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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuffwork

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert lamp and I'm Joe McCormick. In.

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Speaker 1: Today we're going to be doing a stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind take on ancient tombs. One really fascinating, amazing,

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Speaker 1: interesting ancient tomb in particular. But I wanted to start

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Speaker 1: off by talking about ancient tombs in general because my

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Speaker 1: main point of contact with ancient tombs, I have to

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Speaker 1: be honest, is not through real archaeology, but is through

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Speaker 1: like movies and all the types of ancient tombs that

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Speaker 1: you get a curse by going into the kind of

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Speaker 1: ancient tomb that can serve as a suitable backdrop for

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Speaker 1: a swashbuckling adventure. Yes, that has guardians of some kind

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Speaker 1: that will like come to life and attack you with

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Speaker 1: with creatures that they command maybe or that well, you

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Speaker 1: know ancient axes, uh, and they've got some kind of

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Speaker 1: animal head or something like that. Or how about the

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Speaker 1: ones that make you sick, like they give you a disease,

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Speaker 1: or just generally are full of booby traps, like you know,

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Speaker 1: they're gonna have spikes rolling out at you, and don't

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Speaker 1: forget the curse. You've gotta have a good curse in there.

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Speaker 1: Did I not say a curse? I thought I did. Well,

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Speaker 1: you said sickness, right, Okay, well, I mean that could

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Speaker 1: be part of the curse. But yeah, we we have

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Speaker 1: all these sort of fantastic ideas of what these tombs

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Speaker 1: should be. And at the same time, I feel like

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Speaker 1: there's this trap we may fall into of just saying, oh, well,

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Speaker 1: of course, ancient people's created these megaprojects. They made pyramids

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Speaker 1: and large scale tombs, and they went to ridiculous links

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Speaker 1: to preserve the dead. And that's that's just what ancient

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Speaker 1: people did. And we we lose sight of the enormity

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Speaker 1: of the thing. Uh and, and we we don't necessarily

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Speaker 1: engage in the thinking of these people. What was going

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Speaker 1: through their minds. Why did all of this collective effort

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Speaker 1: go into the creation of artificial mountains and uh and

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Speaker 1: and models of the underworld. And in some cases, like

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Speaker 1: for instance, we've we've touched on this before, the ancient Egyptians,

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Speaker 1: you get the feeling of a spaceship. It is the

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Speaker 1: feeling of a of a vessel that is going to

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Speaker 1: take the physical remains of the dead king and his

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Speaker 1: objects or representations of those objects in some cases the

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Speaker 1: bodies of loved ones with them into the afterlife. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And of course what's worth looking at as well is

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Speaker 1: not just what were they thinking that that is fascinating,

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Speaker 1: but also how did they do it? Sometimes these ancient

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Speaker 1: tombs are technological marvels. It's bizarre to think that people

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Speaker 1: would create funerary structures and storage for dead bodies. That was,

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Speaker 1: you know, the the pinnacle of technological achievement at the time,

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Speaker 1: like maybe even beyond buildings that people would actually live in. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and we don't have as much to compare this to today.

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Speaker 1: Like I've been to Nicolas Cagees pyramid in New Orleans.

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Speaker 1: He's not in it yet, What are you talking about?

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Speaker 1: He has a pyramid shaped tomb prepared for himself in

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Speaker 1: a cemetery and messing with me. No, it's it's actually

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Speaker 1: it's legitimate. Yeah. So a cemetery in New Orleans and

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Speaker 1: has a pyramid. It's prepared for Pharaoh Cage when he

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Speaker 1: when he meets his demise, correct, and he's going to

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Speaker 1: go there and be interred. That's that's the plan. And

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Speaker 1: then when the flood comes. What he'll get washed out

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Speaker 1: and he's gonna be fine. Will be in the pyramid.

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Speaker 1: I assume they're it's it's They're gonna be provisions in there,

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Speaker 1: everything Nicolas Cage will need in the afterlife. Oh man,

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Speaker 1: can you just imagine canopic jars full of Nicolas Cage guts?

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Speaker 1: I am now, I am now. So in this episode,

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Speaker 1: we are going to venture into Chinese history. We are,

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Speaker 1: in fact going to look at one of the most

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Speaker 1: important figures in Chinese history, a little bit about his life,

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Speaker 1: but then also a fair bit about his death and

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Speaker 1: his preparations for death. Right. So the subject of today's

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Speaker 1: episode is the tomb of the first Chinese emperor, Chin Chihuong,

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Speaker 1: and Chin Chihuong is an interesting figure in history, but

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Speaker 1: I would venture that he has the coolest, weirdest, most

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Speaker 1: fascinating tomb of any person who ever lived. Would you agree?

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Speaker 1: I would. I would definitely agree. Now, granted, it's part

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Speaker 1: of it, I think, is you grow up knowing so

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Speaker 1: much about the Pyramids that you're you're kind of dull

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Speaker 1: to the Pyramids after a while. So it's difficult to

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Speaker 1: compare anything to those massive works. But this is incredible.

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Speaker 1: This is this is I feel at least on par

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Speaker 1: with those creations. Well, first, let's take a look at

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Speaker 1: who was Chin Chihuang right, and we should we should

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Speaker 1: take a moment to just sort of ground this in

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Speaker 1: Chinese history. Uh I realized Chinese dynastic succession can be

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Speaker 1: confusing for many people. But here the basics, and this

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Speaker 1: will get us up to the time period we need

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Speaker 1: for this episode. So, the first Chinese dynasty was the

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Speaker 1: Shah dynasty from seventy to six BC. It comes first,

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Speaker 1: but it's also largely mythological, with some early Bronze Age evidence.

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Speaker 1: And then comes the Shan dynasty, which was long considered

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Speaker 1: apocryphal as well, but historians now correlated with oracle bone writings.

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Speaker 1: And this period takes us up through roughly eleven twenty

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Speaker 1: three b C with the Jode dynasty. In China's first

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Speaker 1: millennium BC. This was a time of conflict, especially two

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Speaker 1: periods known as the Spring and Autumn that went to

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Speaker 1: seven two through one b c E and the Warring

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Speaker 1: States period which went four seventy five through two b

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Speaker 1: c E. Okay, but by the end of the Warring

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Speaker 1: States period we're into the third century b c. E.

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Speaker 1: And then at the end of the Wearing States period, uh,

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Speaker 1: the the Chin dynasty picks up. This is when the

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Speaker 1: Chin Kingdom conquers other Central Chinese states and becomes the

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Speaker 1: First Imperial dynasty under Chin chi Wong, the first Emperor

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Speaker 1: of the Chin, and technically he becomes the first emperor

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Speaker 1: at a very young age. He is he is he's

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Speaker 1: born into this conquered realm essentially, and it becomes the

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Speaker 1: young king of the First Empire. Now, not to pick

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Speaker 1: on him in particular, you just never think it's that

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Speaker 1: great an idea when somebody becomes an absolute ruler when

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Speaker 1: they're a teenager. Yeah, it um generally it's a red flag.

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Speaker 1: When you're reading history books, you're like, oh, this this

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Speaker 1: guy is starting young. He's either going to be great

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Speaker 1: or terrible. And well, I think this is the case

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Speaker 1: where you can realize that someone can be great and terrible.

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Speaker 1: That's that's that's that's kind of the thing that emperors do, right,

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Speaker 1: And of course he would be a pivotal figure here.

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Speaker 1: He would begin a line of rulers that would continue

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Speaker 1: until nineteen twelve. That being said, his particular dynasty would

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Speaker 1: be very short lived because in the first of many

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Speaker 1: peasant uprisings to echo through Chinese history, Lu Bong rose

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Speaker 1: up and conquered China to found the Han dynasty in

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Speaker 1: two oh six b C. Only fifteen years later after

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Speaker 1: his death. And uh, and this would last for some

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Speaker 1: four hundred years. This was the I mean, the Han

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Speaker 1: dynasty that would be tremendously important. It's why you call

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Speaker 1: the major ethnic group in China the Han people. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so Chin Chi Huang was incredibly powerful in his time,

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Speaker 1: but this very short rule, right, it's almost as if

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Speaker 1: you looking at it from historical perspective, he was he

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Speaker 1: like rocketed into history and just made a bee line

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Speaker 1: for his death basically, and we do have to stress too,

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Speaker 1: it's like he was not a thirteen year old warlord

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Speaker 1: per se. Uh. He was. He arrived upon the throne

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Speaker 1: thanks to the military prowess of his family, of his

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Speaker 1: father and grandfather in particular. Now, I said that about

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Speaker 1: the view of history moving toward his death, not because

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Speaker 1: all he did was die. He did a lot, but

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Speaker 1: because the main thing that we can now see the

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Speaker 1: remains of him is this massive monument to his dead body.

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Speaker 1: That's right now, of course, it wasn't the only thing

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Speaker 1: he accomplished in his life. Here are just a few

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Speaker 1: of the key points. We're not gonna do a complete

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Speaker 1: biography of the man, but in two fourteen b c.

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Speaker 1: He indentured thousands, some three hundred thousand men I believe

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Speaker 1: uh laborers to link existing city walls into the one

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Speaker 1: Great Wall. On top of that, he oversaw vast public

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Speaker 1: works projects, such as the Stone Cattle Road that bridged

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Speaker 1: the central trade cities over the mountains. He also unified

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Speaker 1: currency measurements, and this is key in relation to our

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Speaker 1: other episode this week, written language, and all of this

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Speaker 1: helped to stitch together a cohesive state that exists to

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Speaker 1: this day. On top of that, and we'll get into

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Speaker 1: this in a bit, he also longed for immortality, and

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Speaker 1: of course he constructed one of the greatest tombs in

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Speaker 1: his in human history, containing over seven thousand soldiers, that

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Speaker 1: we refer to as the Terra Cotta Army near uh Cheyenne. However,

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Speaker 1: as John Key points out in his book China, a History,

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Speaker 1: which came out in two thousand nine, we have to

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Speaker 1: be careful not to overstate his influence, so his dynasty

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Speaker 1: would last barely a generation. And and everything would have

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Speaker 1: to be basically put back together again by the Han dynasty.

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Speaker 1: And plus his influence only covered his Key points out

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Speaker 1: core China, and that not entirely now. In his life,

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Speaker 1: the emperor came to know both the anxiety of one

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Speaker 1: who holds the highest level of power and the fears

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Speaker 1: of all who occupy immortal form. Key points out that

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Speaker 1: he may have been spooked by a couple of failed

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Speaker 1: assassination attempts. Yeah, and uh, and he was. He was

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Speaker 1: already master of quote all under heaven, so he decided

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Speaker 1: to become a master over death as well. This seems

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Speaker 1: like a very natural move that comes to warlords who

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Speaker 1: have conquered all their enemies, like once you have secured

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Speaker 1: your rule, the next thing you move on to is

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Speaker 1: the enemy. No one has yet defeated death itself. How

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Speaker 1: not to die? How not to end um? He ended

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Speaker 1: up removing himself from public sight. He sought the secret

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Speaker 1: of eternal life. Death was made a taboo subject, and

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Speaker 1: to speak it in his presence was punishable by death.

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Speaker 1: He summoned wizards and holy men from across the lands,

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Speaker 1: and spared no expense in creating the elixirs that they

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Speaker 1: prescribed him. Uh. Some argue that the mercury poisoning from

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Speaker 1: these elixirs might have actually hastened his demise. Oh, and

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Speaker 1: there will be more about that later on. Now, according

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Speaker 1: to the stories about Chin Chijuan's search for immortality, he

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Speaker 1: was truly committed to it. Like he sent expeditions right,

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Speaker 1: oh yeah, He dispatched expeditions in search of an island

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Speaker 1: of immortals known as the Islands of Paradise. And on

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Speaker 1: the third voyage, which which he went on himself, he

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Speaker 1: had a dream about a sea monster destroying his his fleet,

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Speaker 1: and as such he stook to took to carrying a

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Speaker 1: crossbow around with him at all times and the voice

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Speaker 1: yeah yeah, and and he the void ended up being

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Speaker 1: delayed because he ended up having to hunt this sea monster. Um.

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Speaker 1: And of course you can fill in the blanks with

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Speaker 1: what that might have been. Maybe it was a whale, uh,

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Speaker 1: a shark, who knows, But he ends up shooting it

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Speaker 1: dead with his crossbow and then dies himself days later. Now.

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Speaker 1: Key attributes these details to second millennium BC e Han

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Speaker 1: historian Sima Chin and says that fabrications wouldn't have been

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Speaker 1: beneath him, but it might have been added by someone else.

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Speaker 1: So in other words, this account of the emperor's obsessions,

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Speaker 1: it might not be accurate, like maybe he wasn't hunting

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Speaker 1: sea monsters with a crossbow. Uh, and maybe it's just

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Speaker 1: alluding to his obsessions. Well, yeah, I mean that. I

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Speaker 1: think that comes with pretty much anything from ancient history.

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Speaker 1: You always usually can't rely on it to be totally accurate,

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Speaker 1: but it will at least usually eliminate you as to

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Speaker 1: what ancient people thought. So even if this doesn't tell

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Speaker 1: us how the first Emperor of China died, it tells

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Speaker 1: us what his reputation was, and is that reputation was

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Speaker 1: one of an obsessed tyrant. He would he would go

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Speaker 1: on to be like the prototypical uh tyrant in Chinese

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Speaker 1: folk tales for generation of fun generation. But to follow

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Speaker 1: up on the descriptions left behind by Sima Chen, I

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Speaker 1: think we should go to the tomb. Yes, so Sima

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Speaker 1: Chen has this wonderful description which which Key quotes in

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Speaker 1: his book quote, they dug down to the third layer

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Speaker 1: of underground springs and poured in bronze to make the

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Speaker 1: outer coffin replicas of palaces, scenic towers, and the hundred officials,

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Speaker 1: as well as rare utensils and wondrous objects were brought

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Speaker 1: to fill the tomb. Craftsmen were ordered to set up

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Speaker 1: crossbows and arrows rigged so that they would immediately shoot

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Speaker 1: down anyone attempting to break in. Mercury was used to

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Speaker 1: fashion imitations of the Hundred Rivers, the Yellow River, and

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Speaker 1: the Young z and the seas constructed in such a

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Speaker 1: way that they seemed to flow. Above were representations of

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Speaker 1: all the heavenly bodies. Below the features of the earth.

