1
00:00:02,800 --> 00:00:06,000
Speaker 1: Is this a dagger which I see before me, the

2
00:00:06,120 --> 00:00:11,080
Speaker 1: handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch THEE. I

3
00:00:11,160 --> 00:00:14,000
Speaker 1: have THEE not, And yet I see THEE. Still art

4
00:00:14,040 --> 00:00:17,479
Speaker 1: thou not fatal visions sensible to feeling, as to sight,

5
00:00:18,120 --> 00:00:20,800
Speaker 1: or art Thou but a dagger of the mind, a

6
00:00:20,840 --> 00:00:24,520
Speaker 1: false creation proceeding from the heat of rests brain. I

7
00:00:24,600 --> 00:00:27,400
Speaker 1: see THEE yet in form as palpable as this which

8
00:00:27,440 --> 00:00:30,479
Speaker 1: now I draw Thou, marshalst me the way that I

9
00:00:30,640 --> 00:00:34,120
Speaker 1: was going, and such an instrument I was to use.

10
00:00:41,479 --> 00:00:45,279
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind a production of iHeartRadio.

11
00:00:51,080 --> 00:00:53,200
Speaker 1: Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

12
00:00:53,360 --> 00:00:55,960
Speaker 3: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.

13
00:00:56,280 --> 00:00:59,160
Speaker 1: In today's episode and likely a follow up episode, I

14
00:00:59,200 --> 00:01:03,320
Speaker 1: believe to be discussing daggers, but not just your common

15
00:01:03,440 --> 00:01:05,880
Speaker 1: everyday daggers and dirks like I know you know most

16
00:01:05,920 --> 00:01:08,000
Speaker 1: of you are carrying around. But no, we're gonna be

17
00:01:08,080 --> 00:01:12,120
Speaker 1: busting out some awesome plus two and plus three daggers

18
00:01:12,160 --> 00:01:19,200
Speaker 1: with all sorts of sacred, sacrificial, historically or culturally significant connotations.

19
00:01:19,680 --> 00:01:22,399
Speaker 1: As is often the case with these multi part explorations,

20
00:01:22,440 --> 00:01:25,960
Speaker 1: We're just gonna kind of open the dagger drawer here.

21
00:01:26,600 --> 00:01:28,640
Speaker 1: We're going to pull some out and see what we learn,

22
00:01:28,760 --> 00:01:32,480
Speaker 1: see what we discover. Not entirely sure what all the

23
00:01:32,480 --> 00:01:35,680
Speaker 1: connections are necessarily gonna be, but I think we're gonna

24
00:01:35,680 --> 00:01:38,640
Speaker 1: have some interesting artifacts to discuss here.

25
00:01:39,040 --> 00:01:41,760
Speaker 3: Were you inspired to do this topic because of recent

26
00:01:41,840 --> 00:01:43,479
Speaker 3: events in your D and D campaign?

27
00:01:44,080 --> 00:01:46,000
Speaker 1: I mean, there are always cool daggers in D and

28
00:01:46,080 --> 00:01:49,040
Speaker 1: D campaign, so I certainly reflected on that a fair amount,

29
00:01:49,160 --> 00:01:52,040
Speaker 1: but no real recent things that I can think of.

30
00:01:52,760 --> 00:01:55,200
Speaker 1: I think my current character doesn't even use a dagger.

31
00:01:55,200 --> 00:01:58,320
Speaker 1: I mean she probably has one, like your character, unless

32
00:01:58,360 --> 00:02:01,760
Speaker 1: they just are not allowed to have sharp objects. Probably

33
00:02:01,800 --> 00:02:04,240
Speaker 1: has a dagger, or you'll have the opportunity to pick

34
00:02:04,240 --> 00:02:05,160
Speaker 1: one up here there.

35
00:02:05,320 --> 00:02:07,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, at this point, I forget how many cult daggers

36
00:02:07,600 --> 00:02:10,600
Speaker 3: we've stashed into our bag of holding. We got a

37
00:02:10,600 --> 00:02:11,360
Speaker 3: bunch in there.

