidence does stretch back at least towards pretty early in

438
00:23:47,720 --> 00:23:52,560
Speaker 1: the first millennium BC, and the earliest known locks and

439
00:23:52,640 --> 00:23:56,600
Speaker 1: keys attested in the archaeological record and in descriptions and

440
00:23:56,600 --> 00:24:00,600
Speaker 1: depictions from the ancient world. We're mostly not metal. Interestingly,

441
00:24:00,640 --> 00:24:03,880
Speaker 1: they were you mentioned would They were generally these wooden,

442
00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:09,040
Speaker 1: large sort of club sized keys. Yeah, again coming from

443
00:24:09,119 --> 00:24:11,800
Speaker 1: the the the the legacy of using some sort of

444
00:24:11,840 --> 00:24:15,760
Speaker 1: special stick to put through a hole and manipulate what's

445
00:24:15,760 --> 00:24:19,480
Speaker 1: on the other side. Yeah. So the archaeological evidence uh

446
00:24:19,760 --> 00:24:22,520
Speaker 1: dates back thousands of years and it attests to the

447
00:24:22,600 --> 00:24:25,399
Speaker 1: use of these wooden keys in Egypt and Mesopotamia, I

448
00:24:25,400 --> 00:24:30,040
Speaker 1: think basically all throughout the eastern Mediterranean region. Um. One

449
00:24:30,080 --> 00:24:32,320
Speaker 1: of the earliest physical examples I can find. I think

450
00:24:32,400 --> 00:24:36,800
Speaker 1: this is still the earliest known physical example. Uh. This Uh,

451
00:24:36,840 --> 00:24:39,040
Speaker 1: there's a description of this that comes from a very

452
00:24:39,080 --> 00:24:43,600
Speaker 1: old archaeological survey. It's a book by Joseph I'm not

453
00:24:43,640 --> 00:24:46,480
Speaker 1: sure how to pronounce this, a Bonomy or Bonomi b

454
00:24:46,680 --> 00:24:50,880
Speaker 1: O n O m I Joseph Bonomi, the younger who

455
00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:54,840
Speaker 1: did a lot of illustrations of archaeological surveys from Egypt

456
00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:58,320
Speaker 1: and other parts of the ancient Eastern Mediterranean. And he's

457
00:24:58,320 --> 00:25:02,040
Speaker 1: writing in a book that includes descriptions of the Assyrian

458
00:25:02,119 --> 00:25:05,439
Speaker 1: palace at Coursabad, which is in present day northern Iraq,

459
00:25:05,720 --> 00:25:08,879
Speaker 1: kind of close to the city of Mosul. Now this

460
00:25:09,240 --> 00:25:11,679
Speaker 1: this appeared in a book that that Bonamy wrote with

461
00:25:11,760 --> 00:25:16,240
Speaker 1: Paul Emile Bota called Ninevah and Its Palaces, The Discoveries

462
00:25:16,280 --> 00:25:19,800
Speaker 1: of Bota and Lyard Applied to the Elucidation of Holy

463
00:25:19,920 --> 00:25:24,840
Speaker 1: writ published in eighteen fifty two. So this book describes, discusses,

464
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:29,200
Speaker 1: and illustrates factual findings from the excavation of ancient Assyrian sites.

465
00:25:29,720 --> 00:25:32,440
Speaker 1: And it's you know, these sites would have been I'm

466
00:25:32,440 --> 00:25:34,760
Speaker 1: sure marvelous to see for the first time, full of

467
00:25:34,800 --> 00:25:39,359
Speaker 1: these magnificent, frightening statues, winged bulls with human heads, the

468
00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:43,400
Speaker 1: Lama su Um. But the book also in a kind

469
00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:46,360
Speaker 1: of funny bit of framing. It tries to relate these

470
00:25:46,400 --> 00:25:52,040
Speaker 1: real factual findings historically to the contents of the Bible. Now,

471
00:25:52,080 --> 00:25:54,920
Speaker 1: I'm sure that gets weird in some places, but actually

472
00:25:54,920 --> 00:25:57,240
Speaker 1: in this one passage it turns into a kind of

473
00:25:57,280 --> 00:26:01,240
Speaker 1: interesting literary comparison. Uh So, the part where he's talking

474
00:26:01,280 --> 00:26:04,720
Speaker 1: about the palace of course Abad, they're describing the ruins

475
00:26:04,720 --> 00:26:07,679
Speaker 1: of this complex unearthed at this site. And they go

476
00:26:07,720 --> 00:26:10,280
Speaker 1: into a section about a particular chamber that they're calling

477
00:26:10,320 --> 00:26:13,520
Speaker 1: passage passage chamber X or I guess that would be

478
00:26:13,560 --> 00:26:16,840
Speaker 1: the Roman numeral ten passage chamber ten, And they write

479
00:26:16,840 --> 00:26:20,320
Speaker 1: the following. The doorway we have now passed seems to

480
00:26:20,359 --> 00:26:24,560
Speaker 1: form the entrance to a passage chamber communicating between two courts,

481
00:26:24,640 --> 00:26:28,320
Speaker 1: the clear dimensions, not including the bulls at each end,

482
00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:31,760
Speaker 1: being forty six ft long by nearly ten ft wide.

483
00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:34,639
Speaker 1: At the end of the chamber, just behind the first

484
00:26:34,760 --> 00:26:39,200
Speaker 1: bulls was formerly a strong gate of one leaf, which

485
00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:42,760
Speaker 1: was fastened by a huge wooden lock like those still

486
00:26:42,920 --> 00:26:45,560
Speaker 1: used in the East, of which the key is as

487
00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:48,920
Speaker 1: much as a man can conveniently carry and buy a

488
00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:51,760
Speaker 1: bar which moved into a square hole in the wall.

489
00:26:52,359 --> 00:26:54,840
Speaker 1: It is to a key of this description that the

490
00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:57,879
Speaker 1: prophet alludes and he's talking about the prophet Isaiah and

491
00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:00,960
Speaker 1: the Hebrew Bible. Uh. And the quote from Isaiah is

492
00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:03,960
Speaker 1: and the key of the house of David will I

493
00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:07,879
Speaker 1: lay upon his shoulder. Uh. So this is interesting because

494
00:27:08,520 --> 00:27:10,359
Speaker 1: that that might be one of those phrases where if

495
00:27:10,359 --> 00:27:12,320
Speaker 1: you're reading the Bible, that just kind of passes over

496
00:27:12,359 --> 00:27:14,560
Speaker 1: you like okay, you know, like he's just saying he's

497
00:27:14,560 --> 00:27:16,679
Speaker 1: going to give him the key. But that's actually a

498
00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:19,400
Speaker 1: literal description of what keys of the time would have been.

499
00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:22,000
Speaker 1: Like you might carry it over your shoulder because it's

500
00:27:22,040 --> 00:27:26,160
Speaker 1: like a bat, it's like a large object. Um. These

501
00:27:26,200 --> 00:27:28,920
Speaker 1: keys would have been wooden boards over a foot in length,

502
00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:31,919
Speaker 1: maybe as long as two ft, so something like thirty

503
00:27:31,920 --> 00:27:35,840
Speaker 1: five to sixty centimeters, with an arrangement of pegs on

504
00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:38,760
Speaker 1: the business end, sort of like the bristles of a brush.

505
00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:40,640
Speaker 1: I was trying to think what would be the best

506
00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:43,359
Speaker 1: item to compare this too in size and shape, and

507
00:27:43,400 --> 00:27:45,359
Speaker 1: I think the closest thing I could imagine was a

508
00:27:45,440 --> 00:27:47,920
Speaker 1: long grill brush. You know you ever used one of

509
00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:50,199
Speaker 1: those to put off a grill? Yeah, So sort of

510
00:27:50,240 --> 00:27:53,280
Speaker 1: imagine a grill brush, but made of wood with a

511
00:27:53,359 --> 00:27:57,879
Speaker 1: specific configuration of wooden or metal pegs instead of bristles

512
00:27:58,920 --> 00:28:01,560
Speaker 1: and uh in Prince of Bold. These ancient locks, just

513
00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:04,119
Speaker 1: like you were saying, would have worked much like the

514
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:07,120
Speaker 1: pin and tumbler locks that are still used today, though

515
00:28:07,119 --> 00:28:10,400
Speaker 1: the pin and tumbler locks of today are usually more

516
00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:13,280
Speaker 1: complex by the addition of springs, which will get into later,

517
00:28:13,400 --> 00:28:16,439
Speaker 1: but they had the same basic principle, which is that

518
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:18,879
Speaker 1: the movement of a bolt that holds the door in

519
00:28:18,960 --> 00:28:24,159
Speaker 1: place is prevented by a number of loose pins that

520
00:28:24,200 --> 00:28:27,920
Speaker 1: are lodged in tubes, and the pins uh sit between

521
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:30,359
Speaker 1: the tumbler and some kind of surface base like the

522
00:28:30,400 --> 00:28:34,159
Speaker 1: wall or you know, the threshold, and it prevents the

523
00:28:35,600 --> 00:28:38,560
Speaker 1: bolt from moving. And the what the key does is

524
00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:40,880
Speaker 1: you stick it in and then the pegs line up

525
00:28:40,880 --> 00:28:43,960
Speaker 1: perfectly with the tubes, so when you insert it into

526
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:46,360
Speaker 1: the keyhole, the pegs will fit into the tubes and

527
00:28:46,440 --> 00:28:48,920
Speaker 1: lift the loose pins out of the way so that

528
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 1: the bolt can slide freely freely in the door can

529
00:28:51,840 --> 00:28:54,440
Speaker 1: be opened. And it seems like these were probably used

530
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:58,560
Speaker 1: throughout the ancient throughout ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and basically all

531
00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:01,280
Speaker 1: of the eastern Mediterranean. You know, another thing I like

532
00:29:01,280 --> 00:29:03,760
Speaker 1: about the description um of which the key is as

533
00:29:03,840 --> 00:29:06,200
Speaker 1: much as a man can conveniently carry, is it reminds

534
00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:08,440
Speaker 1: me of when you when you have to ask the

535
00:29:08,480 --> 00:29:11,120
Speaker 1: gas the station attendant for a key to the restroom,

536
00:29:11,160 --> 00:29:16,480
Speaker 1: and sometimes it's yeah, yeah, that's great because they don't

537
00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:18,520
Speaker 1: want to by walking off with it. Man. That is

538
00:29:18,520 --> 00:29:20,960
Speaker 1: one of those memories where I feel like that I

539
00:29:21,320 --> 00:29:23,480
Speaker 1: have encountered that in my life, but I've also seen

540
00:29:23,560 --> 00:29:25,440
Speaker 1: it in movies. And now I don't know if it

541
00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:27,880
Speaker 1: was real or if I've only seen it in movies

542
00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:31,160
Speaker 1: and I've never actually it was real. Yeah it was real.

