WEBVTT - Because It Is My Heart, Part 1 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:04.640 In the desert. I saw a creature naked bestial who's 0:00:04.640 --> 0:00:08.200 squatting upon the ground, held his heart in his hands, 0:00:08.880 --> 0:00:12.360 and eight of it. I said, is it good, friend? 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:18.799 It is bitter, bitter, he answered, But I like it 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:23.320 because it is bitter and because it is my heart. 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:29.280 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of My 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:39.440 Heart Radio. Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind. 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:42.800 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And that, 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:45.360 of course is the poem in the Desert by Stephen 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:49.320 crane Um, a poem that that i've I've I've long 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:54.200 found nice and creepy and thought provoking. I think a 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:56.320 lot of it depends on which word in the last 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:59.360 sentence you emphasized. Does he like it because it is 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:04.080 my heart or because it is my heart? M h Yeah, 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:07.000 there are several ways to to to to the piece 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:10.080 of apart there. But it's also the perfect poem for 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:13.520 Valentine's Day. Today's Valentine's Day. I don't know if anyone 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:16.720 has ever taken in the Desert and transformed it into 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:19.840 a Valentine, but I think that's a fabulous idea. Depending 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:21.480 on who you're giving it to you want to make 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:25.120 sure that they're gonna understand the cleverness of this. Um. 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:27.040 But it's just the right length. You know. You could 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:29.160 put you know, half of it on the front, half 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:32.360 of it inside. You could you could draw the bestial 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:35.959 creature they're consuming its own heart. Uh. Somebody has to 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:38.400 have done this before. I'm sure someone will send links 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:41.880 to this effect to us. You could put it on 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:44.600 those little heart shaped candies that look like they're like 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:47.840 made a chalk basically. Oh yeah, that would be clever, 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:49.640 as I mean, it has to have been done. It's 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:52.480 such a great idea. Does anybody eat those? By the way, 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:55.760 that somebody like the taste of chalk enough that they 0:01:55.760 --> 0:02:00.400 would consume that. I remember eating them that I was 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:04.040 a child. Um, you know, and maybe and I don't 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:06.920 know if they're bitter that would but they are shaped 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:09.840 like hearts. Yeah, at a time when you ate a 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:11.799 lot of candy, it made sense to at least try 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:13.280 a few of them. But I think then you realize 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:15.560 there were better candies to eat, easier candies to eat. 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:20.720 That's such a childhood mentality. It's like, well it's not good, 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:22.720 but it is candy, So I guess I have to 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:25.200 eat it. I should at least at least try it. 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:29.120 It's it's just polite. Yeah, so yes, It's Valentine's Day 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:31.720 at time when we tend to think about the over 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:35.919 commercialization of love and especially romantic love, as well as 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:39.600 the symbolism of the human heart. Um, you know, I 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:42.000 think this is a topic we've we've touched on before 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:44.320 on the show. You know. We when it comes to 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:46.880 the heart, we know that this is the the center 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:50.200 of our circulatory system. We know it pumps our blood, 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:54.880 but it's also seen as the symbolic or metaphoric seed 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:58.440 of love and passion. And given all these complex ways 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:01.200 of thinking about the heart, we also tend to feel 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:03.640 a certain kind of way about the topic of heart 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:06.520 removal when it comes up, be it something that comes 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:11.280 up in the biological you know, the medical world, or 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:15.000 if it comes up in random horror movies, or just 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:17.320 as a turn of phrase. Is this how you landed 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:20.040 on on heart removal? For for the topic this week? 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:22.320 Where you watching a movie where a heart gets ripped out? 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:25.480 I don't think I was specifically when I started thinking 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:28.640 about this, but we have watched several movies on Weird 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:33.840 House Cinema our Friday weird movie episodes that I like particularly, 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:36.640 I think, um, some seventies films we've watched, such as 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:39.960 The Lorealized Grasp, Horror Rizes from the Tomb, Return of 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:42.720 the Blind Dead. I think all three of those features 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:44.720 scene in which somebody's heart is cut out and it's 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:50.279 eaten by say a monster or or or an occultist 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:53.600 night that sort of thing. Am I remembering? Wrong? Is 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:56.640 the whole point of Lorealized Grasp that the monster eats 0:03:56.640 --> 0:04:00.080 people's hearts? Yes? She does. Yeah, well, I mean there 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:03.320 are other aspects of the film, but it clearly in 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:05.400 terms of what is the the gory point of the 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:09.200 film that seemed to be one of its main fascinations. Well, 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:11.440 she eats people's hearts and she falls in love with that. 