38
00:02:11,800 --> 00:02:12,919
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just keep throwing them in.

39
00:02:13,840 --> 00:02:15,679
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, the shopkeepers want to buy them.

40
00:02:17,320 --> 00:02:20,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, the return rate you don't get much back on those,

41
00:02:20,639 --> 00:02:22,440
Speaker 1: the cultest daggers. I mean, I guess they've been used

42
00:02:22,440 --> 00:02:24,880
Speaker 1: a lot. They're a little bit dull, yeah, you know,

43
00:02:25,200 --> 00:02:29,200
Speaker 1: a little bit cursed from their usage. But in that

44
00:02:29,280 --> 00:02:31,560
Speaker 1: we kind of get into something we will be discussing,

45
00:02:31,560 --> 00:02:34,040
Speaker 1: and that is like, the dagger does seem to have

46
00:02:34,080 --> 00:02:38,440
Speaker 1: a special place sometimes in our hearts, sometimes literally in

47
00:02:38,480 --> 00:02:42,200
Speaker 1: our hearts, I guess. But the dagger itself is of

48
00:02:42,200 --> 00:02:46,440
Speaker 1: course a human weapon invention that goes way back in

49
00:02:46,480 --> 00:02:50,359
Speaker 1: our development of tools. Our ancestors, of course took up

50
00:02:50,520 --> 00:02:53,600
Speaker 1: various nature facts, you know, found objects, and some of

51
00:02:53,639 --> 00:02:55,519
Speaker 1: these might have taken on the form of a dagger,

52
00:02:55,560 --> 00:02:57,760
Speaker 1: you know, some sort of a talent or two, and

53
00:02:57,800 --> 00:03:00,960
Speaker 1: eventually they went on to create full fledged artifacts, so

54
00:03:01,120 --> 00:03:05,640
Speaker 1: short stabbing weapons crafted from say flint, ivory or bone,

55
00:03:05,800 --> 00:03:08,360
Speaker 1: along with some other material to sort of bind things

56
00:03:08,400 --> 00:03:11,040
Speaker 1: together to make it, you know, more than just one

57
00:03:11,120 --> 00:03:15,080
Speaker 1: found implement, but multiple implements brought together into a proper artifact.

58
00:03:15,440 --> 00:03:17,680
Speaker 3: I was just trying to think, is there a formal

59
00:03:17,760 --> 00:03:20,760
Speaker 3: dividing line between the concept of a knife and the

60
00:03:20,800 --> 00:03:24,360
Speaker 3: concept of a dagger. I can say my usage, which

61
00:03:24,400 --> 00:03:26,799
Speaker 3: is that I would think of a knife as a

62
00:03:26,800 --> 00:03:30,600
Speaker 3: all purpose utility tool, whereas a dagger is a weapon.

63
00:03:30,720 --> 00:03:32,240
Speaker 3: It's something made for violence.

64
00:03:32,800 --> 00:03:36,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it does, it gets it gets a

65
00:03:36,120 --> 00:03:39,520
Speaker 1: little subjective at times, for sure. I was reading a

66
00:03:39,520 --> 00:03:43,560
Speaker 1: bit about this because you know, on one hand, you'll

67
00:03:43,560 --> 00:03:47,119
Speaker 1: have plenty of examples throughout history where someone had a

68
00:03:47,200 --> 00:03:51,960
Speaker 1: blade that certainly had a utility function. This would be

69
00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:54,920
Speaker 1: your knife for you know, cutting through bits of rope

70
00:03:55,080 --> 00:03:59,360
Speaker 1: or perhaps vegetation, maybe you use it in butchery. But

71
00:03:59,440 --> 00:04:02,640
Speaker 1: then it might also be a weapon that not only

72
00:04:02,840 --> 00:04:05,680
Speaker 1: can be used as a weapon, because certainly any knife

73
00:04:05,720 --> 00:04:08,760
Speaker 1: can be used as a weapon against say other humans

74
00:04:08,880 --> 00:04:12,520
Speaker 1: or you know, hostile organisms of one sort or the other.