543
00:29:31,200 --> 00:29:34,320
Speaker 1: I know that. I can't, you know, specifically call up

544
00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:37,880
Speaker 1: the story. But let's say I'm I'm nine percent sure

545
00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:40,080
Speaker 1: that I've I've actually encountered it in real life and

546
00:29:40,120 --> 00:29:42,560
Speaker 1: not just a movie. Yeah, I'm about the same place.

547
00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:47,840
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm okay. Um, alright, So we're dealing with the

548
00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:50,920
Speaker 1: age of the tumbler lock. Now. Uh. These were in

549
00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:53,160
Speaker 1: use in the Greek and Roman world, as well as

550
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:56,880
Speaker 1: in China before the end of the first millennium BC. Again,

551
00:29:56,920 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 1: the majority of these were made out of wood, but

552
00:29:58,800 --> 00:30:02,720
Speaker 1: more advanced models made with metal uh and UM and

553
00:30:02,800 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 1: metal bolts and keys appear throughout the Roman world very

554
00:30:06,520 --> 00:30:09,280
Speaker 1: late in the first millennium BC, and this was probably

555
00:30:09,280 --> 00:30:12,120
Speaker 1: a materials issue, is iron was becoming more available and

556
00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:15,640
Speaker 1: thus could be used in technologies like this more often. Now.

557
00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:19,120
Speaker 1: One funny thing that UH people might be wondering about

558
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:23,239
Speaker 1: is like, why why the long key? Uh? You know,

559
00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:25,479
Speaker 1: why why was it so big? Why wasn't it just like,

560
00:30:25,760 --> 00:30:29,080
Speaker 1: I don't know, six inches long or whatever. Uh. I'm

561
00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:31,240
Speaker 1: not sure that this is a good explanation, but the

562
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:34,240
Speaker 1: best explanation I've come across for that seems to be

563
00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:37,120
Speaker 1: that it was a security device. Also that it was

564
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:39,160
Speaker 1: long because if you had to reach like a two

565
00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:42,840
Speaker 1: foot stick down into a thing to uh to lift

566
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:46,200
Speaker 1: the pegs. That made it harder for lock pickers too.

567
00:30:46,400 --> 00:30:49,400
Speaker 1: I don't know, manipulate it with an illicit or dummy object,

568
00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:51,640
Speaker 1: because if it's just like a little six inch cavity,

569
00:30:51,960 --> 00:30:54,600
Speaker 1: you could probably like start poking little sticks in there

570
00:30:54,600 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 1: and trying to figure out how to get through. But

571
00:30:56,680 --> 00:30:59,240
Speaker 1: if there is a long key hole, it's going to

572
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:01,600
Speaker 1: be harder for you to get the leverage you need

573
00:31:01,640 --> 00:31:04,400
Speaker 1: to screw round with it. Yeah, I think that was

574
00:31:04,560 --> 00:31:06,240
Speaker 1: that was that was part of it. I mean also,

575
00:31:06,920 --> 00:31:08,880
Speaker 1: you know, you can only miniaturize the parts on something

576
00:31:08,920 --> 00:31:11,200
Speaker 1: like this so much in the ancient world. And we'll

577
00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:13,160
Speaker 1: get into some of the how that factors into the

578
00:31:13,160 --> 00:31:16,480
Speaker 1: story of locks in a bit. And then also these

579
00:31:16,560 --> 00:31:20,200
Speaker 1: locks were generally part of the door, which has existed

580
00:31:20,240 --> 00:31:23,360
Speaker 1: a larger size anyway. Um, because this is something to

581
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:26,800
Speaker 1: keep in mind. These tumbler locks, they worked via gravity,

582
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:29,680
Speaker 1: so it had to be part of the door. They couldn't.

583
00:31:29,840 --> 00:31:32,920
Speaker 1: You couldn't have a smaller lock that was on something

584
00:31:32,960 --> 00:31:37,760
Speaker 1: like a like a like a box, you know, anything, Yeah,

585
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:41,160
Speaker 1: anything that could be picked up and manipulated in physical space,

586
00:31:41,400 --> 00:31:44,680
Speaker 1: because then you could bypass the gravity. So if you're

587
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:47,200
Speaker 1: having trouble picturing that again, remember it's the pins that

588
00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:49,760
Speaker 1: prevent the bolt from movings, the pins that hold it

589
00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:52,880
Speaker 1: in place, and they're just these like little rods in

590
00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 1: tubes that sit there blocking the movement of the bolt

591
00:31:56,480 --> 00:31:58,800
Speaker 1: until you lift them out of the way. So yeah,

592
00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:00,479
Speaker 1: if you could just turn it upside down and they

593
00:32:00,520 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 1: just fall into the tubes above, then you could open

594
00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:07,760
Speaker 1: it automatically. But Luckily in the world of invention, Uh,

595
00:32:07,960 --> 00:32:10,480
Speaker 1: the demon COYLEI visited the earth and brought it with

596
00:32:10,560 --> 00:32:13,920
Speaker 1: him the iron spring uh. And these were used to

597
00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:16,720
Speaker 1: push the tumblers into the holes, um, you know, in

598
00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:20,160
Speaker 1: the bolt and hold them there. So then you suddenly

599
00:32:20,160 --> 00:32:22,280
Speaker 1: had a situation where, yeah, you could take the lock

600
00:32:22,640 --> 00:32:24,880
Speaker 1: mechanism and have it function on something that could be

601
00:32:24,920 --> 00:32:28,520
Speaker 1: picked up and physically manipulated, like a chest or indeed

602
00:32:28,560 --> 00:32:31,239
Speaker 1: like a pad lock. And on top of this, these

603
00:32:31,280 --> 00:32:33,520
Speaker 1: innovations led to a situation where you could arrange the

604
00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:37,720
Speaker 1: tumblers in a special pattern. So you needed this required

605
00:32:37,760 --> 00:32:40,120
Speaker 1: more than just a common lift key. You needed a

606
00:32:40,160 --> 00:32:44,400
Speaker 1: particular lift key that terminated in a bit that replicated

607
00:32:44,400 --> 00:32:47,760
Speaker 1: the pattern of the internal tumblers. I imagine this would

608
00:32:47,760 --> 00:32:51,320
Speaker 1: be a problem as locks become more common. Right, So,

609
00:32:51,360 --> 00:32:54,040
Speaker 1: if you're living in the ancient world and you've got

610
00:32:54,040 --> 00:32:56,400
Speaker 1: the only lock in town, because like you're the only

611
00:32:56,440 --> 00:32:59,320
Speaker 1: person rich enough to have, you know, to to afford

612
00:32:59,360 --> 00:33:03,160
Speaker 1: a locked enclosure, it probably matters less that the person

613
00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:05,080
Speaker 1: who made your lock only knows how to make a

614
00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:08,760
Speaker 1: lock one way, and one key works for all of them. Yeah,

615
00:33:08,960 --> 00:33:11,640
Speaker 1: It's kind of like thinking about your your little clicker

616
00:33:11,720 --> 00:33:14,240
Speaker 1: for your car that unlocks it. Right. Um, you know

617
00:33:14,280 --> 00:33:16,720
Speaker 1: we've all had that moment where we have to sort

618
00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:20,200
Speaker 1: of a weird, strange epiphany. We're like, oh, yeah, they're

619
00:33:20,200 --> 00:33:23,440
Speaker 1: all different, because otherwise we could unlock everybody's car. You know,

620
00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:26,200
Speaker 1: it has to it functions like a key. But I

621
00:33:26,240 --> 00:33:28,880
Speaker 1: wonder are they all different enough? Like if you walk

622
00:33:28,920 --> 00:33:31,880
Speaker 1: around parking lots long enough just clicking it, are you

623
00:33:31,920 --> 00:33:35,040
Speaker 1: eventually gonna unlock somebody else's car? Or they like really

624
00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:37,800
Speaker 1: really randomized. I don't know. The same could be said

625
00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:40,280
Speaker 1: about going around town sticking the same key into to

626
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:43,040
Speaker 1: all the different locks. Right, that's a good question. I

627
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:44,760
Speaker 1: wish we'd look this up before we came in. I

628
00:33:44,800 --> 00:33:48,280
Speaker 1: don't know how how unique is the standard door key,

629
00:33:48,400 --> 00:33:52,520
Speaker 1: Like if you stick your door key in five hundred doors,

630
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:55,000
Speaker 1: are you are you statistically going to be able to

631
00:33:55,040 --> 00:33:57,120
Speaker 1: open some of those? Or is that not enough? Would

632
00:33:57,120 --> 00:33:59,800
Speaker 1: you have to stick it in fifty doors? I know

633
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:02,120
Speaker 1: we have some some locksmith's out there that listen to

634
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:05,960
Speaker 1: the show. It has to be true. Therefore, I think

635
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:08,560
Speaker 1: we'll hear from some folks maybe answer some of these questions,

636
00:34:08,920 --> 00:34:11,239
Speaker 1: and it gives a little inside or inside in the

637
00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:16,000
Speaker 1: world of locks and keys. Um. Now, in terms of

638
00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:20,560
Speaker 1: this development of these these these these special keys, um,

639
00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:24,120
Speaker 1: these are really interesting. I was reading about it there

640
00:34:24,120 --> 00:34:27,320
Speaker 1: and Fagin and Manning, and they write, quote, such slide

641
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:30,520
Speaker 1: keys were pushed into the bolt from below to lift

642
00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:33,480
Speaker 1: the tumblers and then slid the bolt and open the lock.

