Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
Speaker 2: is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 3: And I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two
Speaker 3: in our series on human uses of metal from the Sky.
Speaker 3: If you haven't heard the first episode yet, you should
Speaker 3: go back and check that one out before you listen
Speaker 3: to this. But in that episode brief recap, we focused
Speaker 3: mostly on a specific artifact from the New Kingdom of Egypt,
Speaker 3: which was a dagger found wrapped up with the mummy
Speaker 3: of the pharaohtutan Common, which had a blade made of iron.
Speaker 3: Now that might not sound remarkable, but this was a
Speaker 3: blade made of iron from an era before the large
Speaker 3: scale smelting of iron in Egypt. And the really cool
Speaker 3: thing about this knife and many other iron artifacts from
Speaker 3: before the regional iron age in Egypt is that they
Speaker 3: were probably created out of iron that came from a
Speaker 3: meteorite space metal. So we also discuss the history of
Speaker 3: knowledge that meteorites come from space, including the story of
Speaker 3: how European scientists came to generally agree on the cosmic
Speaker 3: origin of meteorite rocks only around the beginning of the
Speaker 3: nineteenth century or so. And then also some interesting evidence
Speaker 3: that the ancient Egyptians did actually know that iron meteorites
Speaker 3: came from space, for example, the way they referred to
Speaker 3: iron as the iron of the sky or the metal
Speaker 3: of the sky, and some other linguistices clues in the
Speaker 3: way the glyphs of the Hieroglyphic language are put together.
Speaker 3: And then there are also some other languages like Sumerian,
Speaker 3: which have long had similar associations between iron or certain
Speaker 3: types of iron, and the sky. And so today we're
Speaker 3: back to talk about more examples of the use of
Speaker 3: metal from space inhuman artifacts, in human technological history.
Speaker 2: That's right, And where we're going to go next, We're
Speaker 2: going to get back into the use of iron and
Speaker 2: meteoric iron in meteorites in Chinese tradition, Chinese history, and
Speaker 2: maybe just a little dash of Chinese mythology. I want
Speaker 2: to refer back to a write up on iron that
Speaker 2: appears in the seventy Great Inventions of the Ancient World
Speaker 2: by Brian and Fagan. With this particular bit by Paul T. Kratick,
Speaker 2: cratic sums up Chinese iron usage by pointing out that
Speaker 2: iron production in China began around the ninth century BCE,
Speaker 2: perhaps introduced from the West, but also just as likely
Speaker 2: an independent invention, and that by the Han period to
Speaker 2: go to BCE, the Chinese quote incontestably led the world
Speaker 2: in iron technology and production. But of course, as with
Speaker 2: these other examples we've been looking at, we do have
Speaker 2: evidence of artifacts created with meteoric iron prior to this.
Speaker 2: Specifically it takes us back to the Sheng dynasty. This
Speaker 2: would have been around fourteen hundred BCE. Now, as we
Speaker 2: previously mentioned, there of course has been some back and
Speaker 2: forth on the testing of various pre Iron age iron artifacts,
Speaker 2: and ultimately a lot of that is still going on,
Speaker 2: and these blades are often mentioned in some of those documents.
Speaker 2: Now in that paper that I credited in the last
Speaker 2: episode from Albert Jambond twenty seventeensh Bronze age iron meteoretic
Speaker 2: or not a chemical strategy, at least according to this source,
Speaker 2: the nickel count is low in these examples, but not
Speaker 2: low enough to assign terrestrial origin, and that this is
Speaker 2: definitely a case it seems like where the lower nickel
Speaker 2: content is likely due to weathering effects. The blades themselves
Speaker 2: have long been discussed as probable examples of meteoric iron,
Speaker 2: going back at least as far as the book two
Speaker 2: Early Chinese bronz Weapons with Meteoritic iron Blades by gettens
Speaker 2: at All in nineteen seventy one, which details that these
Speaker 2: blades were found in nineteen thirty one in Anyang Hanan
Speaker 2: within a single tomb, which is also cited in Metals
Speaker 2: in Antiquity by young at All nineteen ninety nine. Now
Speaker 2: I have a picture here of these artifacts here for
Speaker 2: you to look at, Joe and everyone else. You can
Speaker 2: look these up as well online. Just look for meteoric
Speaker 2: iron Chinese axes or Chinese broad axes and you can
Speaker 2: likely find images of this. You can tell that these
Speaker 2: were ornate, highly stylized weapons. Now, I want to note
Speaker 2: that both of these sources here that are talking about it,
Speaker 2: they seem to indicate less than certainty in some of
Speaker 2: the details, saying that there seems to be a lot
Speaker 2: of believe to have been in these references. Though, to
Speaker 2: be clear, these weapons have long been in the Freer
Speaker 2: collection at the Smithsonian, and there's no indication that the
Speaker 2: dating or a larger geographic origin is particularly endowed here.
Speaker 2: I just couldn't help it pick up on the fact
Speaker 2: that this is one of those accounts where there seem
Speaker 2: to be a little bit of ambiguity but no real
Speaker 2: sticking points. I think in trying to understand where these
Speaker 2: came from. These would have been Chinese broad axes, formally
Speaker 2: inlaid and again likely largely ceremonial. These are not weapons
Speaker 2: that would be out on the battlefield. Ah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I had been assuming the same was true
Speaker 3: of Tuton Common's iron dagger, though in fact I guess
Speaker 3: I don't have a way of knowing that for sure,
Speaker 3: don't have a reason to suspect to use this for
Speaker 3: knife dueling or anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting to think about these examples in terms
Speaker 2: of how do you use it right, because you know,
Speaker 2: we have cases where you're going to have some sort
Speaker 2: of an iron weapon that is going to be of
Speaker 2: exceptional quality, but you're going to have so few of them,
Speaker 2: maybe even just one. You know, what are you going
Speaker 2: to do during the Bronze period with your iron weapon.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like if, as a thought experiment, you
Speaker 2: were to say, okay, what if I were to take
Speaker 2: a lightsaber back to the one hundred Years War between
Speaker 2: England and France during the fourteenth and fifteenth century, and
Speaker 2: you gave it to one side or the other, you know,
Speaker 2: what good is it going to do? You know, you
Speaker 2: could make a case maybe for some sort of special
Speaker 2: forces style use of the weapon by either party. Okay,
Speaker 2: single combat, sure, but more likely than not, a single
Speaker 2: lightsaber is not going to decide anything during the fourteenth
Speaker 2: or fifteenth century in any kind of like warfare scenario.