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Speaker 1: Whale oil was used for lamps, which were calculated to

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Speaker 1: burn for a long time without going out. Amazing. That

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Speaker 1: is awesome. So first of all, I love the idea

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Speaker 1: of it being rigged with Indiana Jones style booby traps,

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Speaker 1: crossbows set up to shoot people who break in. And

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Speaker 1: it makes me wonder, is this ancient description of the

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Speaker 1: tomb of chin Chi huong Uh like the thing that

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Speaker 1: inspired all of the ancient booby traps tropes in our

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Speaker 1: archaeological interest stories. I know I wanted the same thing

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Speaker 1: because it's become such a trope in fiction and fantasy,

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Speaker 1: in dungeons and dragons that you would have, you know,

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Speaker 1: springloaded booby traps on your tombs. But outside of this,

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Speaker 1: I can't think of an actual, uh historical or or

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Speaker 1: alleged historical account of some sort of complex trap like this.

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Speaker 1: I know they were defensive measures in some of the

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Speaker 1: Egyptian tombs, but I'm not sure about crossbows. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean I can think of mimetic traps so that they

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Speaker 1: will like tell you, hey, don't break in here, because

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Speaker 1: if you do, whatever insects might eat away your flesh

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Speaker 1: or something terrible is going to happen to you. You

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Speaker 1: have some sort of false false chambers, false tombs, uh,

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Speaker 1: misleading corridors, etcetera. But this is if you break in,

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Speaker 1: the crossbow will shoot you. Yeah. And maybe just the

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Speaker 1: idea of the crossbow is enough, right right, Maybe the

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Speaker 1: real trap there, Maybe it's also a memetic trap there,

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Speaker 1: it's just the reputation of having springloaded booby traps to

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Speaker 1: shoot you down. Yeah. And of course some of you

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Speaker 1: might be thinking, well how long would a spring loaded

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Speaker 1: cry sboat trap last? You can you can get a

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Speaker 1: little technical and start wondering, well, what is the what

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Speaker 1: kind of crossbow would you have to construct to last

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Speaker 1: the longest? To be viable? The longest is the defensive measure.

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Speaker 1: But at the same time, if history has shown us anything,

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Speaker 1: a tomb stands the greatest risk of grave robbing in

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Speaker 1: the period of time immediately following the internament. Not to

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Speaker 1: say that modern people don't sometimes come across and and

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Speaker 1: desecrate and disturb ancient tombs, but most of the time

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Speaker 1: they were rated long, long before any modern people got there.

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Speaker 1: The second thing I really love about this description is

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Speaker 1: the idea of the mercury waterways. So the idea is

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Speaker 1: that there was this map on the floor of the tomb,

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Speaker 1: there was a model of China, or at least of

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Speaker 1: the of the Chain Empire, and that it had rivers

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Speaker 1: and seas made of liquid mercury. That seems so amazing

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Speaker 1: and so impossible, but liquid mercury may actually have been

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Speaker 1: used on occasion in the ancient world for ritual or

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Speaker 1: decorative purposes like this. And I want to come back

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Speaker 1: to this idea later in the episode when we talk

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Speaker 1: about some of the chemical and physical analyzes of the tomb.

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Speaker 1: And so fabulous was this tomb that the Chin didn't

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Speaker 1: even mention. The army of terra Cotta warriors, the thing

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Speaker 1: that has captured the imaginations of not only the Chinese,

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Speaker 1: but but everyone in the world since these figures were

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Speaker 1: unearthed in the nineteen seventies. Yeah, totally, and we're gonna

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Speaker 1: get into that unearthing a little bit as well as

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Speaker 1: I think the most amazing fact in all of this,

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Speaker 1: and that is that we know where the actual tomb is.

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Speaker 1: It has been located, and it has not been breached.

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Speaker 1: It's difficult for me to believe that a mystery this

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Speaker 1: thrilling remains undiscovered in the modern world, and that maybe

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Speaker 1: we will decide not to disturb it and not to

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Speaker 1: find out the answers. Yes, it's it's like this weird

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Speaker 1: kind of zen exercise for for archaeologists and just for

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Speaker 1: the world in general. Here is this secret place that

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Speaker 1: has stood undisturbed for for millennia, and uh, and we're

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Speaker 1: not going to disturb it yet because we are not

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Speaker 1: ready to do it. We are not capable, we're not

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Speaker 1: worthy to to open it up yet. And we'll get

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Speaker 1: into the reasons and the arguments around that. Uh, you

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Speaker 1: know later on in the episode. All Right, I think

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Speaker 1: we should take a quick break and then when we

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Speaker 1: come back, we will discuss some information about the tomb complex.

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Speaker 1: Thank alright, we're back. You know, if you want a

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Speaker 1: good overview of of the terracotta warriors, I do recommend

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Speaker 1: the How Stuff Works article on the topic that was

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Speaker 1: actually written by Christen Conger. So I'm going to run

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Speaker 1: through some of the stats that show up in that

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Speaker 1: article just to give you a good overview. The number

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Speaker 1: of years it took to complete uh the and I

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Speaker 1: put complete in quotation marks because it seems that some

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Speaker 1: areas were not quite completed, but a good thirty six

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Speaker 1: years were spent creating this necropolis. That's more than half

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Speaker 1: of the emperor's life. The number of labors around seven

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Speaker 1: hundred thousand were required. The size of the necropolis, We're

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Speaker 1: talking eight hundred twenty thousand square feet or seventy six

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Speaker 1: thousand square meters, a depth of one feet or thirty meters.

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Speaker 1: And the estimated number of terra Cotta warriors in the

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Speaker 1: House to Works article that's cited, it's seven thousand. I

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Speaker 1: keep seeing estimates of upwards of eight thousand. I think

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Speaker 1: that is the more recent estimate. And then the number

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Speaker 1: of weapons forty thousand. Worth pointing out that while the

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Speaker 1: terra cotta warriors in the in the tomb complex were

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Speaker 1: made of clay. They were armed with real weapons. That's right,

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Speaker 1: real weapons. So these are fake warriors armed to the

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Speaker 1: teeth with deadly, state of the art bronze killing implements.

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Speaker 1: And that include swords, spears, lances, axes, and crossbows, crossbows

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Speaker 1: with work king parts like the triggers and catches that

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Speaker 1: had to be made out of metal and and actually,

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Speaker 1: so they were arming people who could not fight with

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Speaker 1: real weapons that could be used to kill. And that's

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Speaker 1: fascinating to me, Like tens of thousands of bronze arrowheads

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Speaker 1: ready in these quivers of clay warriors. What does this mean?

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Speaker 1: Why not fake weapons for the clay soldiers. It is

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Speaker 1: mind boggling, isn't it, Because again, on one level, you

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Speaker 1: do you don't want to just dismiss something like this

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Speaker 1: as well. I guess ancient people did this. This is

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Speaker 1: just how they treated their their their emperors and their

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Speaker 1: rulers and their fair h This is a massive investment

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Speaker 1: of resources. It almost signals to me that whatever role

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Speaker 1: the emperor believed these terra cotta warriors would play, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, if it was a protection role in the

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Speaker 1: afterlife or something like that, it implies a very literal

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Speaker 1: kind of thinking about that role. Is not as if

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Speaker 1: you need these uh, these warriors there for some kind

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Speaker 1: of symbolic meaning or as a sort of gesture to

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Speaker 1: the spirit world, you know, like to to get the

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Speaker 1: magic working. It seems like no, they literally needed weapons

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Speaker 1: that work and that they could fight with. Yeah. And

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Speaker 1: it's interesting too to think of it in terms of

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Speaker 1: the way that the the the necropolis was laid out,

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Speaker 1: where you had the sort of garrison terracotta troops to

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Speaker 1: the west, the actual tomb to the east, and then

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Speaker 1: the west is also the direction in which you had

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Speaker 1: essentially the perceived enemies of the emperor conquered people's etcetera.

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Speaker 1: Uh So, in a sense he was he was building

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Speaker 1: the unreal army to protect his remains from his enemies.

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Speaker 1: Now I should also point out on the topic of

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Speaker 1: the the armory, essentially, you know, all those weapons just

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Speaker 1: sitting there in the tomb, why wouldn't somebody come in

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Speaker 1: and take advantage of those? Well? They did. Uh. In fact,

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Speaker 1: in the third century BC, rebel leader Cheang you breached

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Speaker 1: the outer portions of the necropolis and there he stole weapons,

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00:21:02,000 --> 00:21:05,440
Speaker 1: he smashed soldiers, and he set fires. But the primary

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Speaker 1: goal here was likely vengeance because use allies had suffered

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Speaker 1: terrible losses against the Chin forces. But I do want

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Speaker 1: to stress that this was this was a breaching of

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Speaker 1: the outer necropolis area and not the tomb itself. Right,

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Speaker 1: the inner tomb and the pyramid mound in the middle

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Speaker 1: of the Necropolis apparently remains undisturbed. Now, I was just

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Speaker 1: reading about research published in in the Journal of Archaeological

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Speaker 1: Method and Theory that found by analyzing the metal in

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Speaker 1: all these weapons of the Necropolis, particularly the arrowheads, that

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Speaker 1: they were not mass produced in a single assembly line process,

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Speaker 1: but that they were made through what's known as cellular

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Speaker 1: production or now in the in the modern car sense

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Speaker 1: of it, toyotasm, where independent and self sufficient teams produced

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Speaker 1: whole finished products. And and that's that kind of goes

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Speaker 1: in line with some stuff I've read about how the

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Speaker 1: terracotta warriors themselves were made, which were that they were,

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Speaker 1: you know, contracted out to these independently working master craftsmen

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Speaker 1: who had teams of sculptors and workers also working underneath them.

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Speaker 1: And then the master craftsmen were responsible to these foremen

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Speaker 1: who worked for the emperor to show that their work

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Speaker 1: was of good quality, and they'd have to like sign

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Speaker 1: their name on it in a secret place in case

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Speaker 1: it wasn't very good and they had to answer for

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Speaker 1: their crimes of shoddy warrior design. Interesting toyotasm I had

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Speaker 1: no idea. And here's one final note. The weight of

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Speaker 1: a terracotta warrior was generally around three pounds or a hundreds.

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Speaker 1: It's worth noting that the size of the actual warriors

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Speaker 1: vary depending upon the status of the individual. So your

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Speaker 1: foot soldier would be shorter than your general figure. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and and a common thing pointed out about these is

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Speaker 1: that these are not mass produced, just like the other

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Speaker 1: stuff we were talking about, that it didn't come off

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Speaker 1: in a sim biline. They all appear to have these

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00:23:02,480 --> 00:23:07,719
Speaker 1: little individual differences. Yeah, they're they are very now Sometimes

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Speaker 1: that the descriptions of the process that they do say

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Speaker 1: sort of assembly line or they seem to to reference that,

396
00:23:13,640 --> 00:23:17,960
Speaker 1: and certainly they were assembled. They're composed of parts. There

397
00:23:18,119 --> 00:23:22,119
Speaker 1: was a sort of methodical approach to this like these,

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Speaker 1: This was this was a mega project. There wasn't understanding

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Speaker 1: that we need to create an army of artificial troops.

400
00:23:29,920 --> 00:23:32,680
Speaker 1: But they didn't just have one stamp mold to create

401
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Speaker 1: each of these warriors. Based on what I've read that

402
00:23:35,040 --> 00:23:38,280
Speaker 1: they were apparently made out of clay stacking methods. I

403
00:23:38,320 --> 00:23:40,320
Speaker 1: think there might have been molds for like the general

404
00:23:40,400 --> 00:23:43,800
Speaker 1: head shape, but then the heads were further refined to

405
00:23:43,840 --> 00:23:48,080
Speaker 1: have more individual detail after they were stamped in a mold. Yes, yeah,

406
00:23:48,080 --> 00:23:49,879
Speaker 1: I believe so. But this brings us to to the

407
00:23:49,920 --> 00:23:52,720
Speaker 1: next question, who who was doing the stamping, Who who

408
00:23:52,720 --> 00:23:55,040
Speaker 1: built all of this? Who built the tomb? Well, who

409
00:23:55,080 --> 00:23:58,480
Speaker 1: built the warriors is probably a different question than who

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00:23:58,480 --> 00:24:01,159
Speaker 1: did the like tomb construction and stuff, as far as

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Speaker 1: the tomb goes. I was looking at a study from

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Speaker 1: two thousands sixteen in Nature Scientific Reports by Ying ma

413
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Speaker 1: at All called Tracing the locality of Prisoners and Workers

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Speaker 1: at the Mausoleum of Chin Chihuong, first Emperor of China.