643
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:38,120
Speaker 1: The keyhole has a characteristic inverted L shape. And indeed,

644
00:34:38,160 --> 00:34:40,680
Speaker 1: if you look at some of these examples of these, uh,

645
00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:44,040
Speaker 1: these these iron keys, um, you know, they have this

646
00:34:44,120 --> 00:34:46,600
Speaker 1: signature L shape. They look different than you know. They

647
00:34:46,680 --> 00:34:48,400
Speaker 1: obviously they don't look like a modern key, but they

648
00:34:48,400 --> 00:34:51,960
Speaker 1: also don't look like the symbolic idea of the key

649
00:34:52,040 --> 00:34:53,880
Speaker 1: that we have sort of in our mind, our idea

650
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:57,720
Speaker 1: of an old fashioned key. Now, these look like alien

651
00:34:57,800 --> 00:35:00,839
Speaker 1: bottle openers in a way. Yes, but the openers, that's

652
00:35:00,840 --> 00:35:03,040
Speaker 1: what I was thinking. We couldn't quite bring it to mind.

653
00:35:03,080 --> 00:35:05,600
Speaker 1: You're right now. According to the authors, the most advanced

654
00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:09,359
Speaker 1: form um was the was the Roman. We we found

655
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:11,919
Speaker 1: in the Roman world a Roman lock, and the most

656
00:35:11,960 --> 00:35:14,560
Speaker 1: elaborate that and it was the most elaborate that saw

657
00:35:14,680 --> 00:35:16,680
Speaker 1: use in the ancient world. Uh. This would have been

658
00:35:16,719 --> 00:35:19,600
Speaker 1: a lever lock. Uh. And this is still in use today.

659
00:35:19,680 --> 00:35:22,920
Speaker 1: Quote A single pivoted tumbler held down by a spring.

660
00:35:23,239 --> 00:35:25,960
Speaker 1: A series of fixed wards prevented the wrong key from

661
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:28,719
Speaker 1: turning the lock, and the key, which had slots in

662
00:35:28,719 --> 00:35:30,800
Speaker 1: its bits to allow it to pass through the wards,

663
00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:34,600
Speaker 1: was rotated to lift the tumbler and then slide the bolt. Now,

664
00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:36,640
Speaker 1: I realize some of that might be hard to picture, um,

665
00:35:36,719 --> 00:35:39,160
Speaker 1: you know, when we're talking about the the intricacies of

666
00:35:39,600 --> 00:35:43,120
Speaker 1: of of of a lock. Uh. But but but still

667
00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:46,560
Speaker 1: we're seeing some some major advancements taking place here, right

668
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:49,360
Speaker 1: the ward in a lock. This is something else we

669
00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:52,040
Speaker 1: saw in different forms in the ancient world. But when

670
00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:56,200
Speaker 1: you hear ward with locks, basically think um walls or

671
00:35:56,239 --> 00:35:59,880
Speaker 1: obstructions that would allow only a key of a certain

672
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:05,319
Speaker 1: specific shape to fit through. Yeah. Now, leverlocks appear in

673
00:36:05,360 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 1: the late first millennium b C in the Roman world.

674
00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:11,839
Speaker 1: But there's another interesting UH invention I want to talk

675
00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:15,680
Speaker 1: about here, and that's the padlock, which was a Chinese

676
00:36:15,760 --> 00:36:18,920
Speaker 1: invention of the early first millennium BC. And here's how

677
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:22,120
Speaker 1: Fagan and Manning describe it. Quote. In this the bolt

678
00:36:22,200 --> 00:36:25,760
Speaker 1: had flat springs welded or riveted to its tip, behind

679
00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:28,280
Speaker 1: which they splayed out to give the appearance of barbs.

680
00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:30,880
Speaker 1: When the bolt was pushed through the boat hole in

681
00:36:30,920 --> 00:36:34,040
Speaker 1: the lock case, these springs were first compressed, and then

682
00:36:34,280 --> 00:36:36,200
Speaker 1: when the bolt was in the case, sprang out to

683
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:39,160
Speaker 1: prevent it being removed. It was released with a key

684
00:36:39,239 --> 00:36:42,520
Speaker 1: which slid over the springs and compressed them, thus allowing

685
00:36:42,680 --> 00:36:46,319
Speaker 1: the bolt to be withdrawn. Okay, I'm trying to picture that. Yeah,

686
00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:48,719
Speaker 1: I had trouble as well, So I was looking around

687
00:36:48,760 --> 00:36:52,839
Speaker 1: for an illustration and I found one at a fabulous website.

688
00:36:53,440 --> 00:36:59,560
Speaker 1: I visited rain Boorgs historical locks website. His story, it's

689
00:36:59,640 --> 00:37:03,440
Speaker 1: his story racle locks dot com, and uh, this is

690
00:37:03,480 --> 00:37:06,799
Speaker 1: just a wonderful website, fully sided and backed up by

691
00:37:06,840 --> 00:37:11,040
Speaker 1: Borg's own experiences and observations, seemingly just traveling the world

692
00:37:12,040 --> 00:37:15,320
Speaker 1: looking for locks and keys and researching. He's a Swedish

693
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:18,120
Speaker 1: collector of keys and locks, has a PhD in aesthetics,

694
00:37:18,120 --> 00:37:21,400
Speaker 1: engineering and mythology, and he basically he basically travels the

695
00:37:21,400 --> 00:37:23,680
Speaker 1: world looking at locks, and I just I want to

696
00:37:23,719 --> 00:37:25,960
Speaker 1: base a whole D and D character on him already.

697
00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:29,920
Speaker 1: Um So I'm gonna keep referring to to Borg's work here,

698
00:37:29,920 --> 00:37:32,640
Speaker 1: and I recommend everyone check out his website. But what

699
00:37:33,040 --> 00:37:35,840
Speaker 1: class would that be? Hold on if your specialist in locks?

700
00:37:35,880 --> 00:37:38,400
Speaker 1: That sounds like a rogue or is it yet? No,

701
00:37:38,840 --> 00:37:40,680
Speaker 1: well it could could be, you know, you could take

702
00:37:40,719 --> 00:37:43,239
Speaker 1: it an editor. I was thinking more more of the

703
00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:46,440
Speaker 1: rogue direction you have, having to be just a fanatical

704
00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:50,319
Speaker 1: um lock and key enthusiast where he he wants to

705
00:37:50,320 --> 00:37:53,000
Speaker 1: pick the locks, not so much too to steal anything,

706
00:37:53,080 --> 00:37:55,600
Speaker 1: but just to conquer the lock, to understand the lock,

707
00:37:55,680 --> 00:37:58,680
Speaker 1: and to perhaps steal the lock itself and leave whatever

708
00:37:58,760 --> 00:38:01,560
Speaker 1: gold and jewelry on the other side untouched. You know

709
00:38:01,640 --> 00:38:05,799
Speaker 1: that's my development, right, I'm rogue thief branch you are, Yeah,

710
00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:10,200
Speaker 1: that's where that's been going, all right. So yeah, great website,

711
00:38:10,239 --> 00:38:12,440
Speaker 1: historical locks dot com. I'm gonna keep referring back to

712
00:38:12,760 --> 00:38:15,640
Speaker 1: boards work here. Um. But he has an excellent description,

713
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:18,839
Speaker 1: an excellent illustration rather of of how this padlock would

714
00:38:18,840 --> 00:38:22,319
Speaker 1: have worked on his page about Chinese padlocks. UM. By

715
00:38:22,360 --> 00:38:25,120
Speaker 1: the way, he also points to another predecessor to the

716
00:38:25,160 --> 00:38:28,239
Speaker 1: lock and key, and that is the knot. I didn't

717
00:38:28,280 --> 00:38:30,200
Speaker 1: really think about this, but he says in early China,

718
00:38:30,320 --> 00:38:33,560
Speaker 1: strong knots that required the tooth of a wild animal

719
00:38:33,640 --> 00:38:37,720
Speaker 1: to undo them um were utilized, and so this tooth

720
00:38:38,239 --> 00:38:40,600
Speaker 1: which he also says it was a a c as

721
00:38:40,680 --> 00:38:43,880
Speaker 1: i at s or c s i um. I'm not

722
00:38:43,920 --> 00:38:46,319
Speaker 1: sure what the exact if he's referring to doing a

723
00:38:46,320 --> 00:38:49,080
Speaker 1: Mandarin were they're not, but he says this in some

724
00:38:49,120 --> 00:38:51,759
Speaker 1: ways was the first key h And we see an

725
00:38:51,800 --> 00:38:54,240
Speaker 1: idea of this too in the legend of the Gordian knot.

726
00:38:54,360 --> 00:38:56,440
Speaker 1: You know, a knot that must that is supposed to

727
00:38:56,440 --> 00:39:00,600
Speaker 1: be solved in some way in order to unlock something,

728
00:39:00,640 --> 00:39:03,719
Speaker 1: you know. But anyway, back to the Chinese padlock, as

729
00:39:03,719 --> 00:39:06,600
Speaker 1: Borg explains, there's not a ton of information, at least

730
00:39:06,600 --> 00:39:09,040
Speaker 1: available in English on it. But but he he flashes

731
00:39:09,080 --> 00:39:11,759
Speaker 1: out some of the history of the Chinese padlock. Uh

732
00:39:11,800 --> 00:39:14,520
Speaker 1: someone I want to read from his website here quote

733
00:39:14,719 --> 00:39:17,360
Speaker 1: as I see it. It appears that mechanical locks began

734
00:39:17,440 --> 00:39:20,200
Speaker 1: being manufactured and used somewhat later in China than in

735
00:39:20,239 --> 00:39:22,759
Speaker 1: Western Europe. They are based on the locks developed in

736
00:39:22,760 --> 00:39:25,560
Speaker 1: the second and third centuries by Roman engineers and spread

737
00:39:25,600 --> 00:39:27,800
Speaker 1: by the Roman army to all parts of the Giant Empire.