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:16.240 I don't know, Spanish German, Elvis Peter Fonda kind of guy. 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:21.080 Oh yes, yes, anyway, yes, yeah, go back to those 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:23.160 episodes if you want more of that. Uh. Well, when 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:26.159 it comes to to heart ripping, of course, there are 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:29.440 some more famous examples have probably come to everyone's mind. 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:33.800 There's fighting game Mortal Kombat. I think everybody had that 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:37.359 was around in the nineties. Um, and and then in 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:39.600 decades after, but especially in the nineties, you have that 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:43.320 that very pixelized version of that that heart rip in mind. 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:46.440 And then of course there's four film Indiana Jones and 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:49.840 the Temple of Doom, which features a rather famous heart 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:53.159 ripped scene that despite the film being set in India, 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:56.120 this actual heart rip and all the things that the 0:04:56.160 --> 0:05:01.560 batties are up to a really take worry elements from 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:05.760 at least a couple of non Indian cultures. Uh and uh. 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:07.360 And so some of the cultures we're going to discuss 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:11.360 in this episode and kind of make a patchwork villain 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:15.200 um religion here for Indiana Jones to go up against. 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:17.799 And I think they also incorporate more than a little 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:23.040 bit of fictional satanic ritual like it, it's very unbelievable 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:27.400 culture that Indiana Jones is supposedly encountering in that movie, 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:31.960 to say the least. Yeah, now, other heart rips of 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:34.360 of note, correct me if I'm wrong, But doesn't Jason 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:37.800 Vorhees ripped out of heart at least once. Uh, Oh, 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:43.200 I don't recall. Probably yeah, well I do know. Uh, 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:45.880 that's one of the worst movies in the whole series. 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:48.479 Ends up like the bunch of people, A bunch of 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:51.200 like troops come in and blow up Jason, and then 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:56.640 somebody eats Jason's heart and turns into Jason. It's brilliant. Okay, 0:05:57.120 --> 0:05:58.840 I was really I had I haven't. I don't think 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:03.440 I've actually seen leprekn six ak LEPrecon Back to the 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:06.640 Hood from two thousand and three. This is the last 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:09.480 one to star Warwick Davis. But that has a heart 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:11.400 rip in it. Like the heart rip scene I guess 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:14.400 in a film is usually pretty easy to do because 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:17.200 you just it's mostly sound effect and then the visual 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:22.160 of somebody holding a bloody, um palpating heart. Oftentimes that's 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:24.480 dumb by just having the person squeeze like kind of 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:28.400 reever heart create the sound effect if you desire. Other 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:32.360 examples come to mind the horror movie Valentine's Day. Um, 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:34.640 I've forgotten about this, but the Prophecy films have a 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:38.440 lot of this, with angels ripping each other's hearts out. Um. 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:41.360 Dumb and Dumber has a heart rip scene that I 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:43.760 had forgotten about. I can't remember. Is that supposed to 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:45.440 be a dream sequence or is that supposed to really 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:47.440 happen or does it matter? In dumb and dumber. It 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:51.240 is a dream sequence. Okay, okay, h then there's a rambo, 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:54.440 Last Blood and Last of the Mohicans. Actually seen very 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:57.360 few of these movies. Oh well, we might. We might 0:06:57.440 --> 0:07:01.760 have to come back to the Prophecy films, but I 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:03.640 don't know. Some of those you could probably miss um, 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:07.680 especially maybe lepri kon six. But but yeah, there it's 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:10.600 it's kind of a staple of horror um. Oftentimes, if 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:12.760 you have any kind of like supernatural being, you know, 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:15.840 you have some sort of really lightning quick heart rip. 