75
00:04:12,920 --> 00:04:16,839
Speaker 1: But then also sometimes you have you have weapons like this,

76
00:04:16,920 --> 00:04:19,920
Speaker 1: You have blades that kind of a dual purpose like this,

77
00:04:20,600 --> 00:04:22,880
Speaker 1: this is your working blade, but if me be it's

78
00:04:22,880 --> 00:04:24,080
Speaker 1: also your stab in blade.

79
00:04:24,320 --> 00:04:27,160
Speaker 3: Huh, and maybe you're eating blade too, exactly.

80
00:04:27,320 --> 00:04:30,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you know it's going to vary culturally and individually.

81
00:04:31,520 --> 00:04:34,920
Speaker 1: It's going to depend on the exact size of the weapon.

82
00:04:35,520 --> 00:04:39,279
Speaker 1: It is worth noting that while the origins of the

83
00:04:39,320 --> 00:04:42,479
Speaker 1: dagger are essentially like vanish into prehistory, you know, to

84
00:04:42,520 --> 00:04:45,200
Speaker 1: the extent that we can even know these things, it

85
00:04:45,279 --> 00:04:48,320
Speaker 1: does seem to predate the sword, but is not as

86
00:04:48,320 --> 00:04:53,320
Speaker 1: old as the spear. And I think this makes a

87
00:04:53,320 --> 00:04:56,640
Speaker 1: lot more sense when we sort of get into how

88
00:04:56,680 --> 00:04:59,839
Speaker 1: we divide up some of these weapons. I turn to

89
00:05:00,120 --> 00:05:04,520
Speaker 1: book I frequently reference, and that is Brian Fagan's The

90
00:05:04,520 --> 00:05:07,880
Speaker 1: Seventy Great Inventions of the Ancient World, and there's a

91
00:05:07,960 --> 00:05:10,520
Speaker 1: chapter in there dealing with spears and swords and so

92
00:05:10,560 --> 00:05:13,440
Speaker 1: forth that I've probably referenced in the past that he

93
00:05:13,480 --> 00:05:17,600
Speaker 1: wrote with Thomas Hewlett, and they point out that scholars

94
00:05:17,680 --> 00:05:20,400
Speaker 1: tend to decide what is a dagger, a dirk or

95
00:05:20,440 --> 00:05:24,680
Speaker 1: a sword based purely on blade length, though this method

96
00:05:24,680 --> 00:05:27,240
Speaker 1: in and of itself doesn't consider the method by which

97
00:05:27,279 --> 00:05:30,200
Speaker 1: the blade would have been used. So it's just kind

98
00:05:30,200 --> 00:05:32,800
Speaker 1: of like, all right, is it how long is it?

99
00:05:32,839 --> 00:05:34,719
Speaker 1: Is it shorter than a sword? Well, that looks like

100
00:05:34,760 --> 00:05:37,200
Speaker 1: a dirk. Oh, it's shorter than a dirk. It's a dagger.

101
00:05:38,480 --> 00:05:41,000
Speaker 1: And that's about, you know, as nuance as they get,

102
00:05:41,520 --> 00:05:45,120
Speaker 1: you know, leave the other details, I guess, for more

103
00:05:45,240 --> 00:05:49,919
Speaker 1: detailed examination of the artifact. But in broad strokes, if

104
00:05:49,960 --> 00:05:52,599
Speaker 1: you will, that the spear, of course keeps an adversary

105
00:05:52,680 --> 00:05:55,479
Speaker 1: at a distance, and at a considerable distance if you

106
00:05:55,520 --> 00:05:58,880
Speaker 1: get into, you know, examples of throwing the spear one

107
00:05:58,920 --> 00:06:01,159
Speaker 1: way or another, which we've discussed in the show before,

108
00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:05,000
Speaker 1: but then if the enemy's closer, while the sword allows

109
00:06:05,000 --> 00:06:08,640
Speaker 1: for a close quarters combat but still keeps the adversary

110
00:06:08,760 --> 00:06:11,320
Speaker 1: at a modest distance and also allows for a fair

111
00:06:11,360 --> 00:06:15,320
Speaker 1: amount of force, but then when we come in even tighter, well,

112
00:06:15,360 --> 00:06:18,040
Speaker 1: then we get into dirk range and then dagger range,

113
00:06:18,480 --> 00:06:22,359
Speaker 1: and the weapon becomes increasingly close combat, you know, risky.