738
00:39:28,120 --> 00:39:31,360
Speaker 1: They're striking similarities between locks in China and Scandina, and

739
00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:34,480
Speaker 1: in Scandinavia during the late Viking era. Both of these

740
00:39:34,480 --> 00:39:37,520
Speaker 1: cultures were removed from direct influence by the Roman Empire.

741
00:39:37,880 --> 00:39:40,520
Speaker 1: Many of the larger iron padlocks I have studied have

742
00:39:40,600 --> 00:39:45,480
Speaker 1: an unmistakable character of seventeenth through nineteenth century Arabic locks. However,

743
00:39:45,560 --> 00:39:47,920
Speaker 1: it is clear that padlocks with ward springs on the

744
00:39:47,960 --> 00:39:51,399
Speaker 1: shackle have been used by emperors and wealthy officials from

745
00:39:51,400 --> 00:39:55,960
Speaker 1: the Gin era to sixty five throw on, But how

746
00:39:55,960 --> 00:39:59,640
Speaker 1: did the first emperors arrive at the idea of using padlocks?

747
00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:04,200
Speaker 1: So Borg thinks that foreign lock technology may have entered

748
00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:09,399
Speaker 1: into Chinese culture via Chinese trade and Chinese expansion, with

749
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:12,760
Speaker 1: like India and Iran and the Silk Road in general

750
00:40:12,880 --> 00:40:18,759
Speaker 1: being a key here. Building then upon existing Chinese security technologies. Now,

751
00:40:18,800 --> 00:40:21,880
Speaker 1: At first Boorg says such locks were probably just status

752
00:40:21,880 --> 00:40:25,880
Speaker 1: symbols rather than dependable security devices. But his keys became

753
00:40:25,920 --> 00:40:29,960
Speaker 1: more common and locks became more common. Married women wore keys,

754
00:40:30,239 --> 00:40:34,680
Speaker 1: designating their role as key bearers looking after the family's property,

755
00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:37,800
Speaker 1: something that we apparently also see in European traditions. According

756
00:40:37,840 --> 00:40:41,120
Speaker 1: to Borg, so I guess the technos symbology here is

757
00:40:41,160 --> 00:40:44,759
Speaker 1: just unavoidable. Oh well, much in the same way that say,

758
00:40:44,760 --> 00:40:48,200
Speaker 1: the prophet Isaiah would say, uh that that God says

759
00:40:48,239 --> 00:40:50,520
Speaker 1: to David, I will place the key upon your shoulder,

760
00:40:50,760 --> 00:40:53,960
Speaker 1: meaning like you are in charge, you have the authority.

761
00:40:54,400 --> 00:40:57,160
Speaker 1: Having the key to the household would be like symbolizing

762
00:40:57,200 --> 00:41:00,160
Speaker 1: your authority over the household and the trust play east

763
00:41:00,239 --> 00:41:04,360
Speaker 1: in you. Yeah, key means access, A key means um

764
00:41:04,400 --> 00:41:10,160
Speaker 1: possession really so uh. Then in the Ming dynasty sixty four,

765
00:41:10,200 --> 00:41:13,840
Speaker 1: improved materials and designs brought about improved padlocks. The wooden

766
00:41:13,880 --> 00:41:16,560
Speaker 1: pin tumbler lock with two to three pins was used

767
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:19,080
Speaker 1: in China at this time, as it was in Europe

768
00:41:19,080 --> 00:41:22,080
Speaker 1: and parts of Africa, but Borg rights with clear ancient

769
00:41:22,120 --> 00:41:26,560
Speaker 1: Egyptian roots. Chinese padlocks were often engraved, sometimes with the

770
00:41:26,640 --> 00:41:29,879
Speaker 1: name of the current emperor, but Borg says more often

771
00:41:29,920 --> 00:41:32,680
Speaker 1: than not it was poetry or wishes of good fortune

772
00:41:32,800 --> 00:41:35,399
Speaker 1: you know, that were that were inscribed on the lock.

773
00:41:36,239 --> 00:41:38,400
Speaker 1: Like I said, Borg has great information on his website,

774
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:41,319
Speaker 1: but he also has tons of wonderful photographs, uh, in

775
00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:45,880
Speaker 1: the illustrations of keys and so some of these um uh,

776
00:41:46,040 --> 00:41:50,160
Speaker 1: these these Chinese padlocks are just amazing to look at. Um.

777
00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:52,759
Speaker 1: One of the ones has a so you've got a

778
00:41:52,880 --> 00:41:56,360
Speaker 1: key here that I'm looking at that has a design

779
00:41:56,440 --> 00:41:59,399
Speaker 1: that looks like it could be a complex like ruin

780
00:41:59,640 --> 00:42:03,440
Speaker 1: or or like Mandarin character. Yeah. This a box shaped

781
00:42:03,480 --> 00:42:07,760
Speaker 1: padlock with a side key that goes into the side.

782
00:42:07,800 --> 00:42:10,440
Speaker 1: It's just really really ornate, really beautiful as this kind

783
00:42:10,440 --> 00:42:14,440
Speaker 1: of you know, golden or uh, you know, a copper

784
00:42:14,480 --> 00:42:18,879
Speaker 1: color to it. It's it's really awesome. And Chinese padlocks

785
00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:22,040
Speaker 1: took on a number of really artistic forms, including the

786
00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:26,160
Speaker 1: forms of various zodiac animals. Um. We We also see

787
00:42:26,200 --> 00:42:28,200
Speaker 1: animal shapedlocks in other parts of the world, such as

788
00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:31,239
Speaker 1: Russian and Persia, but but the Chinese had these wonderful

789
00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:35,600
Speaker 1: like zodiac animal shaped padlocks. There's one of a snake

790
00:42:35,680 --> 00:42:38,360
Speaker 1: that has a picture of this just amazing. Uh with

791
00:42:38,480 --> 00:42:42,200
Speaker 1: this uh this this long key that goes into it

792
00:42:42,200 --> 00:42:44,680
Speaker 1: that looks a little bit like a like a file

793
00:42:44,920 --> 00:42:47,800
Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, I see a horse. Yeah, there's a horse.

794
00:42:47,880 --> 00:42:49,600
Speaker 1: And then um oh, and then this is, you know,

795
00:42:49,640 --> 00:42:53,080
Speaker 1: not a zodiac animal. But there's a some fabulous crab blocks.

796
00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:57,320
Speaker 1: You know, I love a crab block. If anybody's wondering

797
00:42:57,360 --> 00:43:00,759
Speaker 1: what to get me for my birthday. Now we also

798
00:43:00,800 --> 00:43:04,799
Speaker 1: see some really awesome looking Chinese combination locks. Now Bord

799
00:43:04,880 --> 00:43:07,560
Speaker 1: writes that that these are quote a nearly thousand year

800
00:43:07,560 --> 00:43:10,960
Speaker 1: old Arabic convention, but it took several centuries for the

801
00:43:10,960 --> 00:43:13,439
Speaker 1: technology to travel to Europe, and it likely took hold

802
00:43:13,480 --> 00:43:17,879
Speaker 1: in China around the thirteenth century. Now, he points out

803
00:43:17,920 --> 00:43:22,439
Speaker 1: that Italian engineer Giovanni uh de Fontana was the first

804
00:43:22,480 --> 00:43:25,760
Speaker 1: European to make a sketch of the Arab block idea

805
00:43:25,840 --> 00:43:28,279
Speaker 1: back in fourteen twenty. And if we look to the

806
00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:32,480
Speaker 1: writings of Muslim engineer al Jazari in twelve oh six,

807
00:43:33,120 --> 00:43:35,880
Speaker 1: uh he wrote a book titled the Book of Knowledge

808
00:43:35,880 --> 00:43:39,480
Speaker 1: of Ingenious Mechanical Devices. Uh. And al Jazari is an

809
00:43:39,480 --> 00:43:41,920
Speaker 1: interesting figure. Two is a poly math and an inventor

810
00:43:42,360 --> 00:43:45,600
Speaker 1: of various automata. So all sorts of I think there

811
00:43:45,640 --> 00:43:49,239
Speaker 1: was like some sort of a mechanical flute player or

812
00:43:49,280 --> 00:43:51,719
Speaker 1: something that he made. Oh that may have come up

813
00:43:51,760 --> 00:43:54,360
Speaker 1: in a in a previous episode we did. Uh. I

814
00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:56,760
Speaker 1: think we did a whole episode maybe of invention about

815
00:43:57,160 --> 00:44:00,760
Speaker 1: early automata at some point and talking how they played

816
00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:05,919
Speaker 1: into debates about the nature of what living things were. Yeah.

817
00:44:06,040 --> 00:44:09,200
Speaker 1: So the Chinese padlocks were really interesting because they also

818
00:44:09,200 --> 00:44:13,600
Speaker 1: have this kind of um, you know, this horizontal, elongated

819
00:44:13,640 --> 00:44:16,360
Speaker 1: look to them. They don't look really much like a

820
00:44:16,440 --> 00:44:20,320
Speaker 1: modern padlock. Uh. This is outboard describes them, describes them. Quote.

821
00:44:20,480 --> 00:44:23,680
Speaker 1: These keyless locks are opened by turning by the turning

822
00:44:23,680 --> 00:44:26,760
Speaker 1: of several rings or cubes. The surfaces of the rings

823
00:44:26,920 --> 00:44:30,000
Speaker 1: or cubes have imprinted letters, numbers, or, in this case,

824
00:44:30,120 --> 00:44:33,759
Speaker 1: Chinese characters. Commonly, each ring or cube is marked with

825
00:44:33,840 --> 00:44:36,720
Speaker 1: four characters. Each must be turned to the correct position

826
00:44:36,880 --> 00:44:39,720
Speaker 1: before the lock can be opened. And he has examples

827
00:44:39,719 --> 00:44:41,319
Speaker 1: of this on the website as well. But but all

828
00:44:41,400 --> 00:44:46,320
Speaker 1: this led to a whole tradition of Chinese padlock charms. Uh.