Speaker 2: It would make far more sense as a ritual object,
Speaker 2: as a tool of propaganda, is essentially like a scepter
Speaker 2: to show how special and or powerful you are.
Speaker 3: And as we talked about last time, with the specific
Speaker 3: case of iron versus the dominant medal of bronze, there's
Speaker 3: not even really a clear material superiority of early iron
Speaker 3: weapons over say, well made bronze ones of the period.
Speaker 3: That the advantages of iron when moving into the Iron
Speaker 3: Age were primarily advantages in terms of economics and the
Speaker 3: sourcing of materials, that it was easier to produce lots
Speaker 3: of iron implements and tools and weapons at scale, rather
Speaker 3: than it being that iron is just a much better
Speaker 3: metal or something.
Speaker 2: Right right, And the other key point, as we discussed
Speaker 2: in the last episode is the knowledge of where the
Speaker 2: meteorc iron came from, like knowing that this weapon is
Speaker 2: of heavenly origin or of cosmic origin and so forth,
Speaker 2: that seems to often be really important. And so I'm
Speaker 2: going to get into that question here with Chinese examples.
Speaker 2: Turning first back to Gettings at All, the work to
Speaker 2: early Chinese bronze weapons with iron blades from seventy one.
Speaker 2: They point out that meteorite falls were known to the
Speaker 2: ancient Chinese and discussed in literature, often in reference to portents.
Speaker 2: So if the metal used was known to have come
Speaker 2: from the sky, they contend, it would have added to
Speaker 2: the auspiciousness of the weapons and the reason that the
Speaker 2: iron was used in these cases instead of jade, which
Speaker 2: typically occupied an elevated position of ceremonial importance for weapons
Speaker 2: and so forth. Such usage may have also influenced known
Speaker 2: Chinese meteorite fragments. Quote such a use of meteoritic iron
Speaker 2: might also explain the fact that only one iron meteorite
Speaker 2: find is known from China. This I is referring to,
Speaker 2: you know, ancient examples of meteorite, the idea being that
Speaker 2: the iron meteorites would have been known as a source
Speaker 2: for this sort of metal and would have been used
Speaker 2: as such. And certainly these are not the only known
Speaker 2: examples of Chinese meteoric weapons or weapons or artifacts that
Speaker 2: are believed or it's argued, may be made of such iron.
Speaker 2: There are several known artifacts of possible meteoric iron from
Speaker 2: the late Sheng and early Western Zoo. So for examples
Speaker 2: of some of those observations, because they mentioned, okay, the
Speaker 2: ancient Chinese knew about meteorites. They knew they came from
Speaker 2: the sky. For some examples of this knowledge, I turned
Speaker 2: to the nineteen ninety four paper Meteorite Falls in China
Speaker 2: and some Related Human Casualty Events by Yao at All,
Speaker 2: published in the journal Meteoritics. They looked at accounts from
Speaker 2: roughly seven hundred BCE through nineteen twenty CE, with the
Speaker 2: earliest account cited found in the Spring and Autumn Annals,
Speaker 2: traditionally attributed to Confucius, would have historically lived around five
Speaker 2: fifty one through four to seventy nine BCE. This work
Speaker 2: is one of the five classics of ancient Chinese literature,
Speaker 2: and it covers an historical period stretching from seven twenty
Speaker 2: two to for eighty one BCE, and the work includes
Speaker 2: coverage of a six forty five BCE event in which
Speaker 2: quote in translation, of course, five stones fell in Sung
Speaker 2: And there are various other accounts in this article that
Speaker 2: they don't highlight all of them, but they highlights some
Speaker 2: of historic. Note there is a Sey dynasty account. This
Speaker 2: is from the work History of the Suy Dynasty, and
Speaker 2: it refers to a six sixteen BCE meteorite, with the
Speaker 2: account depicting a meteorite hitting a siege tower during the
Speaker 2: besiegement of a walled city.