114
00:06:23,480 --> 00:06:26,839
Speaker 1: And also, while all hand weapons are an extension of

115
00:06:26,880 --> 00:06:30,120
Speaker 1: the human body, you know, factored into the mind's body schema,

116
00:06:30,240 --> 00:06:33,160
Speaker 1: the dagger is just about as intimate a weapon as

117
00:06:33,200 --> 00:06:36,719
Speaker 1: you can get. You know that with a dagger, death

118
00:06:36,760 --> 00:06:40,839
Speaker 1: and bloodshed are close, like they are, like it's I

119
00:06:40,839 --> 00:06:45,080
Speaker 1: think it's ultimately one of the things that's so hypnotizing

120
00:06:45,120 --> 00:06:49,760
Speaker 1: and ticing and like symbolically potent about the dagger is that, like,

121
00:06:50,040 --> 00:06:52,520
Speaker 1: to get closer you'd be dealing with, like with a

122
00:06:52,560 --> 00:06:55,000
Speaker 1: weapon you'd be dealing with like brass knuckles or something, right,

123
00:06:55,160 --> 00:06:59,640
Speaker 1: something that's essentially just parts of the human body slightly augmented,

124
00:07:00,040 --> 00:07:03,520
Speaker 1: but in terms of a weapon that one bears and

125
00:07:03,600 --> 00:07:05,960
Speaker 1: again updates the body schema and kind of makes it

126
00:07:06,000 --> 00:07:08,320
Speaker 1: a part of you, Like, the dagger is the most

127
00:07:08,320 --> 00:07:09,320
Speaker 1: intimate of weapons.

128
00:07:09,920 --> 00:07:12,080
Speaker 3: I think about that in the context of what often

129
00:07:12,120 --> 00:07:16,040
Speaker 3: happened in combat between knights wearing plate armor. So if

130
00:07:16,080 --> 00:07:18,920
Speaker 3: you're both wearing plate armor, it's going to be difficult

131
00:07:18,960 --> 00:07:21,080
Speaker 3: to hurt each other with a sword and doing cuts

132
00:07:21,080 --> 00:07:24,440
Speaker 3: and thrusts that just bounce off the plate. So often

133
00:07:24,520 --> 00:07:27,320
Speaker 3: the way these duels or fights on the battlefield would

134
00:07:27,360 --> 00:07:30,600
Speaker 3: go would be that you would initially trade blows with longer,

135
00:07:30,680 --> 00:07:33,600
Speaker 3: heavier weapons at a distance, maybe like a pole arm.

136
00:07:34,160 --> 00:07:36,440
Speaker 3: You probably also have a mace with you, and the

137
00:07:36,480 --> 00:07:39,040
Speaker 3: goal would be to knock your opponent down on the

138
00:07:39,080 --> 00:07:41,600
Speaker 3: ground or to tire them out and injure them with

139
00:07:41,800 --> 00:07:46,720
Speaker 3: blunt force, and then usually into the fight by grappling

140
00:07:46,800 --> 00:07:49,840
Speaker 3: with them and trying to get a killing stroke, by

141
00:07:49,840 --> 00:07:52,000
Speaker 3: getting up close and using a short blade like a

142
00:07:52,040 --> 00:07:54,760
Speaker 3: Rondell dagger to try to stab in between the plates

143
00:07:54,760 --> 00:07:56,880
Speaker 3: of the armor or through the face plate.