829
00:44:46,520 --> 00:44:48,399
Speaker 1: And this this reminds me a bit of the we

830
00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:51,560
Speaker 1: we discussed recently on our episode about beds. We talked

831
00:44:51,560 --> 00:44:55,839
Speaker 1: about the Egyptian headrest, the ancient Egyptian headrest that kind

832
00:44:55,880 --> 00:44:57,800
Speaker 1: of like, you know, holds the neck up during sleep,

833
00:44:57,840 --> 00:45:00,600
Speaker 1: and how this ended up taking the form of a

834
00:45:00,680 --> 00:45:03,239
Speaker 1: of a charm. You know that that was not a

835
00:45:03,280 --> 00:45:06,680
Speaker 1: functional headrest, but but brought with it all the magical

836
00:45:06,719 --> 00:45:09,680
Speaker 1: ideas that were associated with it and Likewise, you see

837
00:45:09,680 --> 00:45:13,920
Speaker 1: the emergence of Chinese padlock charms, flat ornate representations of

838
00:45:14,000 --> 00:45:18,160
Speaker 1: padlocks that had no mechanical functionality. Instead they were protective

839
00:45:18,239 --> 00:45:21,719
Speaker 1: wards for individuals or families. And apparently part of the

840
00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:25,160
Speaker 1: idea here is that you could lock a newborn child

841
00:45:25,239 --> 00:45:27,600
Speaker 1: to life and you would hang this in the house

842
00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:29,960
Speaker 1: or whatnot, and then um, you know, older individuals could

843
00:45:30,000 --> 00:45:33,439
Speaker 1: could actually wear the lock charm on their person. Wow.

844
00:45:33,560 --> 00:45:36,400
Speaker 1: So you can see the obvious symbolic connection there that

845
00:45:36,480 --> 00:45:39,440
Speaker 1: like the lock is security, the lock is protections of

846
00:45:39,480 --> 00:45:43,719
Speaker 1: the charm is a is a abstracted version of that. Yeah,

847
00:45:43,880 --> 00:45:45,560
Speaker 1: And if you want to see some examples of this,

848
00:45:45,719 --> 00:45:48,560
Speaker 1: there's a there's a website called primal Trek that trek

849
00:45:48,600 --> 00:45:51,680
Speaker 1: is spelled like to star trek primal trek dot com

850
00:45:51,719 --> 00:45:55,160
Speaker 1: and they has it's a site about various Chinese charms.

851
00:45:55,160 --> 00:45:57,440
Speaker 1: It's I think it's largely like a collector's website, so

852
00:45:57,480 --> 00:46:01,120
Speaker 1: it's not an academic site, but but has lots of

853
00:46:01,160 --> 00:46:03,560
Speaker 1: cool photographs and you can see examples of these lock

854
00:46:03,640 --> 00:46:08,080
Speaker 1: charms there. And again they're they're oftentimes beautifully decorated as well,

855
00:46:08,080 --> 00:46:12,080
Speaker 1: with various symbols and signs, Mandarin characters, et cetera. Now,

856
00:46:12,120 --> 00:46:14,680
Speaker 1: the Chinese wedding lock tradition also came out of this,

857
00:46:14,760 --> 00:46:18,080
Speaker 1: and it's still practiced today with inscribed padlocks, and of

858
00:46:18,080 --> 00:46:20,399
Speaker 1: course we see versions of this practiced around the world

859
00:46:20,400 --> 00:46:21,920
Speaker 1: as well. You know, if you go out to a

860
00:46:22,000 --> 00:46:25,640
Speaker 1: bridge in your area or certain fences, you may find

861
00:46:25,640 --> 00:46:28,279
Speaker 1: a bunch of padlocks that have been placed there. Uh,

862
00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:31,280
Speaker 1: and then that's been done with, you know, at least

863
00:46:31,280 --> 00:46:34,279
Speaker 1: with some sort of symbolism implied, if not some sort

864
00:46:34,320 --> 00:46:37,800
Speaker 1: of actual magic. But you look at examples of the

865
00:46:38,120 --> 00:46:42,160
Speaker 1: wedding locks from from China's past and they're they're absolutely

866
00:46:42,160 --> 00:46:45,080
Speaker 1: beautiful as well. The photographs that I found on board

867
00:46:45,239 --> 00:46:47,040
Speaker 1: side of these. You know, it looks like some sort

868
00:46:47,080 --> 00:46:49,920
Speaker 1: of a musical instrument. Oh yeah, I see it. The

869
00:46:49,960 --> 00:46:52,479
Speaker 1: shape is it's like the base of a loot. Yeah,

870
00:46:52,560 --> 00:46:54,680
Speaker 1: and the lock itself like reminds me more of some

871
00:46:54,760 --> 00:46:59,160
Speaker 1: sort of like ultra modern uh purse or something, you know. Uh,

872
00:47:00,320 --> 00:47:02,640
Speaker 1: it's it's yeah, they're really fascinating. And again you can

873
00:47:02,719 --> 00:47:04,000
Speaker 1: you really need to look up a picture of them

874
00:47:04,000 --> 00:47:06,200
Speaker 1: to understand what I'm talking about. But but yeah, it's

875
00:47:06,239 --> 00:47:09,120
Speaker 1: beautiful and just another insight into just how the idea

876
00:47:09,280 --> 00:47:13,200
Speaker 1: of the lock and the key, how it permeates our

877
00:47:13,640 --> 00:47:16,719
Speaker 1: understanding of ourselves and our relationships to the world and

878
00:47:16,760 --> 00:47:20,080
Speaker 1: other people. Yeah, it's funny how much, uh, if you

879
00:47:20,120 --> 00:47:24,840
Speaker 1: listen to people having I don't know, social cultural values arguments,

880
00:47:24,960 --> 00:47:29,200
Speaker 1: it's funny how much the phrase wedlock comes up. That's great.

881
00:47:29,280 --> 00:47:32,800
Speaker 1: Wedlock is never a phrase that's used in like normal

882
00:47:32,920 --> 00:47:35,839
Speaker 1: life where you're talking about normal relationships, you know, like

883
00:47:36,160 --> 00:47:38,120
Speaker 1: you want to get married to somebody, You don't say,

884
00:47:38,160 --> 00:47:41,200
Speaker 1: I want to be in wedlock with you. It's like

885
00:47:41,320 --> 00:47:44,680
Speaker 1: only a phrase that's deployed when framing marriage in some

886
00:47:44,760 --> 00:47:48,000
Speaker 1: kind of like sort of contentious political argument. And that

887
00:47:48,160 --> 00:47:52,839
Speaker 1: funny I place you under wedlock a cast wedlock third level.

888
00:47:58,520 --> 00:48:02,680
Speaker 1: Thank thank now. We we mentioned earlier about just the

889
00:48:02,719 --> 00:48:05,080
Speaker 1: idea of of like a large lock that's part of

890
00:48:05,080 --> 00:48:07,360
Speaker 1: the door, and how one of the issues here is

891
00:48:07,400 --> 00:48:10,399
Speaker 1: just how small can you possibly make the parts right?

892
00:48:10,520 --> 00:48:12,680
Speaker 1: And uh and then especially when you're getting too into

893
00:48:12,840 --> 00:48:16,240
Speaker 1: locks that are produced then for everyone in the city,

894
00:48:17,120 --> 00:48:20,840
Speaker 1: which would be the locksmith's uh, you know, duty to

895
00:48:21,000 --> 00:48:24,560
Speaker 1: the to those who live there. Um, there's an interesting

896
00:48:25,120 --> 00:48:27,719
Speaker 1: case that that is, uh that is cited in the

897
00:48:27,760 --> 00:48:31,080
Speaker 1: book Connections by James Burke. Of course, he also did

898
00:48:31,160 --> 00:48:35,440
Speaker 1: the television series Connections about the history of inventions and

899
00:48:35,520 --> 00:48:38,320
Speaker 1: how and how they're connected by sometimes these sort of

900
00:48:38,400 --> 00:48:41,640
Speaker 1: like trivial, seemingly trivial moments in h in Human Life

901
00:48:41,680 --> 00:48:44,520
Speaker 1: and Human History. Wonderful series. But he has a bit

902
00:48:44,560 --> 00:48:48,000
Speaker 1: where he talks about locks and the Industrial Revolution, and

903
00:48:48,080 --> 00:48:52,320
Speaker 1: he makes special mention of Henry Madsley, who lives seventeen

904
00:48:52,360 --> 00:48:55,800
Speaker 1: seventy one through eighteen thirty one, an English machine tool

905
00:48:55,880 --> 00:48:59,360
Speaker 1: inventor who just apparently worked his way up through factory

906
00:48:59,440 --> 00:49:02,200
Speaker 1: work from the age of twelve, just doing all sorts

907
00:49:02,280 --> 00:49:05,440
Speaker 1: of kind of god awful sounding jobs. But he had

908
00:49:05,480 --> 00:49:10,000
Speaker 1: this um, you know, very ingenious mind for mechanisms, and

909
00:49:10,160 --> 00:49:12,680
Speaker 1: you know he's just figuring out how everything works at

910
00:49:12,719 --> 00:49:15,960
Speaker 1: every stage of the game. And then at age eighteen

911
00:49:16,000 --> 00:49:18,560
Speaker 1: he begins to work for the English inventor and locksmith

912
00:49:18,880 --> 00:49:23,600
Speaker 1: Joseph Brahma, so major figure. People might well have heard

913
00:49:23,680 --> 00:49:27,120
Speaker 1: of the Brahma lock before. Yes, yeah, the Brahma lock

914
00:49:27,200 --> 00:49:30,480
Speaker 1: is central to this. Brahma also invented the hydraulic press.