Speaker 3: What.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the idea is that there's a you know,
Speaker 2: a siege situation going on, a meteorite hits, takes out
Speaker 2: the siege tower, causes the sea, and then either the
Speaker 2: strike of the meteorite or the perhaps far more likely
Speaker 2: the subsequent collapse of said siege tower results in I
Speaker 2: believe I read possibly ten fatalities. That was their I
Speaker 2: think the recorded number. If this is true, it might
Speaker 2: stand as the earliest recorded human meteorite related fatality. These are,
Speaker 2: of course rare. You're talking about situations where you know,
Speaker 2: a meteorite hits somebody or hits the vicinity of a
Speaker 2: human and in doing so results in a casualty. But
Speaker 2: it's also not entirely clear. I've read some criticism of
Speaker 2: this account saying, Okay, this is certainly possible, it would
Speaker 2: be a very rare occurrence. It's we also have to
Speaker 2: just acknowledge that it's possible that this siege tower was
Speaker 2: taken out by something far more mundane, like human munitions
Speaker 2: fired from the wall of the siege city, that sort
Speaker 2: of thing. But it is kind of It is cataloged
Speaker 2: in the historic records, so I've seen numerous texts acknowledge
Speaker 2: it and say, well, perhaps this is true.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So hundreds of accounts follow these early accounts of meteorites
Speaker 2: and the Chinese records, and I'm not going to go
Speaker 2: through all of them, or even the ones listed in
Speaker 2: this source. But there's one more I wanted to mention
Speaker 2: here because it does line up with what we're talking
Speaker 2: about and the subject of meteors and iron, and that
Speaker 2: is the non meteorite shower of thirteen forty one. It's
Speaker 2: notable because it seems to have been a shower of
Speaker 2: iron meteorites, and it was even referred to as quote
Speaker 2: the iron rain, with descriptions of the resulting bore holes
Speaker 2: in the earth, matching up with what we know of
Speaker 2: iron meteorite impacts today now thirteen forty one, of course,
Speaker 2: is far outside the Bronze Age examples we're looking at,
Speaker 2: but you know, you conbind this with certainly these much
Speaker 2: earlier examples, and it does seem clear that the ancient
Speaker 2: Chinese knew that meteorites came from above, they came from
Speaker 2: the sky, and that alone would be enough to sort
Speaker 2: of factor into these myth making understandings of what a
Speaker 2: weapon forged of such iron would mean. By the way,
Speaker 2: speaking of Chinese mythology, it's worth noting that You the Great,
Speaker 2: the character that we've talked about on the show before,
Speaker 2: founder of the shop of the dynasty, in myth and legend,
Speaker 2: the bringer of flood controls, is sometimes, at least at
Speaker 2: least in early Chinese mythology, connected to meteorites. Oh so,
Speaker 2: according to Mark Edward Lewis, in the Mythology of Early China,
Speaker 2: some texts say that you was born of a stone
Speaker 2: or in a place named for a stone, while other
Speaker 2: tellings state that quote his mother was inseminated by a
Speaker 2: magical stone or meteor.
Speaker 3: Oh interesting, this is a different way of sort of
Speaker 3: like parenthood by the gods.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so I had not run across this before.
Speaker 2: I cross checked it in a couple of my go
Speaker 2: to Chinese mythology sources Yang and in Turner's Chinese Mythology
Speaker 2: and Burrel's work on Chinese mythology. Both of these texts,
Speaker 2: I refer to an origin story for you by which
Speaker 2: he's born from the belly of his father's corpse following
Speaker 2: the said father's execution. And this I'm guessing this entirely
Speaker 2: masculine birth as a Buryl describes it. I guess this
Speaker 2: is the predominant origin story that comes later, and that
Speaker 2: Lewis here is focusing primarily on early tellings before those
Speaker 2: traditions emerged.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, I see.
Speaker 2: So anyway, these axes, among other artifacts, you know, another
Speaker 2: example of an ancient Bronze Age culture having access to
Speaker 2: meteoric iron using it to craft weapons that then have
Speaker 2: an exalted place within their culture. Uh, and so, And
Speaker 2: definitely look up images of this if you have the
Speaker 2: ability to do so readily, because you can you know
Speaker 2: they're they're they're not in priestine form, they haven't been
Speaker 2: restored or anything like that they're not anywhere near the
Speaker 2: the completeness of tut and Commons dagger, but you can
Speaker 2: still get a sense of the majesty they would have had.
Speaker 3: Yeah, even the stubs are beautiful. Okay. I want to
Speaker 3: talk about a statue, specifically a metal sculpture allegedly from Tibet,
Speaker 3: sometimes called the Iron Man, referred to in a lot
Speaker 3: of media reports as as the Iron Man or sometimes
Speaker 3: as the Space Buddha.
Speaker 2: Well, these these, both, these descriptions both take you somewhere,
Speaker 2: that's for sure.
Speaker 3: So this statue weighs about ten point six kilograms or
Speaker 3: about twenty three pounds, and is roughly twenty four centimeters
Speaker 3: or about nine and a half inches tall. It is
Speaker 3: made of iron, and it depicts a bearded male figure
Speaker 3: that is sometimes referred to as a Buddha, sometimes referred
Speaker 3: to as a god, sometimes referred to as a man.
Speaker 3: But he is depicted wearing trousers, a sort of cape
Speaker 3: or cloak that's joined over his shoulders in a knot
Speaker 3: on his chest. He's wearing kind of almost kind of
Speaker 3: cloglike looking shoes, pants with a split in the cuff
Speaker 3: at the bottom of the pant legs, and what looks
Speaker 3: to me kind of like scale armor over his mid section.
Speaker 3: And then on that scale armor there is the symbol
Speaker 3: of a swastika, which, remember, before it was appropriated by
Speaker 3: the German Nazi Party, that was around nineteen twenty, it was,
Speaker 3: for you know, injuries or even millennia, a traditional symbol
Speaker 3: with positive associations in a lot of different cultures and
Speaker 3: religions throughout the world, notably in Hinduism and Buddhism.
Speaker 2: That's right, and it still has that status in various
Speaker 2: Hindu and Buddhist traditions, though of course permanently ruined in
Speaker 2: the West by the appropriation of the Nazi Party.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so in the iron Man statue, the figure
Speaker 3: has a halo like disc behind his head and he
Speaker 3: is clutching a round egg shaped object in one hand.
Speaker 3: His legs are folded underneath his body, so he looks
Speaker 3: like he could be sitting cross legged or perhaps even dancing.
Speaker 3: But this whole thing is carved out of a solid
Speaker 3: piece of metal, with a rough, unfinished base below the figure.
Speaker 3: So what is the deal with this weird metal statue. Well,
Speaker 3: there was a bunch of media about this statue way
Speaker 3: back in twenty twelve, it was associated with the publication
Speaker 3: of a paper that was looking into its physical makeup
Speaker 3: and its origins. The paper was by Buckner at All,
Speaker 3: published in the journal Media Critics and Planetary Science again
Speaker 3: in twenty twelve, and it was called Buddha from Space,
Speaker 3: an ancient object of art made of a China iron
Speaker 3: media write fragment. So I'm going to start with what
Speaker 3: was originally alleged by it, but keep in mind that
Speaker 3: some of the information I'm going to say at first
Speaker 3: is either not certain or almost certainly not true. The
Speaker 3: lead author of this paper, Elmer Buckner, is a geologist
Speaker 3: affiliated with the Planetology Institute at Stuttgart University, and so
Speaker 3: the authors of this paper were looking into the question
Speaker 3: of first of all, what this statue is made of,
Speaker 3: but also what does it depict and where did it
Speaker 3: come from? As to where it comes from, there again
Speaker 3: is plenty of debate about this, but the story as
Speaker 3: received by the authors of the paper goes like this.