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:18.640 There's a great example of this on the HBO series 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:21.400 True Blood, which I guess over overall looking back on 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:24.800 it kind of a mixed bag. But the excellent character 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:28.840 actor Dennis O'Hare does have this wonderful character, the vampire 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:32.440 King of Mississippi. His name is Russell Eddington. Is a 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:34.360 real highlight of the show. While he's on the show, 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:36.840 and there's a scene where I forget exactly what ticks 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:39.320 him off, but vampires are supposed to be secret in 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:42.920 the in the series, and he just gets mad and 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:47.400 instantly like speeds to um like a live news broadcast 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:51.040 and rips the broadcasters hard out through his back along 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:54.320 with a piece of his spine, and that stands out 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:56.360 of and in my mind is one of the finest 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:59.520 moments of that series. The main thing that comes to 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:02.400 my mind is that the manual heart removal is the 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:06.600 primary move of an unarmed Terminator in the Terminator films. 0:08:07.080 --> 0:08:10.520 Oh did he rip some hearts out? That's what That's 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:12.600 what Arnold Schwarzenegger does in the first movie when he 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:14.840 comes out to the punk. Yeah, he like, get Bill 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:17.560 Paxxton or somebody or the guy Bill Paxiston's hanging out with. 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:20.120 It's been so long since I saw the first Terminator. 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:21.600 I really need to go back in and watch it. 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:23.880 I don't know why that's the move they chose. I mean, 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:26.080 it's scary in the movie. I don't know if that 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:29.600 really speaks of robotic efficiency. It's like taking the batteries 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:34.480 out right, all right. Well, with that out of the way, 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:37.439 we're gonna begin to move into what we were ultimately 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:39.839 really talking about in this pair of episodes this week, 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:45.160 and that is um heart removals and and how they 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:51.360 factored into uh different views, different supernatural understandings of the 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:55.920 human body and the cosmos. We're not gonna we're probably 0:08:55.920 --> 0:09:00.960 not gonna go super in depth into heart symbolism and metaphors, 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:03.960 and in terms of trying to be um, you know, 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:06.880 to completely cover the topic because it is a broad topic. 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:09.720 You have, like any given culture has some sort of 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:11.480 idea about what the heart is, and there's a lot 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:15.360 of overlap. But then there are some distinct ideas mixed 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:17.040 in there as well, and we'll touch on some of these. 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:20.520 I think a good place to start would be, of course, 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:24.240 with the Egyptian heart. Now there was we had a 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:26.040 past episode of the show this was there was an 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:30.200 interview that I did with author Bill Shutt, who wrote 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:33.240 a book called Pump. It's quite good. It gets into 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:37.920 animal hearts and various um in the history of understanding 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:41.560 the human heart, Medical history of the heart. Wonderful read. 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:44.679 And in that book he he does bring up that, yes, 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:47.800 the ancient Egyptians knew the heart is ab or eb 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:51.040 or hati uh. It was treated with a great deal 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:54.280 of reverence, as this was the organ said to contain 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:58.080 a record of the individual's good and bad deeds. And 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:01.280 I think a number any of if you've consumed any 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:03.760 amount of Egyptology over the years, you're probably familiar with 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:07.120 the basic scenario that is often related here, that after 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:10.960 you have died, it is this heart that will be 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:16.360 weighed against a feather of Matt, the Goddess of truth, 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:19.360 to see if you can indeed pass on into the 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:22.920 realms beyond our life here on earth, or if you're 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:26.080 going to be consumed by this ferocious beast of annihilation 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:29.640 and thus no longer exist. I think it's a crocodile 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:32.960 type or crocodile issue beast, isn't it. Yes, yeah, it is. 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:35.719 It is a crocodile esque I'm blanking on the name 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:38.800 of the entity off the top of my head. But 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:42.600 but yeah, you basically have the this uh, the split 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:45.679 road between annihilation and continued existence. But you can only 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:49.680 continue to exist if your heart matches up against this 0:10:49.800 --> 0:11:02.760 feather of Matt, the Goddess of truth. Now, as Geraldine 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:07.400 Pinch mentions in her book Egyptian Mythology, yeah, the ancient 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:10.040 Egyptians view the heart is the organ of thought and feeling, 0:11:10.280 --> 0:11:15.880 and it was the seat of consciousness itself, and the 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:19.120 goddess here was is often seen as this ostrich, feather 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:23.720 adorned goddess of truth and goodness, So thus her feather 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:27.240 