144
00:07:57,600 --> 00:08:00,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's where it gets really, it gets really

145
00:08:02,040 --> 00:08:05,720
Speaker 1: I get really squeamish thinking about it. Yeah, and yeah,

146
00:08:05,760 --> 00:08:07,360
Speaker 1: I mean it would seem this is of course going

147
00:08:07,440 --> 00:08:11,440
Speaker 1: to vary greatly by you know, individual and culture and

148
00:08:11,520 --> 00:08:16,000
Speaker 1: proximity to these various martial arts, if you will, But

149
00:08:17,400 --> 00:08:21,840
Speaker 1: it feels less of a like a dignified art form

150
00:08:21,880 --> 00:08:24,400
Speaker 1: of battle, and it becomes more just about like personal

151
00:08:24,520 --> 00:08:25,800
Speaker 1: murder and death at that point.

152
00:08:26,160 --> 00:08:29,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, some of the pretty illusions of heroic warfare kind

153
00:08:29,760 --> 00:08:31,480
Speaker 3: of fade away when you get that close and you

154
00:08:31,560 --> 00:08:32,480
Speaker 3: see what's really going on.

155
00:08:32,920 --> 00:08:36,839
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that makes it such an interesting focal point

156
00:08:36,920 --> 00:08:40,840
Speaker 1: I think for so many authors and artists throughout time, Like,

157
00:08:40,880 --> 00:08:44,160
Speaker 1: there's something about a knife fight that is frightening and

158
00:08:44,240 --> 00:08:47,320
Speaker 1: also tantalizing. So, you know, it should come as no

159
00:08:47,400 --> 00:08:50,359
Speaker 1: surprise that the Dagger was a frequent point of contemplation

160
00:08:50,559 --> 00:08:56,080
Speaker 1: for author Jorae Luis Borges. Alongside things like mirrors and labyrinths.

161
00:08:56,160 --> 00:09:00,200
Speaker 1: You know, knife fighters pop up again and again his

162
00:09:00,280 --> 00:09:05,840
Speaker 1: short stories, including nineteen sixty nine's The Encounter, which I

163
00:09:05,840 --> 00:09:08,320
Speaker 1: think has also I think it was published in The

164
00:09:08,320 --> 00:09:10,440
Speaker 1: New Yorker under a different title back in the day,

165
00:09:10,480 --> 00:09:13,040
Speaker 1: but in the collection I have it is listed as

166
00:09:13,080 --> 00:09:17,480
Speaker 1: The Encounter, and it deals with a violent encounter between

167
00:09:17,520 --> 00:09:21,920
Speaker 1: a pair of knife fighters or ku chi euros and

168
00:09:22,240 --> 00:09:25,400
Speaker 1: the author. In the narrator anyway, it comes to believe

169
00:09:25,640 --> 00:09:28,439
Speaker 1: that it was not the two men who fought each

170
00:09:28,480 --> 00:09:32,920
Speaker 1: other ultimately, but the two antique dueling daggers that they wielded.

171
00:09:34,160 --> 00:09:38,320
Speaker 3: So it's dagger versus dagger with some human pilots tacked on.

172
00:09:38,840 --> 00:09:43,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna read from Borges and translation here it

173
00:09:43,480 --> 00:09:46,520
Speaker 1: was the weapons, not the men, that fought. And then

174
00:09:46,640 --> 00:09:50,080
Speaker 1: later this passage they had sought each other for a

175
00:09:50,120 --> 00:09:53,520
Speaker 1: long time, down the long roads of the province, and

176
00:09:53,559 --> 00:09:56,320
Speaker 1: at last they had found each other. By that time,

177
00:09:56,360 --> 00:09:59,880
Speaker 1: their gauchos were dust in the blades of those knives.

178
00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:04,600
Speaker 1: They're slept and lurked a human grudge. Things last longer

179
00:10:04,640 --> 00:10:07,720
Speaker 1: than men. Who can say whether the story ends here,

180
00:10:08,120 --> 00:10:10,400
Speaker 1: Who can say that they will never meet again?

181
00:10:10,960 --> 00:10:13,520
Speaker 3: Well, by that logic, the bones of the men could

182
00:10:13,640 --> 00:10:14,720
Speaker 3: meet again somehow.