Speaker 3: In the years nineteen thirty eight and nineteen thirty nine,
Speaker 3: Adolf Hitler's SS sponsored a research and propaganda expedition to Tibet.
Speaker 3: This is kind of a famous famous expedition about which
Speaker 3: there has been much cultural legend, but this expedition was
Speaker 3: led by the German zoologist and explorer Ernst Schaeffer. This
Speaker 3: expedition collected a lot of material for return to Germany.
Speaker 3: So they took a bunch of plant and animal samples,
Speaker 3: seeds and grains and plants, and they cataloged birds. There
Speaker 3: was ornithology missions and stuff like that, and it also
Speaker 3: took a lot of cultural artifacts, including, according to a
Speaker 3: Triple As blog post about this paper by Stephen A.
Speaker 3: Edwards quote, a robe believed to have been worn by
Speaker 3: the Dali Lama, a gold coin, and the iron statue.
Speaker 3: The latter apparently attracted the attention of the Nazis because
Speaker 3: of a swastika carved into its center. So that's the
Speaker 3: story about where it came from. What does appear to
Speaker 3: be true is that the statue was in the possession
Speaker 3: of a private collector from sometime unknown until the year
Speaker 3: two thousand and seven, which is the same year these
Speaker 3: authors began investigating it. But before then, the allegation is
Speaker 3: that it was taken from Tibet by Schaffer's men in
Speaker 3: the late thirties and then disappeared during World War II,
Speaker 3: only to reappear to the public in the two thousands.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 3: Now, as to the question of what the statue is
Speaker 3: made of, the authors conducted an elemental analysis and found
Speaker 3: that the concentration of elements present in the metal was
Speaker 3: consistent with an iron meteorite. So much like the analysis
Speaker 3: we talked about in the previous episode looking at King
Speaker 3: Tut's dagger, here they found high concentrations of nickel. This
Speaker 3: statue was approximately sixteen percent nickel by weight and about
Speaker 3: zero point six percent cobalt. These are not ratios you
Speaker 3: would expect to find in earth based iron. Earth based
Speaker 3: iron extracted from before the eighteen hundreds tends to be
Speaker 3: not more than about four percent nickel. Also, the authors
Speaker 3: analyzed the ratios of trace platinum group metals and found
Speaker 3: that these were also consistent with meteorite iron. Not only
Speaker 3: that they were able to match this metal to the
Speaker 3: composition of meteorites from a specific known impact area. They write, quote,
Speaker 3: the geochemical data of the meteorite generally matched the element
Speaker 3: values known from fragments of the chinga a tax site,
Speaker 3: A tax site meaning ungrouped iron meteorite strewn field discovered
Speaker 3: in nineteen thirteen. The provenance of the meteorite as well
Speaker 3: as the piece of art strongly points to the border
Speaker 3: region of eastern Siberia and Mongolia. Accordingly, and I went
Speaker 3: and did a little more looking. So it seems that
Speaker 3: the Chinga meteorite is sort of it's an area rather
Speaker 3: than one specific object. The Chinga meteorite field is something
Speaker 3: that contains fragments of meteorite found by gold miners in Tuva,
Speaker 3: which is a region of southern Siberia in Russia near
Speaker 3: the border with Mongolia, and the hundreds of meteorite fragments
Speaker 3: found there are thought to result from an object that
Speaker 3: exploded in the atmosphere over Tuva between ten and twenty
Speaker 3: thousand years ago. So the scientific evidence that the iron
Speaker 3: Man statue was made out of meteorite iron seems quite strong.
Speaker 3: But what about these other questions? What does this statue depict?
Speaker 3: And when was when and where was it made? Here's
Speaker 3: where we start getting into the much more disputed territory.
Speaker 3: The authors of this twenty twelve paper claimed that it
Speaker 3: was likely a depiction of the warrior king, god and
Speaker 3: wealth Buddha known as vice Ravana, who is the guardian
Speaker 3: of the North. You can think of sort of heavenly
Speaker 3: beings that are guard ardians of the cardinal directions, and
Speaker 3: Viceravana is the guardian of the North. This figure, Viceravanna,
Speaker 3: shares characteristics with the Hindu deity known as Kubera and
Speaker 3: is also known as Jambala, sometimes shown carrying a lemon
Speaker 3: or a money bag in his hand, and in other depictions,
Speaker 3: especially earlier ones, the authors say that Viceravana is shown
Speaker 3: as quote, a corpulent figure that holds a mongoose which
Speaker 3: spews jewels from its mouth. Sometimes also, especially beginning in
Speaker 3: the second half of the eighth century, they say, he
Speaker 3: is shown with ghosts at his feet. So, due to
Speaker 3: a number of visual motifs such as the crossed legs
Speaker 3: and the scale armor and so forth, the authors believe
Speaker 3: that this is Viceravana we're looking at. But they also
Speaker 3: write their thoughts about the religious significance of the swastika
Speaker 3: in the image. They say, quote, the swastika prominently displayed
Speaker 3: on the cuirass of the sculpture was a symbol frequently
Speaker 3: used is by the nature based pre Buddhist Bun religion
Speaker 3: rooted in the western parts of Tibet. The Bun religion
Speaker 3: had its own literature and art that was, they say,
Speaker 3: continuously absorbed into the Tibetan Buddhism that propagated into the
Speaker 3: entire area of Buddhist influence. A paper I'm going to
Speaker 3: talk about in a minute, I think will somewhat dispute
Speaker 3: that claim. But they say, accordingly, the iron Man could
Speaker 3: represent a Bun slash Buddhist hybrid, showing some recognition features
Speaker 3: of Kubera the early Vicerovana.