would match the weight of your heart if you had 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:31.400 truth in your heart, if you had not at in 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:35.840 your heart uh at all. So that's the basic scenario 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:40.880 there now, Shut sites historian Roger K. French, who rationalized 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:44.240 that the basic idea and the Egyptian model here is 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:50.040 that life is warm. The heart is warm, the heart moves, 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:54.640 and with its movements we we breathe, and our vessels 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:57.720 carry blood to the rest of our body. Shut also 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:02.240 points out that the teen fifty five b c. Book 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:05.600 of the Heart may reveal some level of understanding regarding 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:09.559 heart attacks and aneurysms among the ancient Egyptians, but historians 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:12.240 are not all in agreement onto what degree we could 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:14.880 interpret it this way. Now, given the importance of the 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:17.600 heart in all of this, especially the continuation of the 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:22.720 soul and ancient Egyptian belief, uh, this probably reminds a 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:25.240 lot of people out there of another fact about the 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:29.240 mummified remains of an individual, about what happens to various 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:33.560 internal organs. Several of these internal organs are are often 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:39.000 uh placed inside of a canopic jar, including the heart. Yes, 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:42.800 and so that brings me to how I wanted to 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:46.520 look at a specific example of a mummy to examine 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:49.360 treatment of the heart in a case where it was 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:55.000 well documented. So obviously, Egyptian embalming, mummification, and burial practices 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:59.320 varied by time and place, and ancient Egyptian civilization spans 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:02.760 have really long time, thousands of years, So the example 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:05.840 I'm about to talk about is not characteristic of everything 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:08.360 in age in Egypt. But I thought it was interesting 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:11.520 to look at one example in particular, especially because it 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:16.559 contradicts a generalization that many people have made over the 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:21.280 years about Egyptian mummification, one that I definitely remember learning 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:24.440 when I was younger, And the generalization is this that 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:29.040 during mummification, the brain is always removed. Of course you 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:32.520 get the famous grotesque image of the hook going through 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:35.840 the face holes to remove the brain, and that the heart, 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:38.280 being the seat of the soul, as you just explained, 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:40.840 was left in place in the body. So maybe the 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:43.360 other organs were removed, but the heart was left in 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:46.120 the chest. And by the way, if if memory serves, 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:49.960 I think I'm remembering from a past episode on mummies, 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:52.760 the brain. We have to to remember the brain. I 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:56.200 believe it has often thought to have gone rancid first, 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:58.680 to rot it first, and therefore we have to factor 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:00.839 that into all of this as well, along with these 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:04.920 understandings for the ancient Egyptians about what organs we're doing now. 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:07.720 The specific mummy I was reading about that that contradicted 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:12.959 this generalization was featured in a in a paper based 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:17.360 especially around some ct scan research that was published in 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:21.200 in the journal the academic journal the Yearbook of Mummy Studies. 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:23.720 It's a funny name. It makes you imagine the mummies 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:26.120 are like writing, you know, stay cool, have a great summer, 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:29.640 or they're like going through drawing hearts around all the 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:31.800 mummies they have a crush on like this mummy is 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:35.640 so cute anyway, I uh so, I was reading about 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:38.800 this paper in a concurrent article in Live Science by 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:43.760 Owen jaris called Ancient Egyptian mummy found with brain no heart. 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:47.480 So this mummy is the body of a woman who 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:51.240 lived about seventeen hundred years ago according to radio carbon dating, 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:54.440 placing her under the period of Roman control of Egypt, 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:58.640 and she died somewhere between the ages of thirty and fifty, 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:02.680 and her body shows sign of severe dental health issues 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:05.840 and tooth loss, which apparently is quite common for ancient 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:08.600 Egyptian bodies from this period. I don't know if that's 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:10.600 because they were getting lots of sugar or what. I 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:13.080 don't know what the explanation is, but a lot of 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:17.360 dental problems, and the religious