415
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Speaker 1: And so the study finds diverse contingents of workers by

416
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Speaker 1: looking at evidence from two different worker burial sites associated

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Speaker 1: with the mausoleum complex. I don't know if we've mentioned

418
00:24:25,440 --> 00:24:27,760
Speaker 1: yet that a lot of the workers appear to be

419
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Speaker 1: buried on site with their work. Yes, indeed, and this

420
00:24:30,720 --> 00:24:33,000
Speaker 1: is of course something we see in other ancient people's

421
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Speaker 1: as well. If you have a large workforce building your

422
00:24:36,320 --> 00:24:39,400
Speaker 1: secret tomb, well there's only one way to really make

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00:24:39,440 --> 00:24:43,400
Speaker 1: sure secret, right right. So the two burial sites are

424
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Speaker 1: the lee Ye site with with account of a hundred

425
00:24:46,440 --> 00:24:49,280
Speaker 1: and forty six bodies and the shan Rens side with

426
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Speaker 1: a count of fourteen. So the workers buried at the

427
00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:55,480
Speaker 1: lee Ye site appear to be locals, people of the

428
00:24:55,560 --> 00:24:59,280
Speaker 1: chain population, whereas the workers buried at the shawn Ren

429
00:24:59,400 --> 00:25:02,040
Speaker 1: site appear to be prisoners who were forced to work

430
00:25:02,080 --> 00:25:05,080
Speaker 1: on the construction of the mausoleum. And there are differences

431
00:25:05,160 --> 00:25:08,680
Speaker 1: because the skeletons at the lee Ye site UH consumed

432
00:25:08,760 --> 00:25:13,280
Speaker 1: quote predominantly millet and or domestic animals fed millet, and

433
00:25:13,320 --> 00:25:15,920
Speaker 1: they were buried in a much more orderly way, sometimes

434
00:25:15,920 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker 1: with like grave goods such as bronze swords or ceramic pottery. Meanwhile,

435
00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:24,080
Speaker 1: the workers at the chan Rene site UH, they appear

436
00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:27,560
Speaker 1: to be buried haphazardly in a mass grave. They're all

437
00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:31,679
Speaker 1: jumbled together. Some skeletons are still bound in iron shackles

438
00:25:31,720 --> 00:25:34,239
Speaker 1: around the legs, and this shows that of course they

439
00:25:34,240 --> 00:25:37,840
Speaker 1: were probably prisoners. Evidence shows that the Shanrene workers had

440
00:25:37,880 --> 00:25:41,280
Speaker 1: a much more mixed diet than the Lee workers, with

441
00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:45,560
Speaker 1: less domestic animal protein and possibly more wild game protein,

442
00:25:46,040 --> 00:25:48,679
Speaker 1: which seems to suggest they were you know, hunting to

443
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:52,800
Speaker 1: supplement their diet. And the authors also claim evidence that

444
00:25:52,840 --> 00:25:56,840
Speaker 1: the Shanrenne laborers were likely taken from populations in southern China.

445
00:25:57,400 --> 00:26:00,399
Speaker 1: To quote from their abstract quote. This path learn of

446
00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:05,040
Speaker 1: decreased millet consumption is also characteristic of archaeological sites from

447
00:26:05,080 --> 00:26:09,520
Speaker 1: southern China and possible evidence the Shanarn prisoners originated from

448
00:26:09,520 --> 00:26:13,359
Speaker 1: this region, possibly the ancient Chew state located in modern

449
00:26:13,480 --> 00:26:18,639
Speaker 1: day Hubei Province and parts of Hunan and Anhui Provinces. Further,

450
00:26:18,840 --> 00:26:21,840
Speaker 1: this finding is in agreement with historical sources and is

451
00:26:21,880 --> 00:26:25,800
Speaker 1: supported by previous ancient DNA evidence that the mausoleum workers

452
00:26:25,800 --> 00:26:30,560
Speaker 1: had diverse origins, with many genetically related to southern Chinese groups.

453
00:26:31,040 --> 00:26:34,960
Speaker 1: So it looks like prisoners and and freer workers are

454
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:38,600
Speaker 1: being brought together from different sources. Maybe the locals are

455
00:26:38,640 --> 00:26:42,320
Speaker 1: more likely to be the freer laborers, and prisoner labor

456
00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:46,040
Speaker 1: is brought in from conquered states elsewhere. All right, Well,

457
00:26:46,119 --> 00:26:50,480
Speaker 1: let's move on to the discovery or rediscovery of the

458
00:26:50,600 --> 00:26:53,960
Speaker 1: terra Cotta warriors, because as we mentioned already, there there

459
00:26:54,040 --> 00:26:57,280
Speaker 1: was some vandalism and destruction in the years and immediately

460
00:26:57,320 --> 00:27:02,080
Speaker 1: following chinshaih Wong's death, but then we forgot about it.

461
00:27:02,200 --> 00:27:05,640
Speaker 1: Then this place was just forgotten for a century upon

462
00:27:05,720 --> 00:27:10,040
Speaker 1: century up until nineteen seventy four, because up until then

463
00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:11,840
Speaker 1: it was difficult to say how much truth there wasn't

464
00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:14,639
Speaker 1: any of this legend, or how much legend there was

465
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:17,920
Speaker 1: in the truth regarding the tomb of China's first sovereign emperor.

466
00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:20,640
Speaker 1: But this was the year seventy four that some well

467
00:27:20,720 --> 00:27:24,080
Speaker 1: diggers managed to dig down into the chambers of the

468
00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:29,360
Speaker 1: terra Cotta warriors, and then just national and international interests

469
00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:34,000
Speaker 1: sparks all around it. So, as previously mentioned, this portion

470
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:37,600
Speaker 1: of the tomb showed signs of rating and destruction on

471
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:41,160
Speaker 1: a few different occasions, as early as five years after

472
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:44,000
Speaker 1: the emperor's in tournament. As we mentioned earlier, the tomb

473
00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:45,760
Speaker 1: itself is in the west and the pits are in

474
00:27:45,800 --> 00:27:49,400
Speaker 1: the east, as if protecting the emperor against his enemies. Right,

475
00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:52,320
Speaker 1: it's like an outpost. Almost all of the terra Cotta

476
00:27:52,359 --> 00:27:55,880
Speaker 1: warriors are It's like their centuries out there away from

477
00:27:55,920 --> 00:27:58,800
Speaker 1: the tomb itself, to prevent people from getting to it.

478
00:27:59,119 --> 00:28:01,320
Speaker 1: That's right. Now we have we have these various pits.

479
00:28:01,359 --> 00:28:05,240
Speaker 1: We have four main ones. Pit number one, as it's called,

480
00:28:05,320 --> 00:28:08,840
Speaker 1: contains the warriors seven thousand or eight thousand strong. You

481
00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:12,360
Speaker 1: have archers, you have foot soldiers. Then you have Pit two,

482
00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:16,880
Speaker 1: which contains chariots and cavalry. Pit three contains high ranking

483
00:28:17,080 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 1: officials and a war chariot. Pit four is an empty

484
00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:24,480
Speaker 1: area that was perhaps left unfinished. And then you have

485
00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:26,919
Speaker 1: various other pits. I've seen a figure of about like

486
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:34,040
Speaker 1: six hundred containing additional mostly non military statues and relics, entertainers, animals.

487
00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:38,440
Speaker 1: This includes eleven acrobats and entertainers within an exceedingly high

488
00:28:38,560 --> 00:28:42,120
Speaker 1: level of detail, perhaps the earliest example in China of

489
00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:46,360
Speaker 1: human sculpture with like a real anatomical degree of realism.

490
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:49,400
Speaker 1: But to stress yet again, though this is part of

491
00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:53,400
Speaker 1: the necropolis, This is not the tomb itself. Yeah, and

492
00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:55,400
Speaker 1: but at first this was the this was the only

493
00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:58,800
Speaker 1: portion that they were able to find. But then archaeologists

494
00:28:58,840 --> 00:29:03,080
Speaker 1: pinpointed the act little burial chamber about a kilometer away

495
00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:06,480
Speaker 1: from the warrior pits, and as of this recording, it

496
00:29:06,680 --> 00:29:11,240
Speaker 1: is still unbreached. Right. It's this giant, ancient pyramid mound

497
00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:14,560
Speaker 1: that's now covered in earth. We know there's a chamber

498
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:17,479
Speaker 1: under there, and nobody's gone in. That's right. It's it's

499
00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:21,240
Speaker 1: essentially a man made mountain, though it's it's much weathered

500
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:24,640
Speaker 1: by the ages at this point. Uh. But underneath there

501
00:29:24,680 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 1: you have you have a tomb. It's about the size

502
00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:29,880
Speaker 1: of a football field and it has this this double

503
00:29:29,920 --> 00:29:34,280
Speaker 1: wall construction. Now, Key who I mentioned earlier, He points

504
00:29:34,280 --> 00:29:38,040
Speaker 1: out that human sacrifice was still in fashion for funeral

505
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:41,880
Speaker 1: rights at the time. UH. Consorts and concupines who had

506
00:29:41,880 --> 00:29:45,680
Speaker 1: borne no children were expected to join the emperor and death,

507
00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:49,200
Speaker 1: and then, as you mentioned, various labors and craftsmen UH

508
00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:52,720
Speaker 1: likely joined him in order to protect the tomb secrets.

509
00:29:53,320 --> 00:29:56,520
Speaker 1: Yet at the same time, clay effigies were increasingly favored

510
00:29:56,560 --> 00:30:00,640
Speaker 1: over live humans for funeral rights because as ultimately they

511
00:30:00,680 --> 00:30:04,320
Speaker 1: cost less, they cost less, they last longer, and they

512
00:30:04,320 --> 00:30:08,280
Speaker 1: can be mass produced to fill a tomb with numbers

513
00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:12,240
Speaker 1: that mere mass slaughter would struggle to equal. Yeah, I've

514
00:30:12,320 --> 00:30:16,680
Speaker 1: seen this explained in terms of essentially trying to preserve

515
00:30:17,200 --> 00:30:22,280
Speaker 1: the actual workforce of an empire. Yeah, like the soldiers.

516
00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:25,880
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, like we realize you need some military support

517
00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:29,440
Speaker 1: in the afterlife. However, we do need to keep the

518
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 1: actual army intact, or the the real empire, the living

519
00:30:34,200 --> 00:30:36,680
Speaker 1: empire is going to fail. Then again, don't let this

520
00:30:36,760 --> 00:30:39,760
Speaker 1: distract you from what an amazing investment in sacrifice it

521
00:30:39,840 --> 00:30:42,920
Speaker 1: is to spend so much time, energy, money making all

522
00:30:42,960 --> 00:30:46,960
Speaker 1: of these funerary goods and and and structures. This is

523
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:51,200
Speaker 1: an amazing investment. It is. It is amazing. Uh. I

524
00:30:51,280 --> 00:30:54,720
Speaker 1: don't know how how wise ultimately, but an amazing investment.

525
00:30:55,080 --> 00:30:56,920
Speaker 1: All Right, we're gonna take another break, and when we

526
00:30:57,000 --> 00:30:59,840
Speaker 1: come back, we are going to talk about the actual tomb.

527
00:31:00,120 --> 00:31:03,480
Speaker 1: We know about it, what what what our best scientific

528
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:06,960
Speaker 1: tools are able to determine about it? And what's keeping

529
00:31:07,040 --> 00:31:12,440
Speaker 1: us from just going in there and seeing for ourselves

530
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:15,560
Speaker 1: than alright, we're back now. Earlier we mentioned the description

531
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:19,000
Speaker 1: of the tomb by the ancient Chinese historians Sima Chen.

532
00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:23,600
Speaker 1: So what were some features of Sima Chen's description? Well, uh,

533
00:31:23,640 --> 00:31:27,120
Speaker 1: he mentions that they dug down into a layer underground,

534
00:31:27,280 --> 00:31:31,600
Speaker 1: that they had a bronze outer coffin, they had replicas

535
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:37,400
Speaker 1: of palaces, scenic towers, the hundred officials, rare utensils, and

536
00:31:37,440 --> 00:31:40,080
Speaker 1: wondrous objects that were all brought in to fill the tomb.

537
00:31:40,640 --> 00:31:44,120
Speaker 1: And then he talks about the crossbow booby traps that

538
00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:46,800
Speaker 1: are set to kill anybody who tries to loot the tomb.

539
00:31:47,240 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 1: And then he talks about mercury being used to create

540
00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:54,680
Speaker 1: this map of the ancient Cheen Empire, the map of

541
00:31:54,760 --> 00:31:59,719
Speaker 1: China with the waterways, rivers and seas filled literally with

542
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:04,920
Speaker 1: Qui mercury. Now, we discussed earlier whether or not something

543
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:06,880
Speaker 1: like that would be possible. I think we should get

544
00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:11,480
Speaker 1: into more detail about that kind of thing now. Well, surveys, scans,

545
00:32:11,520 --> 00:32:15,280
Speaker 1: and probes have established that the great cavity of the

546
00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:18,640
Speaker 1: chamber is still intact, so that means it hasn't collapsed

547
00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:22,200
Speaker 1: and it hasn't filled with water plus traces of mercury.

548
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:26,280
Speaker 1: Unusually high levels of mercury. Yeah, which could very well

549
00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:28,840
Speaker 1: be due to that description or maybe to something else

550
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:31,920
Speaker 1: regarding that mercury I mentioned. I was going to come

551
00:32:31,920 --> 00:32:37,720
Speaker 1: back to this. According to Archaeology magazine Report, archaeologists have

552
00:32:37,760 --> 00:32:41,360
Speaker 1: known for a while that some ancient meso American tombs

553
00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:46,320
Speaker 1: sometimes contain a powdery mineral or uh this or form

554
00:32:46,360 --> 00:32:51,920
Speaker 1: of mercury known as cinnabar. But since archaeologist with Mexico's

555
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:56,680
Speaker 1: National Institute of Anthropology and History named Sergio Gomez has

556
00:32:56,680 --> 00:33:00,880
Speaker 1: found something even more amazing underneath these meso amery constructures

557
00:33:01,680 --> 00:33:05,960
Speaker 1: traces of liquid mercury in a series of chambers buried

558
00:33:06,040 --> 00:33:11,880
Speaker 1: underneath the third century feathered Serpent pyramid of Teotihakan. So

559
00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:16,120
Speaker 1: like Chin Chi Huong's supposed map of Chinese rivers, Gomez

560
00:33:16,200 --> 00:33:20,120
Speaker 1: thinks that the liquid mercury in the ancient chambers under

561
00:33:20,200 --> 00:33:23,560
Speaker 1: too Tiwakan was supposed to form a sort of map,

562
00:33:23,760 --> 00:33:28,560
Speaker 1: a quote, representation of the geography of the underworld, the

563
00:33:28,640 --> 00:33:33,160
Speaker 1: mythological realm where the dead reside. This silvery liquid was

564
00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:38,200
Speaker 1: probably used to depict lakes and rivers. Really interesting parallel there.