183
00:10:15,960 --> 00:10:19,520
Speaker 1: Well, yes, but yeah, something but I like it. Yeah yeah,

184
00:10:19,559 --> 00:10:22,000
Speaker 1: something like this could be said of any weapon, or

185
00:10:22,000 --> 00:10:25,800
Speaker 1: any antique weapon especially, but yeah, the dagger, especially via

186
00:10:25,880 --> 00:10:30,760
Speaker 1: its closeness, it's intimacy. You know, it seems especially apt

187
00:10:30,800 --> 00:10:32,760
Speaker 1: for this kind of reading. You know, perhaps it's just

188
00:10:32,800 --> 00:10:35,400
Speaker 1: so close to our own bodies and our own wills

189
00:10:35,480 --> 00:10:37,720
Speaker 1: it becomes like a focal point of our most violent

190
00:10:37,840 --> 00:10:41,640
Speaker 1: designs and desires that it becomes something more.

191
00:10:42,400 --> 00:10:43,960
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, And I don't think we have to

192
00:10:44,000 --> 00:10:47,880
Speaker 3: speculate about the symbolic importance of the dagger. I mean,

193
00:10:47,880 --> 00:10:50,960
Speaker 3: we can literally just see that a huge number of

194
00:10:51,559 --> 00:10:56,040
Speaker 3: the daggers produced and preserved throughout history are things that,

195
00:10:56,480 --> 00:10:59,360
Speaker 3: as far as we can tell, might never have actually

196
00:10:59,360 --> 00:11:02,280
Speaker 3: been used, you know, might never have been used for violence.

197
00:11:02,360 --> 00:11:05,559
Speaker 3: They were symbols, They were decorations. They were something that

198
00:11:05,920 --> 00:11:09,040
Speaker 3: people held and kept on their body to look a

199
00:11:09,040 --> 00:11:10,760
Speaker 3: certain way and to mean something.

200
00:11:11,160 --> 00:11:13,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, whether they were actually used in any kind of

201
00:11:13,800 --> 00:11:18,440
Speaker 1: a particular ritual of use or ritual without use, you know,

202
00:11:18,520 --> 00:11:21,319
Speaker 1: like what was it used to cut open a you know,

203
00:11:21,360 --> 00:11:23,240
Speaker 1: an animal in some sort of a practice, or was

204
00:11:23,280 --> 00:11:26,320
Speaker 1: it just sort of presented or was it more what

205
00:11:26,360 --> 00:11:28,480
Speaker 1: we might think of as decoration like in some cases

206
00:11:28,520 --> 00:11:33,559
Speaker 1: We don't know, But yeah, the dagger takes on this

207
00:11:34,720 --> 00:11:38,880
Speaker 1: important symbolic place in various cultures throughout time.

208
00:11:39,280 --> 00:11:41,000
Speaker 3: In fact, I would not say this is not just

209
00:11:41,040 --> 00:11:44,480
Speaker 3: true of daggers. I would extend this to weapons in

210
00:11:44,559 --> 00:11:48,720
Speaker 3: all times and places as used by humans. Clearly, I

211
00:11:48,720 --> 00:11:51,520
Speaker 3: mean obviously they are in many cases actually used for

212
00:11:51,640 --> 00:11:56,120
Speaker 3: violence or defense. But that's not the only reason people

213
00:11:56,160 --> 00:11:58,680
Speaker 3: get them. You know, people don't just have weapons because

214
00:11:58,679 --> 00:12:01,560
Speaker 3: they will literally actually have to use them at some point.

215
00:12:01,640 --> 00:12:03,800
Speaker 3: A lot of it's about how they make people feel,

216
00:12:03,920 --> 00:12:05,920
Speaker 3: how you feel when you have a weapon. It's like

217
00:12:06,160 --> 00:12:08,800
Speaker 3: a psychological self management issue.