and cultural context would be 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:21.160 this was a person who still adhered to a version 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:24.960 of traditional Egyptian religion, or the variant of it that 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:28.400 was popular at this time, at a time when Christianity 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:31.200 was actually spreading through the region and becoming more and 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:34.840 more dominant. Now, in contradiction to the brain removed, heart 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:37.560 left in place generalization I heard when I was growing up, 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:41.960 this mummy is exactly the opposite. Analysis of CT scans 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:45.920 by the researchers found that the embalmers in this case uh, 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:50.680 they worked by making an incision in the paraneum, and 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:54.840 then through here they removed the intestines, the stomach, the liver, 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:57.600 and the heart. Heart came out too. So after all 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:01.160 these organs were removed, they lined the incision that they 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:03.920 had made with resin and linen cloth, and then they 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:07.560 placed a couple of plaques on this woman's body, on 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:10.800 the skin, over the stomach and over the stern um, 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:14.120 and to read from Jaris's summary quote, something that may 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:18.520 have been intended to ritually heal the damage the embalmers 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:22.440 had done and act as a replacement of sorts for 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:26.160 her removed heart. And this would not be the only example, 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:30.000 uh in ancient Egyptian involving practices where the heart was 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:33.560 taken out and something else was put in there, seemingly 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:38.000 in its place or to replace it. I'll mention another 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:40.480 couple of examples of that in a minute. But after this, 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:45.520 her body was treated with um spices and with lichen covering. 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:48.760 Uh I think her head and her her upper body, 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:51.680 and she was wrapped and buried somewhere near lux Or. 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:53.920 At the time of this article, by the way, the 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:56.560 mummy was in the collection of the Red Path Museum 0:16:56.600 --> 0:17:01.120 at McGill University in Montreal. But anyway, this raises an 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:06.080 interesting question. If the heart was so important in Egyptian religion, 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:09.600 that so important that for a long time people assumed 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:13.200 it was always left in place when body bodies were mummified, 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:18.080 what was happening in the cases where it actually was removed, 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:22.280 and how common was that um Well, to quote a 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:25.879 professor named Andrew Wade from McMaster University, who's the author 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:28.840 of another uh piece I'm gonna look at in a minute, 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:32.240 Wade says, quote, we don't really know what's happening to 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:35.960 the hearts that are removed, so it's assumed that, as 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:38.440 you alluded to a minute ago, robed, they were usually 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:40.840 when they were mooved, they were put into canopic jars, 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:45.040 which we know we're used to hold internal organs removed 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:47.840 from other mummies, but that's not always known for sure. 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:50.080 So sometimes we just don't know what happened to the heart. 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:52.640 And there's still the question of why why did they 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:56.040 do this? Well, we don't know, but the authors of 0:17:56.080 --> 0:18:00.879 the ct study speculate that perhaps the two plaques on 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:03.560 her abdomen and her stern um were meant as a 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:07.679 kind of healing or a replacement for the wounds inflicted 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:10.639 by the embalming process itself, Like, Okay, we had to 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:13.120 cut a hole in your body in order to process 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:16.600 your body for burial, so here's a plaster healing symbol 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:20.199 to counteract that incision. And then perhaps the plaque on 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:23.400 the stern um was somehow a replacement for the missing heart. 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:26.040 But again we don't know for sure, and we don't 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:30.240 know why the heart was removed, But I came across 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:34.720 another piece that has some some interesting thoughts about this. 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:37.919 So for a more general look at the treatment of 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:40.919 the heart in Egyptian mummification, I was looking at. Uh. 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:44.080 I don't think this is a paper in an academic journal. 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:46.600 I think this is a fact sheet from a presentation 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:49.800 at an academic conference that was put together by a 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:53.160 couple of experts, by Andrew D. Wade and Andrew J. Nelson. 