565
00:33:38,640 --> 00:33:40,640
Speaker 1: Except the idea here is that it would have been

566
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:44,200
Speaker 1: not of a real geography, but an imagined one, and

567
00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:48,080
Speaker 1: liquid mercury would seem like the perfect waters for such

568
00:33:48,360 --> 00:33:51,640
Speaker 1: for such rivers, you know, because there is something inherently

569
00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:55,680
Speaker 1: magic seeming about liquid mercury. Oh yeah, yeah, I've got

570
00:33:55,720 --> 00:33:59,640
Speaker 1: to imagine somewhere out there, some really rich nerd has

571
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:02,120
Speaker 1: a secret map of Middle Earth where all of the

572
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:05,480
Speaker 1: water as liquid mercury. This is like a Facebook executive

573
00:34:05,520 --> 00:34:08,799
Speaker 1: in their secret hidden garage room. Yeah. And oh, you know,

574
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:10,640
Speaker 1: I should point out to that this would have been

575
00:34:10,680 --> 00:34:14,520
Speaker 1: important fortuncially long because he his his birth year was

576
00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:19,000
Speaker 1: associated with water, and he always wore black, I've read

577
00:34:19,080 --> 00:34:24,880
Speaker 1: because that was the the the color associated with water. Interesting. Now,

578
00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:28,120
Speaker 1: in the case of the Mesoamerican map, I wonder if

579
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:31,000
Speaker 1: if this is true, if gomez Is interpretation is correct,

580
00:34:31,600 --> 00:34:35,360
Speaker 1: I would have naturally thought, okay, maybe the quicksilver, the

581
00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:39,319
Speaker 1: liquid mercury is supposed to represent the kind of magical

582
00:34:39,440 --> 00:34:44,200
Speaker 1: water of another of another dimension. But it just as

583
00:34:44,200 --> 00:34:46,879
Speaker 1: you point out, I mean, it does very naturally kind

584
00:34:46,880 --> 00:34:50,280
Speaker 1: of simulate the idea of flowing. It's something that looks

585
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:53,759
Speaker 1: like it's moving in a very still state even and

586
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:56,720
Speaker 1: so Gomez has found lots of artifacts in these underground

587
00:34:56,800 --> 00:35:00,000
Speaker 1: chambers since two thousand three. The author of the Archaeology

588
00:35:00,160 --> 00:35:03,839
Speaker 1: magazine piece notes that the humidity of these underground chambers

589
00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:07,160
Speaker 1: might have helped to maintain the liquid properties of the mercury,

590
00:35:07,400 --> 00:35:09,440
Speaker 1: as well as preserving some of the contents of the

591
00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:12,560
Speaker 1: buried rooms like plant seeds and maybe even human skin.

592
00:35:13,080 --> 00:35:15,560
Speaker 1: But there's another article I want to talk about by

593
00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:18,760
Speaker 1: the science writer Philip Ball. He wrote this interesting piece

594
00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:24,239
Speaker 1: in Chemistry World in January called Flowing Rivers of Mercury,

595
00:35:24,560 --> 00:35:27,279
Speaker 1: which investigated this claim that the burial chamber of chin

596
00:35:27,360 --> 00:35:29,960
Speaker 1: Chi Huong contained. This map of known China at the

597
00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:32,840
Speaker 1: time with the rivers and lakes of mercury. So here

598
00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 1: are a few things that Ball says in his article.

599
00:35:35,520 --> 00:35:38,040
Speaker 1: He points out, as you mentioned earlier, Robert, that in

600
00:35:38,120 --> 00:35:41,839
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties Chinese researchers they did this soil testing right,

601
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:44,600
Speaker 1: They tested the soil of the burial mound above the

602
00:35:44,680 --> 00:35:48,160
Speaker 1: unopened tomb to see how much mercury it had in it,

603
00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:52,480
Speaker 1: and the mercury distribution in the soil was very uneven.

604
00:35:52,560 --> 00:35:55,120
Speaker 1: So first of all, above the tomb there is as

605
00:35:55,120 --> 00:35:57,799
Speaker 1: you said, way more mercury than the surrounding soil. The

606
00:35:57,800 --> 00:36:01,080
Speaker 1: surrounding soil had an average of a about thirty parts

607
00:36:01,120 --> 00:36:05,080
Speaker 1: per billion of mercury. Meanwhile, quote the average above the

608
00:36:05,160 --> 00:36:08,200
Speaker 1: chamber was two hundred and fifty parts per billion, and

609
00:36:08,239 --> 00:36:11,520
Speaker 1: in some places rose to fifteen hundred parts per billion.

610
00:36:11,600 --> 00:36:14,719
Speaker 1: So that's a very significant difference. Uh And there was

611
00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:17,960
Speaker 1: another survey in two thousand three by by a different

612
00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:20,240
Speaker 1: team than the one from the nineteen eighties that found

613
00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:23,719
Speaker 1: the same thing. You'd have very high concentrations of mercury

614
00:36:23,760 --> 00:36:27,239
Speaker 1: both in the soil and in the vapors between the

615
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:31,120
Speaker 1: grains of soil above the tomb. That's totally uncharacteristic of

616
00:36:31,160 --> 00:36:34,760
Speaker 1: the general soil in the area. But the different levels

617
00:36:34,800 --> 00:36:38,919
Speaker 1: of mercury at different parts of the tomb have led

618
00:36:38,960 --> 00:36:42,799
Speaker 1: some to hypothesize that it reflects an underlying arrangement of

619
00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:46,160
Speaker 1: mercury underneath, which could indicate a map. So the article

620
00:36:46,200 --> 00:36:51,279
Speaker 1: by Ball sites the archaeologist Chingbo Dwan of Northwest University

621
00:36:51,280 --> 00:36:55,560
Speaker 1: and Sean So. Dwan says, quote, there is no unusual

622
00:36:55,600 --> 00:36:58,520
Speaker 1: amount of mercury in the northwest corner of the tomb,

623
00:36:58,680 --> 00:37:01,480
Speaker 1: while the mercury level is highest in the northeast and

624
00:37:01,600 --> 00:37:04,600
Speaker 1: second highest in the south. And Ball points out that

625
00:37:04,640 --> 00:37:08,080
Speaker 1: the mercury hot spots on this map very roughly matched

626
00:37:08,160 --> 00:37:11,160
Speaker 1: the locations of the two great rivers of China, the

627
00:37:11,280 --> 00:37:13,839
Speaker 1: Yellow and the Young Sea, as they would have been

628
00:37:13,880 --> 00:37:17,799
Speaker 1: mapped with respect to shan Yang, the ancient Cheen capital city,

629
00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:21,720
Speaker 1: so Dwan claims that the distribution of the mercury soil

630
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:25,520
Speaker 1: concentration over the tomb sort of matches the location of

631
00:37:25,600 --> 00:37:28,839
Speaker 1: actual waterways in the Chin Empire. But then on the

632
00:37:28,840 --> 00:37:32,640
Speaker 1: other hand, Yinglan Jiang, an archaeologist at the shan Shi

633
00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:35,759
Speaker 1: History Museum in Sean, he kind of doubts this, and

634
00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:39,439
Speaker 1: he tells Ball quote, the mercury will have volatilized into

635
00:37:39,480 --> 00:37:42,200
Speaker 1: nearby soils during this long time, so it would be

636
00:37:42,239 --> 00:37:45,920
Speaker 1: impossible to show up detailed information that we can connect

637
00:37:46,320 --> 00:37:48,719
Speaker 1: with particular rivers or lakes. And I think that kind

638
00:37:48,719 --> 00:37:50,760
Speaker 1: of makes sense, right, if you're talking about a chamber

639
00:37:50,880 --> 00:37:55,279
Speaker 1: filled with liquid mercury two thousand years ago, seems like

640
00:37:55,320 --> 00:37:57,280
Speaker 1: it would be kind of odd that it would really

641
00:37:57,320 --> 00:38:01,840
Speaker 1: be projecting a very like tight le detailed pattern on

642
00:38:01,920 --> 00:38:03,840
Speaker 1: the soil above it. It seems like you'd get a

643
00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:07,120
Speaker 1: lot of mixing, right, But since we haven't opened the tomb,

644
00:38:07,239 --> 00:38:11,520
Speaker 1: we don't know. This is still amru more more on that,

645
00:38:12,000 --> 00:38:16,000
Speaker 1: Remember how we mentioned that Chin chi Huang long for immortality.

646
00:38:16,160 --> 00:38:19,080
Speaker 1: We talked earlier about how he charged his alchemists and

647
00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:21,879
Speaker 1: wizards with coming up with an elixir of eternal youth

648
00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:24,480
Speaker 1: that would stave off death for him, and what could

649
00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:27,200
Speaker 1: stave off death in ancient China. Well, we already mentioned

650
00:38:27,200 --> 00:38:30,640
Speaker 1: the idea of mercury. One Chinese legend tells of this

651
00:38:30,680 --> 00:38:33,839
Speaker 1: man named Huangan who was able to live for ten

652
00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:38,759
Speaker 1: thousand years by eating cinnabar. Yes, cinnabar, we meant, not

653
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:41,400
Speaker 1: sent a bun. Though though I've heard, I've heard you

654
00:38:41,440 --> 00:38:44,080
Speaker 1: can live for ten thousand years on an exclusive diet

655
00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:46,880
Speaker 1: of cinnabon, I'm not sure if that actually adds up.

656
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:50,520
Speaker 1: Will preserve your colon for ten thousand years? Uh? Yeah,

657
00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:53,480
Speaker 1: Cinnabar is not something you want to eat. It is

658
00:38:53,640 --> 00:38:57,759
Speaker 1: mercury sulfide. Perhaps for this reason that the reason of

659
00:38:57,960 --> 00:39:01,160
Speaker 1: this this legend, Chin Chihuang was said to drink wine

660
00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:05,400
Speaker 1: and honey spiked with cinnabar, which ironically, as we said earlier,

661
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:08,200
Speaker 1: probably helped bring him to an early grave and it

662
00:39:08,239 --> 00:39:10,759
Speaker 1: could have had a severe impact on his mental health. Um.

663
00:39:11,000 --> 00:39:14,640
Speaker 1: You look at some of the the symptoms of mercury

664
00:39:14,680 --> 00:39:17,880
Speaker 1: poisoning and you get things like mood swings, mental disturbances,

665
00:39:18,120 --> 00:39:21,239
Speaker 1: chasing sea monsters with the crossbow potentially yeah, or I

666
00:39:21,320 --> 00:39:24,800
Speaker 1: believe sometimes there it's reported that one of the symptoms

667
00:39:24,880 --> 00:39:27,640
Speaker 1: is a like a reclusive element and there, and we

668
00:39:27,680 --> 00:39:30,160
Speaker 1: already touched on him sort of removing himself from public

669
00:39:30,239 --> 00:39:34,400
Speaker 1: side at one point, probably out of fear of assassination. Uh. Now,

670
00:39:34,520 --> 00:39:38,279
Speaker 1: Chin Chi Huang was by far not the I don't

671
00:39:38,280 --> 00:39:40,000
Speaker 1: know if by far as the right modifier there. He

672
00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:43,440
Speaker 1: was definitely not the only figure in history to poison

673
00:39:43,600 --> 00:39:47,040
Speaker 1: himself with mercury, not not by a long shot. In fact,

674
00:39:47,120 --> 00:39:49,000
Speaker 1: I feel like we could come back and do an

675
00:39:49,160 --> 00:39:52,960
Speaker 1: entire episode just on the historical use of mercury and

676
00:39:53,239 --> 00:39:56,799
Speaker 1: the many cases of mercury poisoning that result. I mean,

677
00:39:56,840 --> 00:40:00,359
Speaker 1: in some cases due to consumption of mercury, but other

678
00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:03,560
Speaker 1: times just to just due to the use of mercury

679
00:40:03,680 --> 00:40:08,000
Speaker 1: and improper ventilation in areas where you're crafting things with it. Well,

680
00:40:08,040 --> 00:40:11,000
Speaker 1: I'm getting right into that now. So later in Chinese history,

681
00:40:11,080 --> 00:40:13,279
Speaker 1: for example, in the Song dynasty of the tent through

682
00:40:13,360 --> 00:40:17,680
Speaker 1: thirteenth centuries, bodies were sometimes soaked in mercury to prevent

683
00:40:17,760 --> 00:40:20,400
Speaker 1: them from rotting. This would be a preservation practice for

684
00:40:20,480 --> 00:40:24,640
Speaker 1: funeral services, but there's no apparent evidence of mercury being

685
00:40:24,760 --> 00:40:28,040
Speaker 1: used as a funeral preservative as early as Chin chi

686
00:40:28,120 --> 00:40:31,759
Speaker 1: Huong's tomb was built, so the researchers don't think that

687
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:35,920
Speaker 1: has happened here. One more thing about the toxicity of mercury.