218
00:12:09,120 --> 00:12:11,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there's something to be said too, how we

219
00:12:11,920 --> 00:12:14,680
Speaker 1: even end up buying weapons that, first of all, have

220
00:12:14,800 --> 00:12:18,400
Speaker 1: no conceivable real life purpose. We're not planning to use them,

221
00:12:18,679 --> 00:12:23,320
Speaker 1: either for a utilitarian purpose or even or even in battle,

222
00:12:23,320 --> 00:12:26,400
Speaker 1: like people will buy things like cling on battle accents

223
00:12:26,480 --> 00:12:26,880
Speaker 1: or whatnot.

224
00:12:27,000 --> 00:12:29,120
Speaker 3: You know, this is my Samurai sword.

225
00:12:29,200 --> 00:12:32,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And you know, and again it may

226
00:12:32,400 --> 00:12:34,480
Speaker 1: be tied to an actual culture, it may be tied

227
00:12:34,520 --> 00:12:37,200
Speaker 1: to a misrepresentation of a culture or something from a

228
00:12:37,240 --> 00:12:41,200
Speaker 1: science fiction fantasy show. But yeah, it still takes on

229
00:12:41,240 --> 00:12:43,600
Speaker 1: this important meaning. And there's something about holding it in

230
00:12:43,600 --> 00:12:47,440
Speaker 1: our hands. By the way, the knives in that Borgz story,

231
00:12:47,679 --> 00:12:52,400
Speaker 1: he describes them a fair link for a short story.

232
00:12:52,880 --> 00:12:55,360
Speaker 1: So I looked up some images of what these things

233
00:12:55,400 --> 00:12:59,439
Speaker 1: actually looked like, and I have a picture here for you, Joe. Apparently,

234
00:12:59,480 --> 00:13:04,600
Speaker 1: the two eyes that the Gauchos would use around the

235
00:13:04,640 --> 00:13:07,559
Speaker 1: time that the story is taking place consisted of two

236
00:13:07,600 --> 00:13:11,600
Speaker 1: different sorts of blades. There was the facan this would

237
00:13:11,920 --> 00:13:17,920
Speaker 1: like a short and it almost looks like a bayonet.

238
00:13:16,679 --> 00:13:19,680
Speaker 3: Kind of long, almost dirk like, you know, I would

239
00:13:19,760 --> 00:13:21,760
Speaker 3: almost think of this as a short sword.

240
00:13:22,000 --> 00:13:24,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really does look almost like a short sword.

241
00:13:25,400 --> 00:13:27,800
Speaker 1: It has like a either a U or an S

242
00:13:27,800 --> 00:13:31,160
Speaker 1: shaped crossguard on it. And then there was another blade

243
00:13:31,200 --> 00:13:34,199
Speaker 1: called the Dagga, which was which had like a really

244
00:13:34,240 --> 00:13:36,840
Speaker 1: short guard, so no S or U shapes, and it

245
00:13:36,920 --> 00:13:41,800
Speaker 1: was apparently double edged. And the Facan especially was a

246
00:13:41,840 --> 00:13:45,000
Speaker 1: blade that was both something that they would use for

247
00:13:45,120 --> 00:13:48,000
Speaker 1: work and also if they were to engage in a

248
00:13:48,040 --> 00:13:51,120
Speaker 1: knife fight, this would be their blade. All right, Well,

249
00:13:51,160 --> 00:13:56,199
Speaker 1: let's get into our dagger selections for this episode. We

250
00:13:56,559 --> 00:14:00,199
Speaker 1: came up with a whole list of possible choices sort

251
00:14:00,200 --> 00:14:02,920
Speaker 1: of like get things started. And I have to admit

252
00:14:03,920 --> 00:14:07,880
Speaker 1: this first one that I picked my selection here has

253
00:14:07,920 --> 00:14:12,640
Speaker 1: everything to do with fantasy and RPGs because it sounds

254
00:14:12,720 --> 00:14:14,760
Speaker 1: like something from a fantasy or RP. It sounds like

255
00:14:14,800 --> 00:14:16,760
Speaker 1: it could be the name of a Dungeons and Dragons

256
00:14:16,840 --> 00:14:21,120
Speaker 1: adventure module. Well, let's hear it, and that is the

257
00:14:21,240 --> 00:14:25,320
Speaker 1: rock Crystal dagger of the Ivory Lady. So many questions, right,

258
00:14:26,640 --> 00:14:29,520
Speaker 1: is it made of rock crystal? Who's the Ivory Lady?