Speaker 2: O good, all right, and not getting into the criticism
Speaker 2: is about to come. That would seemingly make sense. We
Speaker 2: can point in various examples, not only in Buddhist traditions,
Speaker 2: but in other traditions where we see these emerging of
Speaker 2: art styles and merging of cultures in a particular sculpture
Speaker 2: or other work.
Speaker 3: Sure, and so going with this hybrid art hypothesis, they write, quote,
Speaker 3: according to this interpretation, the possible provenance of the iron
Speaker 3: Man is western Tibet or anywhere in the area of
Speaker 3: Buddhist influence, and the age can be tentatively dated at
Speaker 3: the eighth to tenth century. Now, as far as I
Speaker 3: can tell, the chemical analysis that they did appears sound.
Speaker 3: I've not come across major criticism of the analysis of
Speaker 3: the materials. So the statue is probably made of meteorite iron,
Speaker 3: perhaps even from the known source of the Chinga meteorite field,
Speaker 3: but the question of its cultural origin I found to
Speaker 3: be strongly disputed. So there is a professor of Buddhist
Speaker 3: studies named Akim Beher that could be Beayer or Bayer.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure. I'm going to say Beyer. Apologies if
Speaker 3: that's wrong. Behar, who was at one point affiliated with
Speaker 3: Dunguk University in Soul, South Korea. He may be at
Speaker 3: a different institution now, addressed these claims in an article
Speaker 3: that I found called the Lama Wearing Trousers Notes on
Speaker 3: an iron statue in a German private collection. And here's
Speaker 3: where the story, I think becomes even more interesting, because,
Speaker 3: of course, any statue or sculpture made out of a meteorite,
Speaker 3: that's inherently a pretty fascinating idea. But it goes beyond that,
Speaker 3: because it calls up questions of the authenticity of art
Speaker 3: and our ability to recognize what we're looking at when
Speaker 3: we're looking for cultural authentics and forgeries and fakes. In
Speaker 3: this paper, Behar does not dispute the meteorite origin of
Speaker 3: the iron, but argues that the statue is not authentically
Speaker 3: Tibetan or Mongolian and bear's clear and well known hallmarks
Speaker 3: of European imitations of Tibetan art. In other words, instead
Speaker 3: of being a eight to tenth century Tibetan religious sculpture
Speaker 3: made out of iron from space, it is a modern
Speaker 3: European forgery made out of iron from space, or perhaps
Speaker 3: not forgery, perhaps just imitation. I guess to decipher the
Speaker 3: difference between forgery and imitation, maybe you would need to
Speaker 3: know the intent of the artist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I would imagine so, But as we've been
Speaker 2: saying that that would appear to be lost to history,
Speaker 2: so all we can do is offer conjecture.
Speaker 3: So Beyer says that at the time of his writing
Speaker 3: in response to this paper and the media that followed it,
Speaker 3: no authority on Tibetan or Mongolian art had ever publicly
Speaker 3: authenticated the sculpture. So basically, from his point of view,
Speaker 3: I think he's saying like, there's not even really anybody
Speaker 3: within the relevant field to disagree with about this. It's
Speaker 3: just clearly not authentic. And he goes on to list
Speaker 3: thirteen stylistic elements of the sculpture that make it overwhelmingly
Speaker 3: clear to him that it is a fake. I'm not
Speaker 3: going to go through all thirteen, but I wanted to
Speaker 3: mention a couple in detail, and then I can just
Speaker 3: allude to the rest. So one example that even looked
Speaker 3: weird to me. I am not claiming to be an
Speaker 3: expert on Tibetan or Buddhist art. I don't really know
Speaker 3: anything about it. But I looked at the statue and
Speaker 3: I was like, huh, the shoes look weird, and what
Speaker 3: do you know? So he identifies as this very first
Speaker 3: item on the list the footwear. He writes, quote, the
Speaker 3: lama is neither barefoot, nor does he wear traditional boots.
Speaker 3: The shoes cover the feet like European shoes up to
Speaker 3: the ankles, and no further. And Rob, I've got a
Speaker 3: zoom in for us to look at here of the
Speaker 3: shoes on the image. Again, they do look weird to me.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying what looks weird to me should be
Speaker 3: decisive on this issue. I just thought it was funny
Speaker 3: that they did look weird to me. So after I
Speaker 3: read this comment by Bear, I went around looking for
Speaker 3: other images of vice Ravana in Buddhist art and other
Speaker 3: images of just figures from Tibetan art, and yeah, I do.
Speaker 3: I don't really see shoes that look like this. I
Speaker 3: either see like bare feet or boots that go up
Speaker 3: the calf.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I had a similar experience after I read this
Speaker 2: in your notes. I have a copy of Roberty Fisher's
Speaker 2: Art of Tibet that I've used in research projects before,
Speaker 2: so I got that out I started looking through it.
Speaker 2: That book, by the way, does not cover this particular
Speaker 2: statue or mention it as far as I could tell,
Speaker 2: but it has a lot of illustrations. So I scan
Speaker 2: through it, and I don't know. I had an odd experience,
Speaker 2: Like I love looking at t bett and art. I
Speaker 2: love the complexity and all the rich information that is
Speaker 2: contained within some you know that becomes apparent to someone
Speaker 2: like me, But a lot of it is just lost
Speaker 2: on me, as I am not its historic contended viewer.
Speaker 2: But it is almost I found it almost physically painful
Speaker 2: to look at each of these amazing images and focus
Speaker 2: not on anything else going on in them, but to
Speaker 2: look at the feet and the shoes. There are some
Speaker 2: images where feet are seemingly very important, and so it's
Speaker 2: not like feet or just a non commodity in these images,
Speaker 2: but there's just so much going on that I had
Speaker 2: a hard time looking at just the feet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was some series we did a while back
Speaker 3: where we talked about, you know, and there's variation within
Speaker 3: all art styles, but we talked about how a lot
Speaker 3: of Tibetan art is just gloriously busy. There's like so
Speaker 3: much going on in it, and so much text here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it is if memory serves from those past episodes.