915
00:49:30,920 --> 00:49:34,360
Speaker 1: So if we have any terminator fans out there you

916
00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:37,720
Speaker 1: can think you can thank Brahma. Otherwise the scene wouldn't

917
00:49:37,719 --> 00:49:43,200
Speaker 1: be possible. So Brahma designed and patented an improved tumbler

918
00:49:43,280 --> 00:49:46,719
Speaker 1: lock um, but he encountered challenges when it came to

919
00:49:46,920 --> 00:49:50,000
Speaker 1: manufacturing it for an economic price, because it's one thing

920
00:49:50,080 --> 00:49:52,560
Speaker 1: to make a really cool locker, really effective lock a

921
00:49:52,680 --> 00:49:54,759
Speaker 1: lock that I think I read that he he even

922
00:49:54,960 --> 00:49:57,120
Speaker 1: had one of these placed in in the front of

923
00:49:57,200 --> 00:49:59,239
Speaker 1: his store and there was a reward if you could

924
00:49:59,280 --> 00:50:03,120
Speaker 1: pick it. Yeah, well this comes up often then. Um.

925
00:50:03,520 --> 00:50:05,880
Speaker 1: You know, in many episodes of Invention, we discovered that

926
00:50:06,680 --> 00:50:10,799
Speaker 1: often the the impediment to an invention going out into

927
00:50:10,840 --> 00:50:13,480
Speaker 1: the world is not that it can't be made, but

928
00:50:13,640 --> 00:50:16,440
Speaker 1: that it can't be made economically, that it can't be

929
00:50:16,600 --> 00:50:19,080
Speaker 1: made in a way that you know, makes sense for

930
00:50:19,200 --> 00:50:21,680
Speaker 1: anybody to make it. Yeah, I remember we talked about

931
00:50:21,760 --> 00:50:25,600
Speaker 1: this with with Jeff Barry ak Beach Barry about cocktails,

932
00:50:25,680 --> 00:50:27,359
Speaker 1: like even in that like it's one thing to make

933
00:50:27,360 --> 00:50:30,200
Speaker 1: a really awesome cocktail with all these crazy ingredients, but

934
00:50:30,400 --> 00:50:32,560
Speaker 1: can you scale that? Can you actually can you make

935
00:50:32,640 --> 00:50:34,640
Speaker 1: it in a bar and then and then sell it,

936
00:50:34,719 --> 00:50:37,520
Speaker 1: put a price on it that people will pay, and

937
00:50:37,640 --> 00:50:40,040
Speaker 1: of course it's the same thing with this lock. So

938
00:50:40,360 --> 00:50:42,799
Speaker 1: um yeah. So so Brahmin he has this, he has

939
00:50:42,880 --> 00:50:45,520
Speaker 1: this problem. How can I make this this lock in

940
00:50:45,600 --> 00:50:48,080
Speaker 1: a way where people will actually be buying and I'll

941
00:50:48,120 --> 00:50:50,400
Speaker 1: make money off of it? Because apparently the time was

942
00:50:50,560 --> 00:50:53,680
Speaker 1: right because uh, because Burke mentions that there were a

943
00:50:53,760 --> 00:50:57,279
Speaker 1: series of robberies in London, so it increased increased the

944
00:50:57,360 --> 00:51:01,160
Speaker 1: demand for security technology and and Brahma wanted to take

945
00:51:01,160 --> 00:51:04,880
Speaker 1: advantage of this, so he ends up hiring Modsley, and

946
00:51:05,000 --> 00:51:09,360
Speaker 1: Modesley devised tools to make the locksmiths work faster and

947
00:51:09,520 --> 00:51:12,840
Speaker 1: more accurate, enabling the Brahma lock to be produced for

948
00:51:13,000 --> 00:51:17,520
Speaker 1: cheaper and sold at an economic price. Now, Modesley eventually leaves.

949
00:51:17,719 --> 00:51:19,880
Speaker 1: I was reading that the Brahma like pulled a Scrooge

950
00:51:19,920 --> 00:51:21,719
Speaker 1: on him and wouldn't give him a raise after all

951
00:51:21,760 --> 00:51:25,000
Speaker 1: of this, So he leaves, but he takes his lathe

952
00:51:25,040 --> 00:51:26,800
Speaker 1: with him and he sets up his own shop, and

953
00:51:26,920 --> 00:51:31,000
Speaker 1: in time he becomes what some historians consider the founding

954
00:51:31,080 --> 00:51:35,360
Speaker 1: father of machine tool technology. And this is actually historically

955
00:51:35,480 --> 00:51:39,160
Speaker 1: very important, or at least Burke makes the the argument

956
00:51:39,239 --> 00:51:41,360
Speaker 1: that it is, because of course it is true that

957
00:51:41,840 --> 00:51:45,320
Speaker 1: precise machining of metal parts, which means the ability to

958
00:51:45,600 --> 00:51:48,839
Speaker 1: cut a piece of metal into an accurate design over

959
00:51:48,960 --> 00:51:52,640
Speaker 1: and over with little error or variants. That that precise

960
00:51:52,800 --> 00:51:56,120
Speaker 1: machining was a really important ingredient for the Industrial revolution.

961
00:51:56,200 --> 00:51:59,920
Speaker 1: If you're mass mass manufacturing machine parts so that people

962
00:52:00,080 --> 00:52:03,279
Speaker 1: can mechanize production of whatever it is, you know, whatever

963
00:52:03,400 --> 00:52:06,799
Speaker 1: textiles they're working on or or whatever. Um, you need

964
00:52:06,880 --> 00:52:10,120
Speaker 1: to be able to produce all of these small, accurate

965
00:52:10,239 --> 00:52:14,279
Speaker 1: reproductions of these these fine metal parts, and having the

966
00:52:14,400 --> 00:52:16,880
Speaker 1: right kind of lay or the ability to machine these

967
00:52:16,920 --> 00:52:20,360
Speaker 1: parts correctly is crucial. Absolutely. So, yeah, we see the

968
00:52:20,960 --> 00:52:24,640
Speaker 1: role of the lock in this this pivotal moment and

969
00:52:24,840 --> 00:52:29,480
Speaker 1: just the future of human technology. Uh so, yeah, fascinating

970
00:52:29,520 --> 00:52:32,839
Speaker 1: to think about. Now, for the rest of the podcast, though,

971
00:52:32,840 --> 00:52:34,719
Speaker 1: I thought we'd we talk a little bit at least

972
00:52:34,760 --> 00:52:39,440
Speaker 1: about the use of locks and um and keys in

973
00:52:39,960 --> 00:52:43,640
Speaker 1: you know, superstitious stories but also in symbolism. Uh certainly

974
00:52:43,640 --> 00:52:45,480
Speaker 1: we won't be able to even you know, scratch the

975
00:52:45,520 --> 00:52:48,839
Speaker 1: surface of the global traditions here, and again, this will

976
00:52:48,880 --> 00:52:51,480
Speaker 1: be a great place for our various listeners to reach

977
00:52:51,560 --> 00:52:54,480
Speaker 1: out to us and share more. But uh, Bora goes

978
00:52:54,560 --> 00:52:57,480
Speaker 1: into this a tiny bit on his website, and uh,

979
00:52:57,840 --> 00:52:59,640
Speaker 1: I want to read this one example that he shares.

980
00:52:59,719 --> 00:53:02,480
Speaker 1: Quote in Swedish folk tales, we have the castle that

981
00:53:02,600 --> 00:53:06,880
Speaker 1: stood on golden posts. A cat transformed itself into a

982
00:53:06,960 --> 00:53:09,920
Speaker 1: loaf of bread in the keyhole of a giant's castle,

983
00:53:10,440 --> 00:53:13,799
Speaker 1: keeping the giant from getting into his home. Unlocked the door,

984
00:53:13,920 --> 00:53:16,239
Speaker 1: or the giant yelled, but instead the cat told him

985
00:53:16,320 --> 00:53:19,640
Speaker 1: about its many adventures until the sun went up and

986
00:53:19,719 --> 00:53:26,520
Speaker 1: the giant bursts. That sounds like a highly condensed folk tale,

987
00:53:27,400 --> 00:53:30,399
Speaker 1: maybe something that was originally about ten times as long.

988
00:53:30,880 --> 00:53:32,640
Speaker 1: I don't know. I kind of love it. It's it's

989
00:53:32,719 --> 00:53:35,000
Speaker 1: kind of you know, it almost feels like it's tweet length.

990
00:53:35,239 --> 00:53:38,359
Speaker 1: But but but perfect Listen, we're not screwing around. Okay,

991
00:53:38,400 --> 00:53:41,359
Speaker 1: I gotta get to the burning up really fast. I'm

992
00:53:41,440 --> 00:53:43,680
Speaker 1: not burning up, bursting. Sorry, the sun comes up and

993
00:53:43,719 --> 00:53:49,920
Speaker 1: he bursts. Um, So wait, hold, why did the cat

994
00:53:50,040 --> 00:53:53,040
Speaker 1: turn into a loaf of bread? I guess, Okay, so

995
00:53:53,080 --> 00:53:55,400
Speaker 1: I'm guessing. Okay, it's a giant. So it's a huge

996
00:53:55,480 --> 00:53:58,840
Speaker 1: door and in a huge keyhole, and I guess the

997
00:53:59,680 --> 00:54:03,080
Speaker 1: cat climbs in and then expands into the form like

998
00:54:03,160 --> 00:54:05,359
Speaker 1: if the cat can change his form. Then I guess

999
00:54:05,400 --> 00:54:07,759
Speaker 1: he becomes bread in order to completely stop up the

1000
00:54:07,840 --> 00:54:12,359
Speaker 1: keyhole and thus be impossible to remove. Okay, I see,

1001
00:54:12,760 --> 00:54:15,000
Speaker 1: so the cat is doing this on purpose. It's not

1002
00:54:15,120 --> 00:54:18,439
Speaker 1: just like the cat happened to transform into a loaf

1003
00:54:18,480 --> 00:54:21,480
Speaker 1: of bread. Right. Yeah, I'm guessing the cat is kind

1004
00:54:21,480 --> 00:54:25,400
Speaker 1: of like the dog on Adventure Time. Um, Jake, you

1005
00:54:25,480 --> 00:54:27,080
Speaker 1: know where he can he can change his shape, Like

1006
00:54:27,160 --> 00:54:29,920
Speaker 1: the cat goes into the keyhole, swells up, and then

1007
00:54:29,960 --> 00:54:32,759
Speaker 1: the giants it really wants to get inside because the

1008
00:54:32,800 --> 00:54:35,080
Speaker 1: giants like a troll and we'll burst if the sun

1009
00:54:35,200 --> 00:54:41,440
Speaker 1: touches him. So yeah, it's a perfect story. Go back

1010
00:54:41,520 --> 00:54:46,320
Speaker 1: to Nifelheim. Um. So from here, I'd like to to

1011
00:54:46,440 --> 00:54:49,000
Speaker 1: move on to to some of some symbols um that

1012
00:54:49,320 --> 00:54:52,759
Speaker 1: involved the key Uh. There, there's one in particular I

1013
00:54:52,800 --> 00:54:54,520
Speaker 1: wanted to start with because it was one that I

1014
00:54:54,600 --> 00:54:57,080
Speaker 1: remember seeing when I was a kid, and I didn't

1015
00:54:57,080 --> 00:54:59,359
Speaker 1: I didn't understand what it what it was about. Um.