688
00:40:36,600 --> 00:40:38,759
Speaker 1: It was no easy or safe thing to get a

689
00:40:38,880 --> 00:40:41,399
Speaker 1: hold of liquid mercury in the ancient world, even though

690
00:40:41,480 --> 00:40:44,320
Speaker 1: they could do it. They could make liquid mercury, but

691
00:40:44,440 --> 00:40:47,440
Speaker 1: it wasn't a safe thing to do so. In the

692
00:40:47,520 --> 00:40:51,320
Speaker 1: ancient world, all liquid mercury was made from cinnabar, that is,

693
00:40:51,440 --> 00:40:54,800
Speaker 1: as we've said, mercury sulfide, and you'd extract the mercury

694
00:40:54,880 --> 00:40:56,920
Speaker 1: from it by roasting it in a hot oven with

695
00:40:57,080 --> 00:40:59,879
Speaker 1: access to air. This means the sulfur in the comp

696
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:02,920
Speaker 1: dount is released and forms sulfur dioxide in the air,

697
00:41:03,440 --> 00:41:06,080
Speaker 1: and the pure mercury boils off as a vapor that

698
00:41:06,160 --> 00:41:09,120
Speaker 1: can be captured and condensed. Don't try this at home,

699
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:12,800
Speaker 1: please don't do it. Ball rights that since mercury boils

700
00:41:12,880 --> 00:41:16,560
Speaker 1: at three fifty seven degrees celsius, chain era or kilns

701
00:41:16,640 --> 00:41:19,080
Speaker 1: could have easily reached the temperature to process in a

702
00:41:19,120 --> 00:41:21,759
Speaker 1: bar into mercury. But there's this big downside if you're

703
00:41:21,760 --> 00:41:25,400
Speaker 1: trying to do this in an unsealed container where the

704
00:41:25,480 --> 00:41:28,359
Speaker 1: workers are exposed to the fumes, the workers are going

705
00:41:28,440 --> 00:41:31,760
Speaker 1: to suffer a lot of harm. This is dangerous, nasty,

706
00:41:31,920 --> 00:41:34,799
Speaker 1: harmful work. And it wasn't until later in the Han

707
00:41:34,960 --> 00:41:38,120
Speaker 1: period that the chambers were closed and that the dangers

708
00:41:38,160 --> 00:41:42,320
Speaker 1: of mercury fumes were actually well understood. But all of

709
00:41:42,440 --> 00:41:45,080
Speaker 1: this danger from the mercury fumes does make me think

710
00:41:45,160 --> 00:41:49,239
Speaker 1: about the alleged booby traps in the tomb. The crossbows

711
00:41:49,320 --> 00:41:52,879
Speaker 1: set to fire automatically at looters and de filers. Could

712
00:41:53,040 --> 00:41:57,560
Speaker 1: toxic liquid mercury in a tomb also function as a

713
00:41:57,640 --> 00:42:00,960
Speaker 1: kind of chemical booby trap? I mean, it makes sense, right,

714
00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:03,160
Speaker 1: because even if there was a certain amount of consumption

715
00:42:03,560 --> 00:42:06,680
Speaker 1: of mercury that was taken as as a medicinal element,

716
00:42:07,120 --> 00:42:08,919
Speaker 1: they would have still been able to realize that many

717
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:13,920
Speaker 1: medicinal elements, uh if taken in excess, can be potent poisons.

718
00:42:14,480 --> 00:42:18,080
Speaker 1: So Ball thinks it's unlikely that the mercury was a

719
00:42:18,200 --> 00:42:22,239
Speaker 1: deliberate design choice as a booby trap, because, as he says,

720
00:42:22,280 --> 00:42:25,480
Speaker 1: the toxicity of mercury fumes was not really well understood

721
00:42:25,600 --> 00:42:28,200
Speaker 1: until the Han period. But then again, you still have

722
00:42:28,360 --> 00:42:31,399
Speaker 1: to wonder, and as a side question, I think if

723
00:42:31,560 --> 00:42:34,000
Speaker 1: you were an ancient ruler and you wanted to lay

724
00:42:34,280 --> 00:42:37,640
Speaker 1: chemical booby traps in your tomb to sicken or kill

725
00:42:37,760 --> 00:42:40,560
Speaker 1: people who tried to lute it. What would be the

726
00:42:40,760 --> 00:42:44,640
Speaker 1: best chemical available to ancient people's to do this? What

727
00:42:44,800 --> 00:42:47,440
Speaker 1: what would work the best? What would last the longest,

728
00:42:47,960 --> 00:42:51,560
Speaker 1: maintain its potency or volatility over the years, be the

729
00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:55,080
Speaker 1: most bang for your buck for poisoning your tomb. That's

730
00:42:55,080 --> 00:42:57,000
Speaker 1: a great question because it seems like a number of

731
00:42:57,120 --> 00:43:01,480
Speaker 1: the the naturally occurring botanicalisms that they would know how

732
00:43:01,920 --> 00:43:05,080
Speaker 1: these would be things that you would you would probably

733
00:43:05,120 --> 00:43:08,400
Speaker 1: want to burn them perhaps, or or somehow create a

734
00:43:08,920 --> 00:43:12,520
Speaker 1: paste and spirit in the right place. Um, but these

735
00:43:12,560 --> 00:43:15,360
Speaker 1: are more subtle techniques than what we're talking here, Like

736
00:43:15,760 --> 00:43:18,040
Speaker 1: you wouldn't it would be difficult, I would think, to

737
00:43:18,280 --> 00:43:21,920
Speaker 1: create just an atmosphere of death in the room and

738
00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:25,520
Speaker 1: you would enable someone to walk in and just perish. Yeah,

739
00:43:25,560 --> 00:43:28,120
Speaker 1: it'd be interested. Here's one option. What if it's so

740
00:43:28,200 --> 00:43:31,080
Speaker 1: you've got a sealed off tomb and maybe you leave

741
00:43:31,239 --> 00:43:34,719
Speaker 1: something in there that maintains its potency because it will

742
00:43:34,760 --> 00:43:38,239
Speaker 1: stay basically dormant until it gets exposed to fresh air

743
00:43:38,480 --> 00:43:41,480
Speaker 1: from somebody opening the tomb up. Well, then that that

744
00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:43,960
Speaker 1: is a case where I could see the mercury becoming

745
00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:46,759
Speaker 1: a prime option. Yeah, maybe, I don't know. Let's see,

746
00:43:47,080 --> 00:43:49,279
Speaker 1: all you chemistry nerds out there, please let us know

747
00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:51,880
Speaker 1: what is the best way to chemically booby trap an

748
00:43:51,920 --> 00:43:56,919
Speaker 1: ancient tune. One last question about the liquid mercury. How

749
00:43:57,200 --> 00:44:00,920
Speaker 1: much liquid mercury could conceive able have been put in

750
00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:05,480
Speaker 1: the tomb? If you want to go to maximum allowable estimates? Well,

751
00:44:05,520 --> 00:44:09,200
Speaker 1: that Chinese archaeologist that Ball quotes Dwine, he put together

752
00:44:09,280 --> 00:44:12,239
Speaker 1: an estimate about of the maximum amount of mercury that

753
00:44:12,280 --> 00:44:15,799
Speaker 1: could have been produced by the refining process available at

754
00:44:15,840 --> 00:44:18,600
Speaker 1: the time during the Chain era, and his estimate is

755
00:44:18,640 --> 00:44:23,239
Speaker 1: about a hundred tons or about seven cubic meters or

756
00:44:23,400 --> 00:44:28,640
Speaker 1: seven thousand liters, which is about eighteen hundred and fifty gallons.

757
00:44:29,400 --> 00:44:31,000
Speaker 1: Is that a lot or a little? I don't know.

758
00:44:31,280 --> 00:44:33,880
Speaker 1: So I looked at I tried to I was like,

759
00:44:33,960 --> 00:44:36,200
Speaker 1: how can we map this to volumes? You can picture?

760
00:44:36,520 --> 00:44:39,000
Speaker 1: I tried to phrase it in terms of hot tubs.

761
00:44:39,560 --> 00:44:42,120
Speaker 1: So I looked up hot tubs. The first hot tub

762
00:44:42,160 --> 00:44:44,040
Speaker 1: I found in the Google search was built as a

763
00:44:44,120 --> 00:44:46,839
Speaker 1: seven person hot tub. It looks like a normal hot

764
00:44:46,920 --> 00:44:50,080
Speaker 1: tub and its water capacity is three d and eighty

765
00:44:50,120 --> 00:44:53,719
Speaker 1: gallons or fourteen hundred and fifty liters. That's roughly one

766
00:44:53,840 --> 00:44:56,279
Speaker 1: fifth of the mercury estimate. So if you're trying to

767
00:44:56,360 --> 00:45:01,120
Speaker 1: picture this ancient cheen maximum mercury processing pacity, think of

768
00:45:01,200 --> 00:45:04,600
Speaker 1: a little less than five hot tubs full of liquid mercury.

769
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:08,760
Speaker 1: Of course, now I can't help it, imagine five actual

770
00:45:08,920 --> 00:45:11,840
Speaker 1: hot tubs of liquid mercury within this tomb, you know,

771
00:45:11,920 --> 00:45:13,879
Speaker 1: because where else would you want to hang out as

772
00:45:14,040 --> 00:45:18,680
Speaker 1: uh the undead ghost of an ancient emperor hot tub

773
00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:22,360
Speaker 1: suicide machine. Yeah. Uh, So I come back to the question,

774
00:45:22,520 --> 00:45:25,040
Speaker 1: is that a lot or a little? I guess that

775
00:45:25,160 --> 00:45:26,719
Speaker 1: depends on what you're trying to do with it. Like

776
00:45:27,320 --> 00:45:30,000
Speaker 1: if you're trying to fill the waterways of a football

777
00:45:30,120 --> 00:45:33,520
Speaker 1: field sized map of China, that might not be as

778
00:45:33,600 --> 00:45:35,520
Speaker 1: much as you'd want. But at the same time, five

779
00:45:35,600 --> 00:45:38,120
Speaker 1: hot tubs full of mercury that sounds like at least

780
00:45:38,280 --> 00:45:40,520
Speaker 1: enough to have some fun with. Yeah, I mean it's

781
00:45:40,560 --> 00:45:43,440
Speaker 1: more mercury than because I think back to being a kid.

782
00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:45,640
Speaker 1: My dad was a dentist and he would occasionally show

783
00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:48,279
Speaker 1: me a beat of mercury because it was. It was

784
00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:51,600
Speaker 1: used in amalgam fillings and it was, you know, remarkable

785
00:45:51,640 --> 00:45:54,600
Speaker 1: and magical to look at. But just to imagine like

786
00:45:54,880 --> 00:45:57,600
Speaker 1: even just a hot tub's worth of that that stuff,

787
00:45:58,320 --> 00:46:02,880
Speaker 1: it it boggles them mind. Disclaimer again, especially for our

788
00:46:02,960 --> 00:46:06,040
Speaker 1: younger listeners, we are not recommending you play around with

789
00:46:06,160 --> 00:46:08,600
Speaker 1: toxic liquid mercury. It can came out at all, yes,

790
00:46:09,280 --> 00:46:12,240
Speaker 1: but ultimately we're probably just aren't going to know exactly

791
00:46:12,280 --> 00:46:14,759
Speaker 1: what the deal with the mercury, what the deal with

792
00:46:14,840 --> 00:46:17,480
Speaker 1: the mercury with the tomb is unless we go in there.

793
00:46:18,000 --> 00:46:20,120
Speaker 1: But are we going to go in there? That's that's right.

794
00:46:20,200 --> 00:46:23,319
Speaker 1: I mean. Researchers have been carrying out remote sensing scans. Uh.

795
00:46:23,480 --> 00:46:28,120
Speaker 1: This includes panchromatic remote sensing, color and for red remote sensing,

796
00:46:28,400 --> 00:46:31,080
Speaker 1: and hyper spectral remote sensing, and they've been doing this

797
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:34,760
Speaker 1: since around two thousand and two, five years after they started.