Speaker 2: Like part of it comes down to, of course, you
Speaker 2: have a very complex theology that needs to be related
Speaker 2: to some degree through these visual representations. And then also
Speaker 2: there's a strong case to be made that the landscape
Speaker 2: plays into it, that there is a kind of scale
Speaker 2: to the Tibetan landscape that therefore makes these interior holy
Speaker 2: spaces need to be busier, need to be just so
Speaker 2: full of additional details and without any of these you know,
Speaker 2: artistic voids that become important in other traditions. But anyway,
Speaker 2: I looked at a lot of feet in these when
Speaker 2: I could see them, and because it seemed like most
Speaker 2: of the examples just broadly feet on all art. You know,
Speaker 2: it's either going to be a barefoot or it is
Speaker 2: going to be a feet you cannot see because they
Speaker 2: are obscured by clothing. And I, in fact, I don't
Speaker 2: think I saw a single shoe in that particular book.
Speaker 2: I also went to a rather prolific blog online of
Speaker 2: of Himalayan Buddhist art titled It's you can find It's
Speaker 2: Himalayan Buddhist Art dot WordPress dot com. A lot of
Speaker 2: images on there, with some some write ups. It seems
Speaker 2: to be a very current blog. I looked around on there,
Speaker 2: and in fact, and there I found I found lots
Speaker 2: of bare feet, and I did find at least one
Speaker 2: example of a couple of examples maybe a footwear, one
Speaker 2: of which, though is clearly, like you said, a boot
Speaker 2: that goes, you know, much much farther up the leg,
Speaker 2: as opposed to what we see in the alleged iron
Speaker 2: Man here. And so like you, now, when I look
Speaker 2: at the iron Man's feet, I'm like, this is this
Speaker 2: feels off? Like it feels even more off now that
Speaker 2: I have all this additional information in my head about it.
Speaker 2: They you know, they look like, I don't know, kind
Speaker 2: of like little elfin shoes I don't know exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but again it's not just our opinion. Expert on
Speaker 3: Buddhism and Tibetan art says, this is not what this
Speaker 3: usually looks like. Bear's next point points out the pants.
Speaker 3: This guy's wearing pants, and he says, this is sort
Speaker 3: of a dead giveaway that the trousers worn by the
Speaker 3: lama in this sculpture are to be found nowhere else
Speaker 3: in Tibetan or Mongolian sculpture of the time, in which
Speaker 3: figures may wear robes or might have armor covering their shins,
Speaker 3: but never pants like this. And even there's kind of
Speaker 3: this interesting like what would you call this a flare
Speaker 3: or I guess like a split. There's like a split
Speaker 3: in the pant leg down at the cuff. And yeah,
Speaker 3: Behar is like, I don't know what to make of that.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's just to make it look sort of different
Speaker 3: than normal pants, like pastoral or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, most of these images you look at Yeah
Speaker 2: you're looking at it flowing robes and so forth or armor. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was looking around too for examples of what we
Speaker 2: might describe as pants, and I was not finding them.
Speaker 3: So then Bear goes on the list eleven other points
Speaker 3: of difference from known Tibetan or Mongolian art, having to
Speaker 3: do with everything from the way the body is positioned,
Speaker 3: like the position of the legs, to how body parts
Speaker 3: such as the beard and the hands are rendered. There
Speaker 3: are major differences there. How the halo is depicted. I
Speaker 3: want to come right back to that, and then things
Speaker 3: about the clothing and the jewelry. Just a lot of
Speaker 3: stuff about this does not fit with the alleged context
Speaker 3: it supposedly comes from. So the part about the halo
Speaker 3: was also in me given that we did a series
Speaker 3: of episodes on halo imagery a couple of years ago.
Speaker 3: Bayer says that halo's attached to the body like I
Speaker 3: actually attached to the body on the sculpture are not
Speaker 3: very common in genuine metal statues here, if they have
Speaker 3: a halo, tends to be like a separate piece from
Speaker 3: the body in the sculpture, But then also notes that
Speaker 3: the halo around the figure's head and then the greater
Speaker 3: ariole or behind the figure's body are totally blank and
Speaker 3: featureless circles.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 3: I did a little digging deeper on this, and I
Speaker 3: found another paper zooming in and showing maybe there are
Speaker 3: a few little scratches and the halo if you zoom in,
Speaker 3: but there's no major decoration or adornment. And if you
Speaker 3: compare this to how halo's or arioles, you know, the
Speaker 3: glow around the head or the glow around the body,
Speaker 3: how they're usually depicted in Tibetan or Buddhist art, it's
Speaker 3: a world of difference. They are usually not a blank circle.
Speaker 3: They are usually highly textured, highly adorned, like we were saying,
Speaker 3: very busy, with a lot going in them, maybe depicted
Speaker 3: as flames or having a kind of texture within them,
Speaker 3: or showing even little like scenes and figures inside them.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think this feels like a strong point. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that this halo feels way too casual. Yeah, and probably
Speaker 2: has more in common with Western depictions of a halo,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, looks more like a halo you'd see around the
Speaker 3: head of a saint in like a medieval Catholic depiction
Speaker 3: or something. Yeah. Yeah, So there is a bunch of
Speaker 3: stuff like this that just does not match the cultural
Speaker 3: context of its alleged production and on the art elements,
Speaker 3: Behar says, quote, my own research has not yielded a
Speaker 3: single even remotely similar object, which led me to conclude
Speaker 3: that the statue is in fact a European counterfeit, and
Speaker 3: I was encouraged to take this conclusion by several colleagues
Speaker 3: I contacted. While no such artifacts exist in Inner Asia,
Speaker 3: artifacts of the pseudo Tibetan style exist in abundance, produced
Speaker 3: as home decoration for film sets and the like. Any
Speaker 3: highly improbable claim to the opposite would have to carry
Speaker 3: the burden of proof. So having made the case that
Speaker 3: this is a European imitation rather than a genuine Tibetan
Speaker 3: or Mongolian original, the paper also addresses some other questions,
Speaker 3: including who is depicted in the sculpture and where it
Speaker 3: comes from. As to who is depicted, Bear agrees actually
Speaker 3: that it might possibly be Vice Sravana, which is what
Speaker 3: the original authors proposed, but then also give some other possibilities.