1016
00:55:00,080 --> 00:55:04,000
Speaker 1: So to to lay a little background here, I I

1017
00:55:04,320 --> 00:55:06,959
Speaker 1: assemble and paint various miniatures. I do a little Dungeons

1018
00:55:06,960 --> 00:55:08,960
Speaker 1: and Dragons miniatures. I do a lot of Star Wars

1019
00:55:09,040 --> 00:55:11,719
Speaker 1: miniatures right now, I do Star Wars vehicles, but my

1020
00:55:11,840 --> 00:55:15,120
Speaker 1: dad was really into World War Two miniatures, so you know,

1021
00:55:15,160 --> 00:55:18,240
Speaker 1: a lot of like, um, like US Air Force planes

1022
00:55:18,440 --> 00:55:21,399
Speaker 1: and tanks, but also some German planes and tanks as well.

1023
00:55:22,120 --> 00:55:25,400
Speaker 1: And I remember there being um a book or a

1024
00:55:25,480 --> 00:55:27,040
Speaker 1: pamphlet that came with one of these that showed all

1025
00:55:27,080 --> 00:55:30,560
Speaker 1: these different German military symbols, and they were really perplexing

1026
00:55:30,640 --> 00:55:32,480
Speaker 1: to look at, especially since a lot of them seemed

1027
00:55:32,480 --> 00:55:34,960
Speaker 1: to like really resonate with evil. You know. It's kind

1028
00:55:34,960 --> 00:55:37,440
Speaker 1: of like that Mitchell and Webb look bit, you know,

1029
00:55:37,520 --> 00:55:39,640
Speaker 1: are we the Batties where they're looking at all the

1030
00:55:39,719 --> 00:55:42,600
Speaker 1: various skulls and black and white symbols all over their

1031
00:55:42,680 --> 00:55:47,400
Speaker 1: their Nazi uniforms. And I recall one unit insignia in

1032
00:55:47,640 --> 00:55:50,040
Speaker 1: particular that had a key on it. And and I

1033
00:55:50,080 --> 00:55:51,759
Speaker 1: hadn't thought about this in a long time until we

1034
00:55:51,920 --> 00:55:54,320
Speaker 1: started to put this episode together. So I looked into it.

1035
00:55:54,400 --> 00:55:55,880
Speaker 1: I'm like, what it was that key about? And I

1036
00:55:56,000 --> 00:55:57,800
Speaker 1: was thinking, Okay, it's gonna have some sort of you know,

1037
00:55:57,880 --> 00:56:01,000
Speaker 1: occult symbol. You know, it's one of these various symbols

1038
00:56:01,040 --> 00:56:03,920
Speaker 1: that the Nazis um, you know, appropriated and you know,

1039
00:56:04,000 --> 00:56:06,799
Speaker 1: stole from some other traditions the key to the gate

1040
00:56:06,880 --> 00:56:09,720
Speaker 1: of the thousand year Reich or whatever, yeah, or or whatever,

1041
00:56:09,920 --> 00:56:13,000
Speaker 1: you know, but I was curious, like where they got it. Um. So,

1042
00:56:13,800 --> 00:56:15,840
Speaker 1: first of all, this was the symbol for the first

1043
00:56:16,040 --> 00:56:18,960
Speaker 1: s s Panzer Division and UM. And yeah, it does

1044
00:56:19,040 --> 00:56:21,719
Speaker 1: look kind of spooky. It's in black and white, you know. Um.

1045
00:56:22,560 --> 00:56:25,480
Speaker 1: As it turns out, though, it has a pretty non spooky,

1046
00:56:25,719 --> 00:56:30,560
Speaker 1: non occult origin. Apparently Joseph Sepdetrick was the unit's first

1047
00:56:30,600 --> 00:56:34,480
Speaker 1: commander and his last name Dietrick. Uh. It can be

1048
00:56:35,040 --> 00:56:40,080
Speaker 1: translated as keeper of secrets or lock pick or skeleton key.

1049
00:56:41,040 --> 00:56:43,200
Speaker 1: So that's all there is to it. That the guy's

1050
00:56:43,280 --> 00:56:46,480
Speaker 1: last name like meant lock pick or skeleton key, and

1051
00:56:46,560 --> 00:56:48,880
Speaker 1: so they use that as the emblem. Uh. And then

1052
00:56:48,960 --> 00:56:52,719
Speaker 1: the Armored ss Panzer Corps had at a different version

1053
00:56:52,760 --> 00:56:55,760
Speaker 1: of the symbol with like cross keys. But it's interesting

1054
00:56:55,800 --> 00:56:58,120
Speaker 1: because it also kind of sums up the utter emptiness

1055
00:56:58,520 --> 00:57:00,360
Speaker 1: of the Nazis in a way. You know. It's just

1056
00:57:00,640 --> 00:57:03,239
Speaker 1: it was picked because it it had some tie of

1057
00:57:03,280 --> 00:57:05,280
Speaker 1: this dude's last name, and it looked kind of spooky.

1058
00:57:05,360 --> 00:57:09,680
Speaker 1: But it means nothing, right, portentous seeming images with the

1059
00:57:09,800 --> 00:57:13,520
Speaker 1: appearance of symbolic significance, but in fact they just point

1060
00:57:13,560 --> 00:57:17,960
Speaker 1: to nothing other than an individual personalities ego. Yeah, but

1061
00:57:18,120 --> 00:57:20,200
Speaker 1: I mean too, I guess on on some level though

1062
00:57:20,240 --> 00:57:22,480
Speaker 1: you look at it, it involves the key and involved

1063
00:57:22,520 --> 00:57:24,880
Speaker 1: the lock and the key in the lock are found

1064
00:57:25,120 --> 00:57:29,000
Speaker 1: just throughout human iconography, in one form of another or another. Um.

1065
00:57:29,640 --> 00:57:32,400
Speaker 1: One of the big ones are the the you'll find

1066
00:57:32,480 --> 00:57:37,240
Speaker 1: our St. Peter's keys. You've seen these before, right, Joe, Oh, absolutely, Yeah.

1067
00:57:37,440 --> 00:57:42,160
Speaker 1: So St. Peter Um, according to Christian tradition, was the

1068
00:57:42,480 --> 00:57:44,400
Speaker 1: was the first pope. You know, he was of course

1069
00:57:44,480 --> 00:57:47,440
Speaker 1: one of the disciples of Jesus, and it said that

1070
00:57:47,520 --> 00:57:50,120
Speaker 1: he was the first leader of the Catholic Church. And

1071
00:57:50,280 --> 00:57:53,800
Speaker 1: so a lot of Catholic imagery uses the the keys

1072
00:57:53,920 --> 00:57:57,640
Speaker 1: of Peter as imagery, you know, symbolizing the authority of

1073
00:57:57,720 --> 00:57:59,960
Speaker 1: the church or stuff having to do with the paper

1074
00:58:00,040 --> 00:58:03,880
Speaker 1: see your Vatican City. Yeah, I believe that the Matthew

1075
00:58:04,000 --> 00:58:07,680
Speaker 1: sixteen nineteen says, and I will give unto the keys

1076
00:58:07,720 --> 00:58:10,400
Speaker 1: of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind

1077
00:58:10,440 --> 00:58:13,080
Speaker 1: on earth, shall be bound in Heaven. And whatsover thou

1078
00:58:13,120 --> 00:58:16,320
Speaker 1: shalt lose on Earth, shall be losed in heaven. Um.

1079
00:58:16,520 --> 00:58:18,800
Speaker 1: So you see these on a lot of the you know,

1080
00:58:18,920 --> 00:58:21,919
Speaker 1: flags and seals associated with the papacy, but we also

1081
00:58:21,960 --> 00:58:23,880
Speaker 1: see them in a lot of Swiss flags as well,

1082
00:58:24,080 --> 00:58:27,280
Speaker 1: and and other like European bits of heraldry. You know,

1083
00:58:27,360 --> 00:58:29,760
Speaker 1: as much as I'm kind of a Bible nerd, I've

1084
00:58:29,760 --> 00:58:32,720
Speaker 1: actually never looked deeply into that passage. I wonder, I

1085
00:58:32,800 --> 00:58:36,320
Speaker 1: wonder what the historical context of that whole the key

1086
00:58:36,440 --> 00:58:38,760
Speaker 1: imagery is. I bet that that cash is out in

1087
00:58:38,800 --> 00:58:42,080
Speaker 1: a kind of surprising and interesting way. I would put

1088
00:58:42,120 --> 00:58:45,560
Speaker 1: some money on it. Yeah. Um. Now, if you're looking

1089
00:58:45,840 --> 00:58:48,400
Speaker 1: for more modern uses of it, more recent uses of it,

1090
00:58:48,640 --> 00:58:50,160
Speaker 1: you can look at the flag of the U. S.