798
00:46:34,840 --> 00:46:38,440
Speaker 1: Researchers concluded that a a thirty meter high building is

799
00:46:38,560 --> 00:46:42,160
Speaker 1: buried in the vast mausoleum. The building, buried above the

800
00:46:42,200 --> 00:46:46,279
Speaker 1: main tomb, had four surrounding steer like walls with nine

801
00:46:46,400 --> 00:46:50,319
Speaker 1: steps each, and according to National Geographic and Archaeologists working

802
00:46:50,400 --> 00:46:52,880
Speaker 1: on the site told the Chinese press that the chamber,

803
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:55,560
Speaker 1: this chamber above the tomb may have been built for

804
00:46:55,600 --> 00:46:58,960
Speaker 1: the soul of the emperor. Interesting, So let's get into

805
00:47:00,239 --> 00:47:03,920
Speaker 1: the basic case for excavation and the case against, because

806
00:47:04,719 --> 00:47:06,600
Speaker 1: that's where we often wind up. On one hand, you're like,

807
00:47:06,880 --> 00:47:10,080
Speaker 1: get in there. I want the mystery solved. Yeah. And

808
00:47:10,120 --> 00:47:12,200
Speaker 1: then you might think we'll just leave it alone too,

809
00:47:12,239 --> 00:47:15,080
Speaker 1: because it's a tomb, right, Uh, not that humans have

810
00:47:15,160 --> 00:47:18,920
Speaker 1: ever been shy about disturbing an ancient tomb. Because we

811
00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:21,320
Speaker 1: were talking about this a little off off, Mike. I

812
00:47:22,080 --> 00:47:26,680
Speaker 1: can't think of another grave site, and I'm talking anything

813
00:47:26,760 --> 00:47:29,320
Speaker 1: from a peasant to an emperor that we know of

814
00:47:30,280 --> 00:47:32,919
Speaker 1: that has not been disturbed it's anywhere near this old

815
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:36,399
Speaker 1: Like this is an anomaly. Yeah, I can't think of one. Yeah,

816
00:47:36,920 --> 00:47:38,880
Speaker 1: I might be missing something. It's a difficult thing to

817
00:47:38,960 --> 00:47:43,759
Speaker 1: research because whenever you do various searches for um unexposed

818
00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:46,720
Speaker 1: tombs or undisturbed tombs, generally that is a story about

819
00:47:46,760 --> 00:47:50,120
Speaker 1: the disturbance of said tomb. Like we finally got it. Yes,

820
00:47:50,239 --> 00:47:53,200
Speaker 1: you are correct about that, but I mean it's funny

821
00:47:53,239 --> 00:47:56,200
Speaker 1: how like you do want to understand more, you want

822
00:47:56,239 --> 00:47:58,440
Speaker 1: to learn about what's in the tomb and everything. But

823
00:47:59,320 --> 00:48:02,359
Speaker 1: you have to recognized that there is even just from

824
00:48:02,400 --> 00:48:06,680
Speaker 1: a scientific standpoint of destructive element to unearthing. If you

825
00:48:06,760 --> 00:48:10,560
Speaker 1: look at the terra Cotta warriors themselves, if you've seen them,

826
00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:14,360
Speaker 1: they're not very colorful, right, They're just clay figures. They

827
00:48:14,440 --> 00:48:16,719
Speaker 1: all have this kind of grayish brown look to them, right,

828
00:48:16,800 --> 00:48:20,640
Speaker 1: But the terracotta warriors were originally painted. Yeah, they were

829
00:48:20,760 --> 00:48:25,640
Speaker 1: hand painted with black hair, green um and white outfits,

830
00:48:25,719 --> 00:48:28,920
Speaker 1: pink faces, black or brown eyes, and some of this

831
00:48:29,080 --> 00:48:32,520
Speaker 1: was lost due to fire or ransacking. But the initial

832
00:48:33,200 --> 00:48:36,799
Speaker 1: thousand and eighties seven soldiers unearthed, they were painted. They

833
00:48:36,840 --> 00:48:39,439
Speaker 1: were painted when they were unearthed, but not for long

834
00:48:39,520 --> 00:48:42,520
Speaker 1: after that. That's right. Exposure to air caused the paint

835
00:48:42,600 --> 00:48:45,719
Speaker 1: to turn an ox oxidized gray, and on top of that,

836
00:48:45,920 --> 00:48:49,800
Speaker 1: the shift in environmental conditions brought in moisture and mold,

837
00:48:50,239 --> 00:48:52,200
Speaker 1: and then when they wiped off the mold, the surface

838
00:48:52,280 --> 00:48:55,080
Speaker 1: dried out, causing the paint to curl and fall off. Right.

839
00:48:55,160 --> 00:48:58,560
Speaker 1: So even this act of unearthing these things to preserve

840
00:48:58,680 --> 00:49:01,840
Speaker 1: them so that the modern world can enjoy the beauty

841
00:49:01,880 --> 00:49:04,920
Speaker 1: of the terra Cotta warriors, it destroys them in the process,

842
00:49:05,040 --> 00:49:08,560
Speaker 1: not fully destroys them, but it destroys some aspect of

843
00:49:08,680 --> 00:49:10,400
Speaker 1: what they're like. And I don't know what the answer

844
00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:13,200
Speaker 1: to that is. Obviously, you've got this separate question of

845
00:49:13,360 --> 00:49:16,960
Speaker 1: you know, respecting the wishes of the ancients, and you know,

846
00:49:17,440 --> 00:49:19,840
Speaker 1: how much should we pay attention to their desire not

847
00:49:20,040 --> 00:49:23,840
Speaker 1: to be unearthed. But then also just in the scientific spirit,

848
00:49:24,040 --> 00:49:26,840
Speaker 1: if by unearthing a thing we know we're going to

849
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:30,280
Speaker 1: cause damage to it, are we hurting our own ability

850
00:49:30,360 --> 00:49:33,239
Speaker 1: to understand it better in the future. Indeed, so many

851
00:49:33,320 --> 00:49:36,520
Speaker 1: of the just the concerns of archaeology itself are are

852
00:49:36,600 --> 00:49:39,720
Speaker 1: summed up with this site. So some of the cases

853
00:49:39,840 --> 00:49:43,160
Speaker 1: for excavation here just broadly are you can protect the

854
00:49:43,200 --> 00:49:46,320
Speaker 1: side against grave robbers, which we're a threat once and

855
00:49:46,440 --> 00:49:50,160
Speaker 1: could conceivably be a threat again. So maybe we should

856
00:49:50,520 --> 00:49:53,560
Speaker 1: get in there and protect the stuff before other people,

857
00:49:53,960 --> 00:49:57,240
Speaker 1: uh finally get fed up and go in there instead. Okay,

858
00:49:57,360 --> 00:49:59,640
Speaker 1: all right, So that's one idea. Another is you want

859
00:49:59,680 --> 00:50:03,400
Speaker 1: to protect the site against geologic threats such as seismic activity.

860
00:50:03,600 --> 00:50:06,680
Speaker 1: Granted it's held up so far, but who knows what

861
00:50:06,760 --> 00:50:09,040
Speaker 1: the future will bring? Right there? Could be an earthquake,

862
00:50:09,160 --> 00:50:12,839
Speaker 1: could collapse, could start leaking and fill with water. Yeah,

863
00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:15,520
Speaker 1: there could be some effects from from climate change that

864
00:50:15,640 --> 00:50:18,400
Speaker 1: might impact the site. Because one of the things to

865
00:50:18,440 --> 00:50:21,760
Speaker 1: keep in mind is we're talking about preserving the relics

866
00:50:21,880 --> 00:50:24,480
Speaker 1: that are in there. Well, they are preserved now, it's

867
00:50:24,520 --> 00:50:29,360
Speaker 1: just to what extent cannet preservation hold based on you know,

868
00:50:29,800 --> 00:50:33,239
Speaker 1: bc E technology. And then finally, of course we would

869
00:50:33,280 --> 00:50:35,560
Speaker 1: want to get in there to study and preserve important

870
00:50:35,640 --> 00:50:39,120
Speaker 1: historical artifacts because we don't know what's in there. We

871
00:50:39,200 --> 00:50:42,359
Speaker 1: don't all we have our our ancient texts and uh

872
00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:45,759
Speaker 1: and and and rough scans to go by. To really

873
00:50:45,840 --> 00:50:48,520
Speaker 1: answer these questions, we would have to enter it. And

874
00:50:48,680 --> 00:50:51,759
Speaker 1: as we've said, it's such a thrilling mystery. Yeah. But

875
00:50:51,840 --> 00:50:54,440
Speaker 1: then again, of course we should acknowledge the case against

876
00:50:54,560 --> 00:50:57,279
Speaker 1: going in uh that now we've mentioned all of the

877
00:50:57,400 --> 00:50:59,920
Speaker 1: damage that could be caused, but we should take a

878
00:51:00,040 --> 00:51:03,319
Speaker 1: minute to linger on the idea of respect for the dead, right, Yeah,

879
00:51:03,400 --> 00:51:07,000
Speaker 1: I mean, sure he was a tyrant, but he was

880
00:51:07,080 --> 00:51:10,200
Speaker 1: an important tyrant. And and then there is a Chinese

881
00:51:10,280 --> 00:51:13,200
Speaker 1: stress on ancestors in respect for the ancestors, so I

882
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:15,440
Speaker 1: think that might reasonably be playing a role as well.

883
00:51:15,640 --> 00:51:18,680
Speaker 1: Then again, do we have an inconsistent ethic on this

884
00:51:18,840 --> 00:51:21,680
Speaker 1: kind of thing because we've unearthed to the mass graves

885
00:51:21,719 --> 00:51:26,160
Speaker 1: of workers who works, you know, archaeologists have dug their

886
00:51:26,239 --> 00:51:29,279
Speaker 1: bodies up, and they've you know, they dig up all

887
00:51:29,400 --> 00:51:32,600
Speaker 1: other kinds of bodies. Are we making an exception in

888
00:51:32,719 --> 00:51:36,960
Speaker 1: this case because this is a rich and powerful and

889
00:51:37,200 --> 00:51:41,480
Speaker 1: historically significant person as opposed to a poor and not

890
00:51:41,719 --> 00:51:46,000
Speaker 1: especially historically significant, at least not individually person. Yeah, I

891
00:51:46,080 --> 00:51:48,360
Speaker 1: think I think you end up having some you know,

892
00:51:48,480 --> 00:51:51,600
Speaker 1: some complex opinions interploying with each other and trying to

893
00:51:51,680 --> 00:51:54,960
Speaker 1: figure out, you know, you know, why we're holding off.

894
00:51:55,239 --> 00:51:57,600
Speaker 1: But but more important than this idea of respect for

895
00:51:57,640 --> 00:52:00,360
Speaker 1: the dead or respect for an ancient ruler, just the

896
00:52:00,520 --> 00:52:03,880
Speaker 1: the hard scientific facts of disturbing the tomb. And that is,

897
00:52:04,440 --> 00:52:07,160
Speaker 1: for one hand, if we excavate there, it might destroy

898
00:52:07,239 --> 00:52:11,320
Speaker 1: the mausoleum itself. But then also we don't necessarily have

899
00:52:11,920 --> 00:52:15,520
Speaker 1: the right plans or the right technology in place to

900
00:52:15,680 --> 00:52:19,600
Speaker 1: protect the contents of this hermetically sealed tomb. Uh. And

901
00:52:19,680 --> 00:52:24,080
Speaker 1: we talked about the loss of the terra Cotta warriors paint. UH. Essentially,

902
00:52:24,400 --> 00:52:27,520
Speaker 1: we are not ready it's it's it's it's it's like

903
00:52:27,600 --> 00:52:30,120
Speaker 1: we could we could get there. Yes, you can travel

904
00:52:30,200 --> 00:52:31,840
Speaker 1: to the moon, but then can you breathe when you

905
00:52:31,920 --> 00:52:33,719
Speaker 1: get there? Can you return from the moon. It's that

906
00:52:33,800 --> 00:52:35,839
Speaker 1: sort of thing. We can, we can breach the tomb,

907
00:52:36,400 --> 00:52:39,200
Speaker 1: But if we're going to destroy that's not the hard part. Yeah,

908
00:52:39,239 --> 00:52:41,000
Speaker 1: that's that's not the hard part. But can we do

909
00:52:41,120 --> 00:52:43,640
Speaker 1: so in a way that can actually protect the contents? Well,

910
00:52:43,719 --> 00:52:46,680
Speaker 1: let's ask that, not rhetorically but practically. Does anybody have

911
00:52:46,760 --> 00:52:50,120
Speaker 1: a plan? Does anybody have a contingency for Okay, let's

912
00:52:50,440 --> 00:52:54,160
Speaker 1: say we decide to actually open up this tomb, what

913
00:52:54,320 --> 00:52:57,480
Speaker 1: would we do to the absolute best of our ability

914
00:52:57,560 --> 00:53:00,360
Speaker 1: to avoid causing damage to it and preserve all of

915
00:53:00,440 --> 00:53:03,480
Speaker 1: its everything that it can tell us about the past. Well,

916
00:53:03,520 --> 00:53:05,800
Speaker 1: my understanding is that there's a there's continuing work in

917
00:53:05,880 --> 00:53:09,400
Speaker 1: this area, with various experts coming up with plans and

918
00:53:09,560 --> 00:53:14,400
Speaker 1: proposals h for how uh the tomb might be explored.

919
00:53:14,880 --> 00:53:17,880
Speaker 1: A two thousand thirteen study from the American Chemical Society

920
00:53:17,920 --> 00:53:20,839
Speaker 1: presented some ground for work for what should be done

921
00:53:20,920 --> 00:53:25,320
Speaker 1: with quote immovable historic relics displayed in large open spaces

922
00:53:25,800 --> 00:53:31,520
Speaker 1: like this. Basically you have to recreate the environmental conditions

923
00:53:31,760 --> 00:53:35,800
Speaker 1: of the unexposed tomb, similar in ways to how some

924
00:53:36,000 --> 00:53:40,440
Speaker 1: recently discovered cave habitats, like natural cave habitats with bats

925
00:53:40,560 --> 00:53:43,400
Speaker 1: and animals in a certain moisture level to them, the

926
00:53:43,480 --> 00:53:45,480
Speaker 1: way we protect those with air locks rather than just

927
00:53:45,560 --> 00:53:48,200
Speaker 1: simply open them up and expose the cave environment to

928
00:53:48,239 --> 00:53:51,239
Speaker 1: the outside. So that this particular study said you would

929
00:53:51,280 --> 00:53:54,960
Speaker 1: need things like air curtains that blow across the space

930
00:53:55,040 --> 00:53:58,960
Speaker 1: to separate the environment from the outside environment and also

931
00:53:59,120 --> 00:54:02,439
Speaker 1: keep heat and pollution away from the pits. You'd also

932
00:54:02,560 --> 00:54:05,960
Speaker 1: need a layer of cool air in the pits themselves

933
00:54:06,040 --> 00:54:08,960
Speaker 1: to help a form a blanket of stagnant air around

934
00:54:09,040 --> 00:54:12,840
Speaker 1: the relics. So you get into this this interesting situation

935
00:54:13,000 --> 00:54:16,279
Speaker 1: where the world of the tomb is kind of an

936
00:54:16,320 --> 00:54:19,560
Speaker 1: alien environment, it's kind of a it's kind of a

937
00:54:20,160 --> 00:54:23,600
Speaker 1: lifeless environment, and you have to you have to maintain

938
00:54:23,840 --> 00:54:28,600
Speaker 1: that necrotic environment if you're going to explore it. So

939
00:54:28,880 --> 00:54:32,080
Speaker 1: you can end up with this it's like visiting another world, truly,

940
00:54:32,600 --> 00:54:34,960
Speaker 1: in almost in a way that was perhaps intended. This

941
00:54:35,120 --> 00:54:37,120
Speaker 1: is the world of the grave, this is the this

942
00:54:37,280 --> 00:54:42,000
Speaker 1: is the underworld, and you have to think twice about

943
00:54:42,080 --> 00:54:46,680
Speaker 1: simply walking into it, lest the u the creation itself vanished.