Speaker 3: Maybe it is Podmasimbava, there was another figure. It could
Speaker 3: be an amalgam of elements from different original figures. And
Speaker 3: then there's the question of where did it come from.
Speaker 3: Bear also here casts doubt on the story that this
Speaker 3: was taken from Tibet by by the Nazi Schaffer expedition.
Speaker 3: In the late thirties. He claims that after corresponding with
Speaker 3: the authors of the twenty twelve study, he could find
Speaker 3: no reliable evidence that this piece had any historical association
Speaker 3: with Schaffer or with the SS. I could be wrong,
Speaker 3: but as best I can tell, the evidence for the
Speaker 3: association is the claim of the collector who produced it
Speaker 3: in the two thousands. But that came with no like
Speaker 3: historical evidence backing it up or no reliable documentation. So
Speaker 3: Bayer doubts the Schaffer connection totally.
Speaker 2: So this might have just been a story that was
Speaker 2: heaped on, perhaps just to make it a little more
Speaker 2: marketable to.
Speaker 3: Collectors possibly, and that could in fact work in two
Speaker 3: different ways. He identifies two different hypotheses for the production
Speaker 3: of this. One is that it's a He calls it
Speaker 3: something produced for the quote general antique and curio market,
Speaker 3: in which case the oustica depicted on the armor and
Speaker 3: the association with the Schaffer expedition would just like sort
Speaker 3: of give it more general mystery, be like wow, that's weird,
Speaker 3: and be attractive to a general antique buying audience or
Speaker 3: curio buying audience. But then he says there's another interpretation,
Speaker 3: which is a little more sinister, which is that it
Speaker 3: is made specifically to appeal to the market for Nazi memorabilia,
Speaker 3: in which case these associations would would have a specific
Speaker 3: direct appeal. So who did make it, Beyer says, we
Speaker 3: don't know, but he thinks that most likely it was
Speaker 3: made by a European artist sometime roughly between nineteen ten
Speaker 3: and nineteen seventy. Why those dates, The reasoning seems to
Speaker 3: be that this would be a period when there was
Speaker 3: a market for this sort of thing, for artifacts imitating
Speaker 3: Tibetan styles or things to be passed off as Tibetan
Speaker 3: in origin. But there was also still before nineteen seventy
Speaker 3: enough ignorance within the market for this sort of art
Speaker 3: that something of this quality could be passed off as authentic.
Speaker 3: He says, after around nineteen seventy, quote, more details of
Speaker 3: original Tibetan art gained wide dissipation, so probably the market
Speaker 3: would be more aware of like that this would not
Speaker 3: pass muster. So from Bear's perspective, we don't know what
Speaker 3: happened for sure, but it seems possible that it was
Speaker 3: something like a piece of meteorite iron from the Chinga
Speaker 3: meteorite field in Tuva again that southern Siberia somehow gets
Speaker 3: transported to Germany, where sometime in the twentieth century, maybe
Speaker 3: between like nineteen ten and nineteen seventy roughly, it is
Speaker 3: partially forged and carved into a statue made to crudely
Speaker 3: imitate Tibetan art, and then from there it passes into
Speaker 3: a collector's market with this story behind it, with this
Speaker 3: alleged link to the Schaffer expedition, and then he wraps
Speaker 3: up the article by sort of discussing the importance of
Speaker 3: consulting Pece in the relevant fields before go before you know,
Speaker 3: going public with claims of authenticity. So of course I'm
Speaker 3: you know, I'm not qualified to adjudicate this matter either,
Speaker 3: but I would tend to take the word of people
Speaker 3: who specialize in Tibetan art in evaluating whether something is
Speaker 3: authentically Tibetan art or not. And he says, basically, any
Speaker 3: specialist in Tibetan or Buddhist art could have looked at
Speaker 3: this and said this is not authentic. And it's still
Speaker 3: an interesting story with that additional context as well, because
Speaker 3: so like a European forgery of Buddhist art imbued with
Speaker 3: a mysterious Nazi backstory, which is in fact made out
Speaker 3: of iron from a Siberian meteorite. How does that happen?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's still this enigma, isn't it, even if it's
Speaker 2: not the enigma that some tellings would make it out
Speaker 2: to be.
Speaker 3: But that's not all. There is one more development in
Speaker 3: this story that I came across. So in the year
Speaker 3: twenty seventeen, age German historian of Tibet named Israun Engelhart
Speaker 3: published an article called the Strange Case of the Buddha
Speaker 3: from Space. And in this piece, Engelhart gives extensive reasons,
Speaker 3: first of all, for thinking the sculpture was not brought
Speaker 3: back to Germany from Tibet by the expedition in the
Speaker 3: late nineteen thirties, which that expedition she had actually studied
Speaker 3: in great depth. For one thing, the members of the
Speaker 3: SS expedition actually made meticulous catalogs of the items but
Speaker 3: they brought back from Tibet, and the iron statue is
Speaker 3: not listed among them. But Engelhart in this paper also
Speaker 3: documents her attempts to track down the ownership history of
Speaker 3: the Iron Man, and these efforts are somewhat successful and
Speaker 3: they end up, pointing her back to a sort of
Speaker 3: aggressively negotiating antiquities dealer from Russia. Going off that information,
Speaker 3: Engelhart eventually reaches the conclusion to the sculpture was probably
Speaker 3: somehow associated with a known historical figure. That it was
Speaker 3: probably associated with and perhaps made for the strange Russian
Speaker 3: artist Nikolai Rarick, that spelled Roe r Nikolai Rarick, who
Speaker 3: lived from eighteen seventy four to nineteen forty seven. Rareck,
Speaker 3: in his career, traveled extensively in Central Asia and was
Speaker 3: obsessed with the Himalayas and with Tibet, and there are
Speaker 3: many portraits of him posed in Tibetan garb and with
Speaker 3: Tibetan surroundings. He's wearing Tibetan robes. In nineteen twenty six,
Speaker 3: Rareck produced a sketch that Engelhart came across, and the
Speaker 3: sketch is entitled the Order of rigden Yeppo, and the
Speaker 3: sketch really looks a lot like the Iron Man statue.