1091
00:58:50,280 --> 00:58:53,400
Speaker 1: National Security Agency, the n s A, because it has

1092
00:58:53,600 --> 00:58:56,640
Speaker 1: um against the seal with the you know, the United

1093
00:58:56,680 --> 00:58:59,360
Speaker 1: States Eagle, and what does it have gripped in its

1094
00:58:59,440 --> 00:59:02,520
Speaker 1: talents but a big old key. It suggests that the

1095
00:59:02,600 --> 00:59:05,480
Speaker 1: agency is a bird of prey that swoops down and

1096
00:59:05,600 --> 00:59:09,200
Speaker 1: snatches up access to things. Yeah, or or has just

1097
00:59:09,320 --> 00:59:11,240
Speaker 1: been granted the key to the city by the mayor,

1098
00:59:11,360 --> 00:59:19,880
Speaker 1: like it's a huge key. Yeah. So that's a fun

1099
00:59:19,960 --> 00:59:22,960
Speaker 1: one to look up um. Another one that I ran across. Uh.

1100
00:59:23,440 --> 00:59:25,640
Speaker 1: And again we're not mentioning near all of these, but

1101
00:59:25,800 --> 00:59:27,440
Speaker 1: just some of the ones that stood out to me.

1102
00:59:28,040 --> 00:59:30,840
Speaker 1: There's the flag of Gibraltar. Uh. This is the flag

1103
00:59:30,920 --> 00:59:33,919
Speaker 1: for the British Overseas territory, and it features a key

1104
00:59:34,040 --> 00:59:37,000
Speaker 1: affixed to a fortress by a golden cord. So it's

1105
00:59:37,000 --> 00:59:39,320
Speaker 1: a golden key has his golden cord and it's kind

1106
00:59:39,320 --> 00:59:43,760
Speaker 1: of like tied inside the fortress's mouth sort of. Um.

1107
00:59:43,880 --> 00:59:45,760
Speaker 1: And the golden key here is said to represent the

1108
00:59:45,800 --> 00:59:49,840
Speaker 1: Fortress of Gibraltar's importance and also signify the idea that

1109
00:59:50,000 --> 00:59:54,160
Speaker 1: Gibraltar was long seen as the key to Spain. But

1110
00:59:54,280 --> 00:59:55,920
Speaker 1: this one's not because the key is just hanging there.

1111
00:59:55,920 --> 00:59:57,480
Speaker 1: It's kind of inviting you, like, am I supposed to

1112
00:59:57,560 --> 01:00:01,720
Speaker 1: take it? Is that for me? Um? There's also a

1113
01:00:01,800 --> 01:00:03,960
Speaker 1: really interesting when I ran across the coat of arms

1114
01:00:04,000 --> 01:00:07,320
Speaker 1: of the German city of Bremen, a rather curious looking

1115
01:00:07,440 --> 01:00:10,560
Speaker 1: key as it's linked to the patron saint of the

1116
01:00:10,600 --> 01:00:14,640
Speaker 1: Bremen Cathedral, uh Simon Petris ak St peter Um. But

1117
01:00:14,800 --> 01:00:16,360
Speaker 1: but this is this key has a real maze like

1118
01:00:16,560 --> 01:00:18,560
Speaker 1: look to it. It's really interesting when you look at

1119
01:00:18,600 --> 01:00:22,720
Speaker 1: the the end bit here, it's very ornate. So I

1120
01:00:22,800 --> 01:00:25,640
Speaker 1: guess this is what you would call awarded key, right, like, Yeah,

1121
01:00:26,440 --> 01:00:28,800
Speaker 1: And the way that it works is has a complex,

1122
01:00:28,920 --> 01:00:32,840
Speaker 1: intricate sort of series of patterns in solid metal and

1123
01:00:32,920 --> 01:00:36,480
Speaker 1: then it would turn through corresponding gaps in the walls

1124
01:00:36,560 --> 01:00:39,400
Speaker 1: inside the lock, right and yeah, so I imagine this

1125
01:00:39,480 --> 01:00:41,640
Speaker 1: could be a functional key like that. But but on

1126
01:00:41,720 --> 01:00:44,240
Speaker 1: the other hand, it also so just you know, the

1127
01:00:44,280 --> 01:00:46,720
Speaker 1: places you can go with the key as symbol, like

1128
01:00:46,840 --> 01:00:49,360
Speaker 1: the key can then just be transformed into other objects,

1129
01:00:49,760 --> 01:00:53,600
Speaker 1: you know, where in a way when you wouldn't have

1130
01:00:53,640 --> 01:00:56,200
Speaker 1: to go far to not recognize this as a key anymore.

1131
01:00:56,200 --> 01:00:57,680
Speaker 1: Because there are also a bunch of lions on this

1132
01:00:57,800 --> 01:01:00,200
Speaker 1: and one of the lions is brandishing the key, and

1133
01:01:00,280 --> 01:01:02,280
Speaker 1: it looks more like it's a sword or a small

1134
01:01:02,400 --> 01:01:07,400
Speaker 1: hand cannon. Um, It's it's curious. Yeah, So I guess

1135
01:01:07,560 --> 01:01:09,400
Speaker 1: I guess what we're saying is that sometimes the key

1136
01:01:09,520 --> 01:01:13,160
Speaker 1: means virtually nothing, but but often it signifies authority or

1137
01:01:13,200 --> 01:01:18,640
Speaker 1: strategic importance. Just a few examples the trust, ownership, UM,

1138
01:01:19,600 --> 01:01:24,760
Speaker 1: secret knowledge, certainly at times, UM forbidden knowledge. Yeah, there's

1139
01:01:24,760 --> 01:01:27,280
Speaker 1: so many directions you can go in. I wonder is

1140
01:01:27,320 --> 01:01:30,760
Speaker 1: there anybody else out there who is enough of a

1141
01:01:31,080 --> 01:01:34,000
Speaker 1: fan of the original Halloween that in your household, whenever

1142
01:01:34,080 --> 01:01:37,120
Speaker 1: you lose your keys and you're looking for him, everybody

1143
01:01:37,240 --> 01:01:40,720
Speaker 1: starts saying the keys like Jamie Lee Curtis does, and

1144
01:01:41,520 --> 01:01:44,560
Speaker 1: you know the ending sequence, Oh man, do you remember that? God?

1145
01:01:45,040 --> 01:01:48,200
Speaker 1: I vaguely remember that, but it does make me think

1146
01:01:48,280 --> 01:01:51,320
Speaker 1: of just oh man, keys and horror films, the key

1147
01:01:51,440 --> 01:01:54,200
Speaker 1: fumbling scene, the key to a door, or certainly the

1148
01:01:54,240 --> 01:01:57,000
Speaker 1: key to an automobile. Where would we be without the key?

1149
01:01:57,040 --> 01:02:00,280
Speaker 1: Where would our suspense be? You know, I feel like

1150
01:02:00,320 --> 01:02:03,480
Speaker 1: a lot of movies have replicated that scene in Halloween

1151
01:02:03,600 --> 01:02:05,960
Speaker 1: where you're fumbling with the keys, you're trying to get

1152
01:02:06,000 --> 01:02:08,720
Speaker 1: through the door, the killer is approaching. You finally get

1153
01:02:08,800 --> 01:02:10,880
Speaker 1: through the door, and then the killers just where are they?

1154
01:02:10,960 --> 01:02:12,960
Speaker 1: They're just gone, you know, they were right up on

1155
01:02:13,080 --> 01:02:14,880
Speaker 1: you when you get through, and then of course they're

1156
01:02:14,880 --> 01:02:19,680
Speaker 1: somewhere inside. Ah. Yeah, they'll they'll do it every time. Man.

1157
01:02:19,760 --> 01:02:22,200
Speaker 1: I I certainly feel like we've only scratched the surface

1158
01:02:22,280 --> 01:02:26,520
Speaker 1: here about uh, certainly about keys and locks in history

1159
01:02:26,640 --> 01:02:30,480
Speaker 1: and global cultures and also pop culture and yeah, man,

1160
01:02:30,520 --> 01:02:32,600
Speaker 1: there's so many different directions to go in, so obviously

1161
01:02:32,600 --> 01:02:34,600
Speaker 1: we would love to hear from everybody out there. You

1162
01:02:34,680 --> 01:02:37,800
Speaker 1: know how locks and keys feature into your life, Locks

1163
01:02:37,840 --> 01:02:39,800
Speaker 1: and keys from your part of the world or places

1164
01:02:39,880 --> 01:02:42,680
Speaker 1: that you've traveled to. Um, you know, it's all. It's

1165
01:02:42,680 --> 01:02:44,360
Speaker 1: all on the table. Would love to love to hear

1166
01:02:44,400 --> 01:02:46,840
Speaker 1: from you. Yeah. In the meantime, if you would like

1167
01:02:46,880 --> 01:02:48,880
Speaker 1: to check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind,

1168
01:02:49,000 --> 01:02:52,480
Speaker 1: past episodes to deal with inventions or whatnot, you can

1169
01:02:52,520 --> 01:02:55,760
Speaker 1: find us wherever you get your podcasts and wherever that

1170
01:02:55,800 --> 01:02:57,680
Speaker 1: happens to be. We just asked that you rate, review,

1171
01:02:57,760 --> 01:03:00,360
Speaker 1: and subscribe if the platform allows you to do that,

1172
01:03:00,520 --> 01:03:04,040
Speaker 1: if they provide you the keys necessary. Huge thanks as

1173
01:03:04,080 --> 01:03:07,640
Speaker 1: always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If

1174
01:03:07,640 --> 01:03:09,080
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us with

1175
01:03:09,240 --> 01:03:11,480
Speaker 1: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a

1176
01:03:11,560 --> 01:03:13,440
Speaker 1: topic for the future, or just to say hi, you

1177
01:03:13,520 --> 01:03:16,280
Speaker 1: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your

1178
01:03:16,320 --> 01:03:26,280
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production

1179
01:03:26,360 --> 01:03:29,080
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,

1180
01:03:29,320 --> 01:03:31,960
Speaker 1: visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

1181
01:03:32,040 --> 01:03:33,360
Speaker 1: you listening to your favorite shows