944
00:54:47,080 --> 00:54:49,279
Speaker 1: Yet a very on the theme you were talking about

945
00:54:49,280 --> 00:54:52,720
Speaker 1: at the beginning, the idea of the the ancient rulers

946
00:54:52,800 --> 00:54:57,960
Speaker 1: tomb as a spaceship to the afterlife versus a recreation

947
00:54:58,080 --> 00:55:00,440
Speaker 1: of the conditions of the afterlife. This sort of like

948
00:55:00,520 --> 00:55:03,960
Speaker 1: a third option, right, which is a literal creation of

949
00:55:04,080 --> 00:55:06,400
Speaker 1: the world of the dead. Yeah, disturb it at your

950
00:55:06,400 --> 00:55:09,759
Speaker 1: apparel because they are also crossbows down there and may

951
00:55:09,800 --> 00:55:12,400
Speaker 1: shoot you in the face. What's your over under on

952
00:55:12,520 --> 00:55:15,000
Speaker 1: the fact that the crossbows will actually shoot at people

953
00:55:15,040 --> 00:55:19,359
Speaker 1: who go in. I I find it incredibly unlikely, if

954
00:55:19,440 --> 00:55:23,319
Speaker 1: not impossible, that there would be live crossbow traps down there.

955
00:55:23,360 --> 00:55:26,359
Speaker 1: I wonder, what's the longest that a crossbow trap would

956
00:55:26,440 --> 00:55:28,920
Speaker 1: really remain like a you know, I have the have

957
00:55:29,080 --> 00:55:31,440
Speaker 1: the tension still in the string? I know, because even

958
00:55:31,480 --> 00:55:33,719
Speaker 1: if you want with a metal string, right, that would

959
00:55:33,760 --> 00:55:36,440
Speaker 1: only if you went with like a wire situation, that

960
00:55:36,480 --> 00:55:38,440
Speaker 1: would only last so long. Yeah, I don't know. I

961
00:55:38,520 --> 00:55:40,600
Speaker 1: don't know how long, but it seems like over time

962
00:55:40,680 --> 00:55:43,200
Speaker 1: the tension would relax or something. Well, maybe one day

963
00:55:43,200 --> 00:55:45,879
Speaker 1: we'll have the necessary technology to find out. I would

964
00:55:45,920 --> 00:55:50,640
Speaker 1: personally really mark out of if the first like robotic

965
00:55:50,760 --> 00:55:53,440
Speaker 1: probe that ventures into the tomb is shot by an

966
00:55:53,440 --> 00:55:55,719
Speaker 1: ancient crossbow, that would just be that would that would

967
00:55:55,800 --> 00:56:02,680
Speaker 1: really make my day a great day for science. Yes. Hey,

968
00:56:02,760 --> 00:56:05,640
Speaker 1: So in addition to our regular episode today, we thought

969
00:56:05,680 --> 00:56:08,239
Speaker 1: we would bring you all a special treat, which is

970
00:56:08,480 --> 00:56:10,920
Speaker 1: we were going to have a couple of our excellent

971
00:56:11,320 --> 00:56:15,120
Speaker 1: stuff media podcast host colleagues on our friends Annie and

972
00:56:15,239 --> 00:56:18,239
Speaker 1: Lauren from the podcast food Stuff. Annie and Lauren say

973
00:56:18,320 --> 00:56:22,280
Speaker 1: hi and introduce yourselves. Hello. I am Annie and I'm Lauren.

974
00:56:22,440 --> 00:56:24,600
Speaker 1: And yeah, we have a podcast called food Stuff that's

975
00:56:24,600 --> 00:56:28,320
Speaker 1: about the science and history and culture of food and

976
00:56:28,600 --> 00:56:32,799
Speaker 1: drink and etcetera. Yes, and wait, what's the etcetera? Things

977
00:56:32,880 --> 00:56:35,279
Speaker 1: that you eat that aren't food or drink. We just

978
00:56:35,360 --> 00:56:39,759
Speaker 1: did an episode about artificial flavors, so spot on. Yeah, right,

979
00:56:40,000 --> 00:56:43,120
Speaker 1: We've talked about some weird diets, including eating cotton balls,

980
00:56:43,320 --> 00:56:49,359
Speaker 1: so that's not really edible opinion. But people do that. Yeah,

981
00:56:49,560 --> 00:56:51,160
Speaker 1: people have done that. We it's not one of the

982
00:56:51,200 --> 00:56:53,400
Speaker 1: ones that we would recommend. Don't don't eat things that

983
00:56:53,400 --> 00:56:56,120
Speaker 1: aren't food. This sounds like like a Jenna diet from

984
00:56:56,160 --> 00:56:59,680
Speaker 1: dirty rock quickly because I remember was eating paper, but

985
00:56:59,760 --> 00:57:03,920
Speaker 1: she could eat as much as she wants. What's that

986
00:57:04,040 --> 00:57:08,520
Speaker 1: episode called that is Our Fad Diet Part two episode?

987
00:57:08,560 --> 00:57:10,840
Speaker 1: Because there were so many there were so many historical

988
00:57:10,880 --> 00:57:13,799
Speaker 1: fad diets. These people have been doing these ridiculous things

989
00:57:13,920 --> 00:57:17,400
Speaker 1: for hundreds and hundreds of years. Well, the Conqueror, Yeah,

990
00:57:17,960 --> 00:57:23,080
Speaker 1: what wast not cotton balls? No, his was basically liquor diet.

991
00:57:24,040 --> 00:57:26,720
Speaker 1: As much whiskey it should you as you would like,

992
00:57:27,480 --> 00:57:30,480
Speaker 1: and he did lose the weight, but he died falling

993
00:57:30,520 --> 00:57:35,120
Speaker 1: off his cords, possibly because he was drunk. Yeah. I

994
00:57:35,160 --> 00:57:36,560
Speaker 1: thought you were going to say, like he could eat

995
00:57:36,600 --> 00:57:41,120
Speaker 1: as many swords as he wants. It's a swords follower. Maybe. Yeah.

996
00:57:41,600 --> 00:57:44,600
Speaker 1: And uh, Robert and Joe, you two were on our

997
00:57:44,840 --> 00:57:48,480
Speaker 1: recent Lunar New Year episode. Oh yeah, yes, and we

998
00:57:49,280 --> 00:57:52,200
Speaker 1: was first guest segment. It's awesome. Yeah, yeah, thank you.

999
00:57:52,560 --> 00:57:56,320
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. A little cross promotional magic here hopefully, but

1000
00:57:56,720 --> 00:58:00,080
Speaker 1: but yeah, we're heading into Lunar New Year. What what

1001
00:58:00,240 --> 00:58:03,480
Speaker 1: can listeners expect from your episode on Lunar New Year

1002
00:58:03,560 --> 00:58:09,520
Speaker 1: food traditions? Uh, lots of lots of puns. Yeah, apparently

1003
00:58:09,640 --> 00:58:12,560
Speaker 1: all all of the foods that are connected with the

1004
00:58:12,600 --> 00:58:16,760
Speaker 1: lunar New Year are just wonderful puns. Oh, I remember

1005
00:58:16,880 --> 00:58:19,720
Speaker 1: something about this, and when we talked about the food

1006
00:58:19,760 --> 00:58:23,680
Speaker 1: tradition of the rice cake pudding, right, the glute glutenous

1007
00:58:23,760 --> 00:58:25,960
Speaker 1: rice cake, that it had something to do with the

1008
00:58:26,040 --> 00:58:29,000
Speaker 1: idea of advancement or achievement. It was like a play

1009
00:58:29,040 --> 00:58:33,680
Speaker 1: on words. Yes, um, I believe it means higher, like

1010
00:58:33,800 --> 00:58:37,240
Speaker 1: ascending higher. It sounds like a word that means that. Yes.

1011
00:58:37,360 --> 00:58:39,960
Speaker 1: So we love puns and food stuff. It was right

1012
00:58:40,040 --> 00:58:43,440
Speaker 1: up where ally all these edible food puns. Now that

1013
00:58:43,520 --> 00:58:45,800
Speaker 1: the use of hominems here, this reminds me when I

1014
00:58:45,880 --> 00:58:48,960
Speaker 1: was in China. I can't remember if Guangzhou or Ning,

1015
00:58:49,680 --> 00:58:51,720
Speaker 1: but I went to a park and they had all

1016
00:58:51,760 --> 00:58:53,880
Speaker 1: of these sculptures, each one having to deal with a

1017
00:58:53,920 --> 00:58:58,320
Speaker 1: different hominem. Yeah. So it's it's very culturally entrenched. Uh,

1018
00:58:58,640 --> 00:59:02,160
Speaker 1: this this playful use of war. Oh yeah, right. One

1019
00:59:02,200 --> 00:59:05,560
Speaker 1: of my favorites is um fish. The word for fish

1020
00:59:05,640 --> 00:59:08,720
Speaker 1: sounds similar to the word for prosperous, and so the

1021
00:59:08,840 --> 00:59:11,840
Speaker 1: fish has to be positioned in a certain way and

1022
00:59:11,960 --> 00:59:14,720
Speaker 1: you can't eat all of the fish because you want

1023
00:59:14,720 --> 00:59:17,000
Speaker 1: to have some left over. Yeah, you want to continue

1024
00:59:17,040 --> 00:59:20,800
Speaker 1: that prosperity. So it's abundance and prosperity. It's such a

1025
00:59:20,880 --> 00:59:23,240
Speaker 1: popular item for the New Year's Day meal that there's

1026
00:59:23,320 --> 00:59:28,600
Speaker 1: a greeting maybe eat fish every year. Huh. Yeah, you know.

1027
00:59:28,680 --> 00:59:31,760
Speaker 1: It reminds me of a of a Chinese Christmas tradition

1028
00:59:31,800 --> 00:59:34,120
Speaker 1: that is popped up that I was that that I

1029
00:59:34,200 --> 00:59:36,920
Speaker 1: learned about just in the past few months, and that

1030
00:59:37,360 --> 00:59:41,800
Speaker 1: is that the Chinese word for Christmas Eve sounds like

1031
00:59:41,840 --> 00:59:44,959
Speaker 1: the Chinese word for apple, and therefore people have gotten

1032
00:59:45,000 --> 00:59:48,080
Speaker 1: in the practice of giving apples on Christmas Eves, sometimes

1033
00:59:48,120 --> 00:59:50,600
Speaker 1: with a little paper Santa Claus face on the front.

1034
00:59:50,880 --> 00:59:54,120
Speaker 1: That is so delightful, I know, Oh my goodness. Yeah, yeah,

1035
00:59:54,240 --> 00:59:56,200
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of them, like like a good business

1036
00:59:56,440 --> 00:59:59,520
Speaker 1: is apparently a homonym for oysters, so you might eat oysters.

1037
01:00:00,320 --> 01:00:02,000
Speaker 1: The word for shrimp sounds a lot like the word

1038
01:00:02,040 --> 01:00:05,040
Speaker 1: for laughter, so you might eat shrimp. Right. And then

1039
01:00:05,080 --> 01:00:08,160
Speaker 1: you can change whole whole phrases together. My one of

1040
01:00:08,240 --> 01:00:10,720
Speaker 1: my favorite ones was if you if you have a

1041
01:00:10,800 --> 01:00:15,600
Speaker 1: dish with dates, peanuts, dried longans, and lotus seeds. Uh,

1042
01:00:15,680 --> 01:00:18,240
Speaker 1: it kind of forms the phrase too soon realize the

1043
01:00:18,360 --> 01:00:23,120
Speaker 1: birth of noble suns. Wha, Yeah, there's unlucky foods for sure.

1044
01:00:23,640 --> 01:00:26,000
Speaker 1: In all New Year's traditions, there's stuff that you should

1045
01:00:26,000 --> 01:00:28,080
Speaker 1: eat and some stuff that you shouldn't eat. Yeah, And

1046
01:00:28,160 --> 01:00:31,600
Speaker 1: we did an episode on Western New year traditions and

1047
01:00:32,200 --> 01:00:37,360
Speaker 1: our tradition lobster is terrible. Look because they like go backwards. Yeah,

1048
01:00:37,400 --> 01:00:39,840
Speaker 1: they crawl willy nilly. They want to You want to

1049
01:00:39,880 --> 01:00:43,360
Speaker 1: eat pigs because they root forward? Right, But a lunar

1050
01:00:43,440 --> 01:00:46,960
Speaker 1: New Year's tradition, lobster is lucky and chicken chicken is

1051
01:00:46,960 --> 01:00:49,680
Speaker 1: another thing. The crabs move sideways. Where do they stand

1052
01:00:49,720 --> 01:00:54,400
Speaker 1: in all of this? Maybe they're neutral. Yeah, crabs are

1053
01:00:54,520 --> 01:00:59,480
Speaker 1: strong negotiators. I've heard that about crabs. They get those

1054
01:00:59,560 --> 01:01:05,080
Speaker 1: claws out. Okay, I'll take your seriously, crab. You also

1055
01:01:05,200 --> 01:01:11,000
Speaker 1: might eat um long noodles for long life long nice.