Speaker 3: There's a similar posture and pose, a similar double halo,
Speaker 3: similar pointed hat, similar clothing, and a note about the
Speaker 3: title there that Rarek understood riggdan Jeppo as the name
Speaker 3: of a figure meant to be the future ruler of
Speaker 3: a spiritual kingdom known as Chambala in Tibetan Buddhism, and
Speaker 3: further writing about the comparisons between the iron man statue
Speaker 3: and the sketch and eventually the painting produced by Rerek
Speaker 3: unknown as the order of Riggdan yeppo engel Heart writes quote,
Speaker 3: the left hand of both the sketch and the statue
Speaker 3: seems to hold neither a mongoose nor a vase, but
Speaker 3: rather the famous radiant Centamani stone, the wish fulfilling jewel
Speaker 3: coming from the Sky, which Rarec painted several times. In
Speaker 3: nineteen twenty three, when the Rarecks were in Paris, they
Speaker 3: received a mysterious package through dubious channels that allegedly contained
Speaker 3: this very stone, said to be a fragment of a meteorite.
Speaker 3: And apparently Rarick and his wife Elena, who was Elena
Speaker 3: was very into the mystical religious movement then known as Theosophy.
Speaker 3: They got really excited about the meteorite stone and believed
Speaker 3: it have great significance for their lives. Apparently Rareck had
Speaker 3: long had thoughts like imagined himself as carrying around a
Speaker 3: magic stone that had some kind of like potency and
Speaker 3: meaning for his fate, but anyway, Motivated in part by
Speaker 3: their theosophical beliefs, Nikolay and Elena attempted to lead an
Speaker 3: expedition in the nineteen twenties to find Shambala in the
Speaker 3: in Tibet, to find the entrance to Shambala, and not
Speaker 3: only that, but Nikolai would eventually come to see himself
Speaker 3: and to style himself as rig Danneppo, the King of Shambala,
Speaker 3: and so he had like ceremonial robes and other trappings
Speaker 3: of this station created befitting his kingly destiny. Apparently, his
Speaker 3: claim to be the king of Shambala did not go
Speaker 3: over amazingly well with the Tibetans, and ultimately the expedition
Speaker 3: was considered a failure. Rareck got incredibly mad at Tibet
Speaker 3: and at Buddhism after this and published a bunch of
Speaker 3: nasty things about them. But coming back to the statue,
Speaker 3: where did the statue come from? Engelhart argues, based on
Speaker 3: a number of clues, that it's quite likely that Rereck
Speaker 3: had this statue made out of meteorite iron around nineteen
Speaker 3: twenty six to nineteen twenty seven in order to represent
Speaker 3: himself as the King of Shambala, and that's why it
Speaker 3: bears these similarities to the sketch and the painting that
Speaker 3: he did of himself in this posture. And this would
Speaker 3: have probably been done by a metal worker somewhere in Urga,
Speaker 3: the capital of Mongolia today known as ulan Batar, and
Speaker 3: this would have been while the Rareks were staying there
Speaker 3: in preparation for their expedition to bet So I think
Speaker 3: we would need more like physical evidence to make the
Speaker 3: link for sure, But I think it's good detective work,
Speaker 3: and engle Heart makes a makes a really strong case,
Speaker 3: circumstantial case based on the similarities of the artworks and
Speaker 3: themes that we know that Raheric and Rarek and his
Speaker 3: family were very interested in. So it seems quite plausible
Speaker 3: to me. Anyway. I think that'll do it for today's
Speaker 3: episode on the Iron from Space, But I feel like
Speaker 3: we've got more to talk about with this subject now, Rob.
Speaker 3: I think you've got an interview scheduled to run on
Speaker 3: Tuesday of next week, right, But can we come back
Speaker 3: with part three of this discussion on Thursday?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Yeah, we have more examples of potential meteoric iron
Speaker 2: artifacts to discuss and more related topics. So we'll come
Speaker 2: back for a part three on Thursday, with an interview
Speaker 2: episode airing on Tuesday that's not related.
Speaker 3: To this topic.
Speaker 2: Sounds great, can't wait in the meantime, certainly right in.
Speaker 2: If you have thoughts on the alleged iron man, well,
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess the iron part is not alleged.
Speaker 2: It's a man. He's made out of iron. He is
Speaker 2: iron man. No one can doubt that. We can't take
Speaker 2: that away from him. But if you have thoughts on that,
Speaker 2: or if you have thoughts on Chinese artifacts in Chinese
Speaker 2: mythology right in, we'd love to hear from you. Also,
Speaker 2: if there are other examples from other cultures that we
Speaker 2: haven't covered so far, bring them up, because we do
Speaker 2: have a few things lined up to discuss. But if
Speaker 2: you get us in time, you might be able to
Speaker 2: we might be able to add it to the list,
Speaker 2: or if it comes in after the fact, perhaps it's
Speaker 2: something we can discuss on our listener Mail episodes. Our
Speaker 2: listener Mail episodes publish on Mondays and The Stuff to
Speaker 2: Blow Your Mind podcast feed core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
Speaker 2: short form episode on Wednesdays, and on Fridays, we set
Speaker 2: aside most serious concerns just talk about a weird film
Speaker 2: on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
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