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:55.520 I know that one of the two authors here, Wade, 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:58.280 was the one who was quoted in that article we 0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:01.399 were just talking about. So the authors of of this 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:06.920 presentation here say that many generalizations made these days about 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:10.240 the treatment of the heart in Egyptian momification are based 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:14.479 not on modern empirical research, but rather on accounts given 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:18.680 by classical authors. So if we are going to use 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:23.440 literary evidence, evidence from ancient texts for what these funeral 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:26.440 practices were, uh, you know, it would be really good 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:28.960 to have a lot of direct Egyptian accounts, And we 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:32.920 have some Egyptian accounts about beliefs about funeral practices and 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:35.720 and the afterlife. But instead a lot of the literary 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:39.040 evidence we use is mostly in Greek and Roman texts 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:43.000 from authors like Herodotus and Plutarch. And in fact, they 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:46.840 say the only author specifically mentioning the heart as opposed 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:49.240 to making more general statements about what is done with 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:54.399 the organs during UH momification is the Ptolemaic period Greek 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:59.480 historian Diodorus Siculus, who writes as follows quote, when they 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:01.840 have gathered to treat the body after it has been 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:04.879 split open, one of them thrusts his hand through the 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:08.680 opening in the corpse into the trunk and extracts everything 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:12.240 but the kidneys and the heart, and another one cleanses 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:16.000 each of the viscera, washing them in palm wine and spices. 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:19.560 So based on this, we've got Diodorus here saying that 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:22.480 the heart is always left in place. But of course, 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:25.880 remember he was Ptolemaic period, and this is one author. 0:20:26.600 --> 0:20:29.200 And this presentation I looked at was designed to compare 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:33.480 those literary accounts of heart treatment UH to evidence again 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:37.440 from CT scans or from mummies that have actually been 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:40.719 empirically taken apart and described in the scientific literature. So 0:20:40.760 --> 0:20:44.040 we like looked to see what was left in them. 0:20:44.080 --> 0:20:46.760 And they say there are three basic patterns of of 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:50.520 heart treatment in mummies. One is retention, the heart stays 0:20:50.520 --> 0:20:53.399 in the chest even if other organs are removed. Number 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:56.440 two is removal, the heart is taken out of the body. 0:20:56.960 --> 0:21:00.240 And number three is replacement, where the heart is removed moved, 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:04.119 and something symbolic is left in its place, generally something 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:07.080 called a heart scare ub which is a type of amulet. 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:11.280 So how do the empirical finding stack up the author's 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:14.919 right quote, The heart was noted as intact in only 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:20.440 twenty one of eighty individuals where this organ's disposition was recorded, 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:23.439 and barely more than a quarter of the individuals, And 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:27.160 this sample was the heart retained in situ, and only 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:30.439 one case was the heart possibly sewn back into place, 0:21:30.840 --> 0:21:33.359 and in one other case was a heart scare of 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:37.760 a present presumably to replace the removed heart. And so 0:21:37.880 --> 0:21:39.760 rob you can see I have included a chart from 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:43.440 their presentation below where you can look at the trends 0:21:43.480 --> 0:21:47.560 where these are not percentages, but these are absolute numbers 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:50.560 of examples from these different periods, and you can see 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:55.120 that heart retention predominates in the small number of samples 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:57.760 of mummies we have from the Middle and New Kingdoms. 0:21:58.320 --> 0:22:02.200 But then as time goes on, heart retention is outnumbered 0:22:02.240 --> 0:22:06.439 by heart removals and the third intermediate period, the Late period, 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:10.000 and the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. So, in the words 0:22:10.000 --> 0:22:13.960 of the authors, quote, mummies were increasingly absent their hearts 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:17.400 from the New Kingdom onward. As time goes on, more 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:20.119 and more of the mummies we find have their hearts removed. 0:22:20.800 --> 0:22:25.080 And so the authors conclude, quote, the stereotype of universal 0:22:25.160 --> 0:22:29.640 heart retention or replacement on accidental removal is far from 0:22:29.640 --> 0:22:33.359 the truth. The heart was uncommonly retained in situ and 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:36.480 rarely returned or replaced by a heart scare up. The 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:41.000 hypothesis constructed from the stereotyped account by Diodorus is therefore 0:22:41.080 --> 0:22:46.760 falsified by these data. Interesting interesting, also worth just driving 0:22:46.760 --> 0:22:49.400 home though that this is all separate, of course, from 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:54.080 the purely sort of mythological situation in which the heart 0:22:54.160 --> 0:22:57.720 is weighed. That's taking place in another realm, that is 0:22:57.760 --> 0:23:00.280 not taking place in the physical world. This is a 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:02.679 study about what happened to the body, is not necessarily 0:23:02.720 --> 0:23:05.639 about what the people in question believed about what was 0:23:05.640 --> 0:23:08.760 happening in the afterlife, right, And though of it's also 0:23:08.760 --> 0:23:11.760 worth driving home that also with belief especially when we're 0:23:11.760 --> 0:23:14.200