1056
01:01:11,280 --> 01:01:14,720
Speaker 1: That is a long noodle. Now. So I'm thinking about

1057
01:01:14,880 --> 01:01:18,040
Speaker 1: the traditions I'm familiar with, and like American culture of

1058
01:01:18,320 --> 01:01:22,440
Speaker 1: eating black eyed peas and collared greens and pork products

1059
01:01:22,560 --> 01:01:26,880
Speaker 1: on New Year's. Uh, I wonder was that inspired by

1060
01:01:27,400 --> 01:01:29,480
Speaker 1: eating certain foods in Chinese New Year's or is this

1061
01:01:29,560 --> 01:01:32,080
Speaker 1: the thing? Lots of cultures do. It seems like all

1062
01:01:32,120 --> 01:01:34,600
Speaker 1: over the world people have these kind of lucky foods

1063
01:01:34,640 --> 01:01:37,040
Speaker 1: in it. I think that probably a lot of the

1064
01:01:37,080 --> 01:01:42,080
Speaker 1: traditions come from when things are harvested for for for example,

1065
01:01:42,160 --> 01:01:47,040
Speaker 1: with with pigs, pigs are usually slaughtered um right before

1066
01:01:47,760 --> 01:01:49,360
Speaker 1: like like like right in the dead of winter. So

1067
01:01:50,320 --> 01:01:53,400
Speaker 1: so you've got this fresh pork that if you you know,

1068
01:01:53,840 --> 01:02:01,240
Speaker 1: so it's lucky. Yeah, there are a lot of fun ones. Um. Apparently,

1069
01:02:01,400 --> 01:02:05,400
Speaker 1: single women will write their number on oranges because oranges

1070
01:02:05,440 --> 01:02:07,920
Speaker 1: are also seen as lucky and throw them in the

1071
01:02:08,080 --> 01:02:15,600
Speaker 1: river and hope that love is forthcoming. Excellent finds it

1072
01:02:15,760 --> 01:02:18,760
Speaker 1: finds its way to their best possible match. Hello, I

1073
01:02:18,800 --> 01:02:22,840
Speaker 1: hope you're interested in catfish because I am one. How

1074
01:02:22,920 --> 01:02:26,520
Speaker 1: did you get this number? Catfishing me? There's a lot

1075
01:02:26,560 --> 01:02:29,400
Speaker 1: of jokes that could be made there. Oh no, no,

1076
01:02:29,520 --> 01:02:31,840
Speaker 1: I meant the river. I was being too literal. I'm sorry.

1077
01:02:31,920 --> 01:02:34,640
Speaker 1: No no, no, I just took it direct works on

1078
01:02:34,720 --> 01:02:37,680
Speaker 1: multiple level, it does, it does, all right? Well, hey,

1079
01:02:37,760 --> 01:02:39,600
Speaker 1: well thanks for coming on the show here and chatting

1080
01:02:39,640 --> 01:02:42,760
Speaker 1: a little bit about lunar New Year traditions. Let everybody

1081
01:02:42,840 --> 01:02:45,840
Speaker 1: know that where they can find this episode of food

1082
01:02:45,840 --> 01:02:47,880
Speaker 1: stuff and where they can find future episodes of food Stuff.

1083
01:02:47,960 --> 01:02:50,439
Speaker 1: Oh goodness, well, you can download our show just any

1084
01:02:50,520 --> 01:02:53,080
Speaker 1: anywhere that you listen to your podcasts. We also have

1085
01:02:53,160 --> 01:02:55,720
Speaker 1: a slightly awkward you you are l for for y'all

1086
01:02:55,720 --> 01:02:59,640
Speaker 1: at shows dot how Stuff works dot com slash food Stuff,

1087
01:02:59,880 --> 01:03:02,000
Speaker 1: or you can find us on social media where just

1088
01:03:02,120 --> 01:03:04,840
Speaker 1: just google food Stuff will pop right up. Yeah, you're fine,

1089
01:03:04,880 --> 01:03:07,440
Speaker 1: Google people. Yeah. Probably, wherever you can find stuff to

1090
01:03:07,480 --> 01:03:10,800
Speaker 1: blow your mind, you can find and stuff. We exist

1091
01:03:10,880 --> 01:03:14,200
Speaker 1: in the same family. Now I've got to ask you. Obviously,

1092
01:03:14,240 --> 01:03:16,640
Speaker 1: people should go look up your Lunar New Year episode,

1093
01:03:16,880 --> 01:03:19,120
Speaker 1: and if they're interested in Chinese New Year and all

1094
01:03:19,160 --> 01:03:20,800
Speaker 1: those traditions, they'll get that. But do you have a

1095
01:03:20,840 --> 01:03:24,000
Speaker 1: couple of favorite episodes to recommend? If people want to

1096
01:03:24,120 --> 01:03:26,280
Speaker 1: see you at your best, they've got one shot at

1097
01:03:26,320 --> 01:03:30,360
Speaker 1: food Stuff. Which episode do they go to? Oh? Heck uh,

1098
01:03:30,760 --> 01:03:33,440
Speaker 1: we we just we just recorded one on Ketchup that

1099
01:03:33,520 --> 01:03:37,960
Speaker 1: I'm very fond of. Goes with everything. Oh doesn't it?

1100
01:03:38,400 --> 01:03:42,720
Speaker 1: Well a little? It does not go on hot dogs. No,

1101
01:03:42,880 --> 01:03:45,560
Speaker 1: that's true. Catch up on hot dogs is the devil's work.

1102
01:03:45,800 --> 01:03:48,880
Speaker 1: But Ketchup goes so well on corn dogs. What is

1103
01:03:48,920 --> 01:03:53,720
Speaker 1: it what is the difference. Sausages go with mustard, Sausages

1104
01:03:53,800 --> 01:03:55,960
Speaker 1: do not go with ketchup. In my opinion, I'm a

1105
01:03:56,120 --> 01:03:59,640
Speaker 1: very peaceful person. I never have violent thoughts or impulses,

1106
01:03:59,720 --> 01:04:02,200
Speaker 1: but when I see people putting ketchup on a hot dog,

1107
01:04:02,240 --> 01:04:05,520
Speaker 1: I want to kick them, like it's just wrong. But

1108
01:04:06,240 --> 01:04:10,160
Speaker 1: super bowl like crop pot weenies, that's basically catch up

1109
01:04:10,440 --> 01:04:13,120
Speaker 1: weenies and grape jelly. Right, Yeah, I don't go for

1110
01:04:13,240 --> 01:04:16,920
Speaker 1: crop into it. That's a sauce though, that's at that

1111
01:04:16,960 --> 01:04:19,120
Speaker 1: point it's not a condiment. It's a sauce, and okay,

1112
01:04:19,200 --> 01:04:24,920
Speaker 1: I'll give that special considerations. Upgraded. Proper accompaniments to sausages

1113
01:04:24,920 --> 01:04:28,240
Speaker 1: and hot dogs would be sauer kraut, would be mustard

1114
01:04:28,400 --> 01:04:31,680
Speaker 1: in its many forms, could even be things like raw

1115
01:04:31,840 --> 01:04:35,640
Speaker 1: onions or pickles. Pickle relish, not ketchup. What do you

1116
01:04:35,680 --> 01:04:40,000
Speaker 1: stand on mayonnaise? I stand on that being kind of gross,

1117
01:04:40,160 --> 01:04:44,080
Speaker 1: but maybe in an acceptable way. If nobody's looking and

1118
01:04:44,280 --> 01:04:46,840
Speaker 1: he hates mayonnaise, I have four foods I don't like,

1119
01:04:47,000 --> 01:04:50,240
Speaker 1: and that is one mayonnaise. What are two of the

1120
01:04:50,360 --> 01:04:52,640
Speaker 1: other three? But not the third? So they can go

1121
01:04:52,720 --> 01:04:55,840
Speaker 1: to your show to find out Dr Pepper is number

1122
01:04:56,240 --> 01:05:00,720
Speaker 1: one rope like all that Prune Next Act or whatever

1123
01:05:00,800 --> 01:05:04,360
Speaker 1: it is. I love dr I know, but people seem

1124
01:05:04,440 --> 01:05:07,120
Speaker 1: to love it if I like, somebody played a trick

1125
01:05:07,160 --> 01:05:08,880
Speaker 1: on me once where it she switched my drink with

1126
01:05:09,040 --> 01:05:12,400
Speaker 1: Dr Pepper and I did immediate spittake everywhere. Really, so

1127
01:05:12,520 --> 01:05:17,600
Speaker 1: it's for real serious and um water Cress, Watercress? What's

1128
01:05:17,600 --> 01:05:19,480
Speaker 1: wrong with water Where would I liked it? I think

1129
01:05:19,560 --> 01:05:21,880
Speaker 1: it's just it's not supposed to stand on its own though.

1130
01:05:21,920 --> 01:05:23,840
Speaker 1: It's just well like if it's in a sand if

1131
01:05:23,880 --> 01:05:26,360
Speaker 1: it's on a sandwich, I will notice and I'll be like, Nope,

1132
01:05:26,440 --> 01:05:28,680
Speaker 1: I can't do this. It's very sad. I want to

1133
01:05:28,760 --> 01:05:31,600
Speaker 1: like water Criss, but the other one we have done

1134
01:05:31,600 --> 01:05:34,160
Speaker 1: an episode on it, so yeah, you'll have to check

1135
01:05:34,200 --> 01:05:36,840
Speaker 1: it out. Maybe you're just wired differently on that because

1136
01:05:36,840 --> 01:05:39,040
Speaker 1: I feel like water Cress should just fade into the background.

1137
01:05:39,040 --> 01:05:42,320
Speaker 1: It's like a bit player in a scene. They shouldn't

1138
01:05:42,360 --> 01:05:46,440
Speaker 1: draw your attention too much. But if it does, then yeah,

1139
01:05:46,480 --> 01:05:48,120
Speaker 1: I can see where that could be a problem. You know,

1140
01:05:48,240 --> 01:05:50,360
Speaker 1: what is it? It's just crunchy, tastes a little bit

1141
01:05:50,480 --> 01:05:52,760
Speaker 1: like grass, a little bit a little bit peppery, sort

1142
01:05:52,800 --> 01:05:56,120
Speaker 1: of To me, it tastes like soap, like very strongly

1143
01:05:56,160 --> 01:05:58,160
Speaker 1: of so well maybe it's kind of like the cilantro,

1144
01:05:59,480 --> 01:06:01,840
Speaker 1: like an act well genetic thing that's making you go

1145
01:06:02,000 --> 01:06:07,960
Speaker 1: and relevant to UMT have to blow your mind audience.

1146
01:06:08,160 --> 01:06:10,360
Speaker 1: I will say we do have an episode on garlic

1147
01:06:10,640 --> 01:06:13,720
Speaker 1: as an entire vampire segment, and we have an episode

1148
01:06:13,760 --> 01:06:18,720
Speaker 1: on tomatoes that has um mentions of werewolves. Excellent. So

1149
01:06:19,320 --> 01:06:21,560
Speaker 1: those are two of my favorites. And personally I love

1150
01:06:21,680 --> 01:06:24,760
Speaker 1: Pineapple episode. Oh yeah, it's good. It's a little bit depressing,

1151
01:06:24,840 --> 01:06:26,680
Speaker 1: but I think that most of our great episodes are

1152
01:06:26,680 --> 01:06:33,800
Speaker 1: a little bit depressing. Right, food is terrible imperialism, right, yeah,

1153
01:06:33,960 --> 01:06:36,160
Speaker 1: we'll go listen to food stuff learn a little bit,

1154
01:06:36,400 --> 01:06:45,880
Speaker 1: get depressed, laugh, love, learn, cry, eat, eat yeah, drink yeah,

1155
01:06:45,920 --> 01:06:47,400
Speaker 1: thank you, Thank you so much for having us, Thanks

1156
01:06:47,440 --> 01:06:49,360
Speaker 1: so much for coming on all right, so that you

1157
01:06:49,440 --> 01:06:54,200
Speaker 1: have it, uh fun just mind blowing topic that ties

1158
01:06:54,280 --> 01:06:57,280
Speaker 1: in nicely to our celebration of Chinese New Year. If

1159
01:06:57,320 --> 01:06:59,480
Speaker 1: you would like to learn more about Stuff to Boil

1160
01:06:59,520 --> 01:07:02,320
Speaker 1: your Mind, it's floor past episodes. Be sure to visit

1161
01:07:02,360 --> 01:07:04,280
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's where we

1162
01:07:04,400 --> 01:07:07,320
Speaker 1: find all the old episodes as well as blog post, videos,

1163
01:07:07,480 --> 01:07:10,160
Speaker 1: and links out to our various social media accounts. Thanks

1164
01:07:10,240 --> 01:07:13,280
Speaker 1: as always to our excellent audio producers Alex Williams and

1165
01:07:13,400 --> 01:07:15,439
Speaker 1: Tory Harrison. And if you want to get in touch

1166
01:07:15,480 --> 01:07:17,680
Speaker 1: with us to let us know feedback on this episode

1167
01:07:17,800 --> 01:07:20,000
Speaker 1: or any other, to let us know topics you'd like

1168
01:07:20,120 --> 01:07:22,120
Speaker 1: us to do in the future, or just to say hi,

1169
01:07:22,280 --> 01:07:25,040
Speaker 1: you can email us at blow the Mind at how

1170
01:07:25,120 --> 01:07:37,680
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands

1171
01:07:37,760 --> 01:07:40,080
Speaker 1: of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com