259
00:14:29,520 --> 00:14:31,640
Speaker 1: What's her deal? Why does she have this blade or

260
00:14:31,680 --> 00:14:32,680
Speaker 1: why does she want this blade?

261
00:14:32,720 --> 00:14:35,480
Speaker 3: And so forth? What's the quest? Yeah, of the Ivory Lady.

262
00:14:35,560 --> 00:14:38,280
Speaker 3: It makes me think like our Lady of Perpetual Knife.

263
00:14:38,720 --> 00:14:43,160
Speaker 1: Yes, so yeah, let's start with the lady in question here,

264
00:14:43,240 --> 00:14:46,280
Speaker 1: So not to be confused with the Ivory Bengal Lady,

265
00:14:46,680 --> 00:14:50,960
Speaker 1: which I was momentarily sidetracked by, because this is also

266
00:14:51,240 --> 00:14:56,040
Speaker 1: a fascinating sounding historical tidbit. The Ivory Bengal Lady is

267
00:14:56,080 --> 00:15:00,680
Speaker 1: a fourth century CE skeleton found in North Yorkshire, England

268
00:15:00,840 --> 00:15:05,560
Speaker 1: and apparently of North African origin, so not her different lady.

269
00:15:05,880 --> 00:15:08,360
Speaker 1: The Ivory Lady in question here that we'll be discussing

270
00:15:08,480 --> 00:15:12,600
Speaker 1: was found in southwestern Spain, near Seville and adjacent to

271
00:15:12,640 --> 00:15:18,000
Speaker 1: the Tolos de Montellierio gravesite. The lady in question first

272
00:15:18,000 --> 00:15:19,920
Speaker 1: believed to be a man till I believe a twenty

273
00:15:19,960 --> 00:15:23,600
Speaker 1: twenty one analysis proved otherwise, was a woman of some importance,

274
00:15:23,640 --> 00:15:27,040
Speaker 1: if not leadership, during the Iberian Copper Age. This would

275
00:15:27,040 --> 00:15:30,840
Speaker 1: have been between thirty two hundred and twenty two hundred BCE.

276
00:15:32,000 --> 00:15:34,200
Speaker 1: The main source I was looking at here for this

277
00:15:34,440 --> 00:15:39,640
Speaker 1: is Amologen and peptide analysis reveal female leadership in copper age, Iberia.

278
00:15:40,040 --> 00:15:44,080
Speaker 1: And this was by census Penna at all. This was

279
00:15:44,080 --> 00:15:47,840
Speaker 1: published in Scientific Reports. It's a really interesting article that

280
00:15:47,920 --> 00:15:49,160
Speaker 1: of course does a good job it just sort of

281
00:15:49,240 --> 00:15:52,960
Speaker 1: laying out what was found, what we know about the

282
00:15:53,000 --> 00:15:56,080
Speaker 1: body of the Ivory Lady, and what it signifies. But

283
00:15:56,080 --> 00:15:59,720
Speaker 1: also they make this case that she was evidently like

284
00:15:59,760 --> 00:16:03,760
Speaker 1: a eating social figure at the time, so perhaps a

285
00:16:04,040 --> 00:16:09,080
Speaker 1: highly ranking priestess, and not only like a highly ranking priestess,

286
00:16:09,160 --> 00:16:13,200
Speaker 1: but like perhaps the highly ranking priestess of her time,

287
00:16:13,840 --> 00:16:16,840
Speaker 1: someone who would have commanded a great deal of power

288
00:16:16,920 --> 00:16:21,120
Speaker 1: and authority among her people, and in doing so like

289
00:16:21,560 --> 00:16:27,520
Speaker 1: retained that aura after death, like for generations. So the

290
00:16:27,560 --> 00:16:31,360
Speaker 1: Ivory Lady in question here was buried with an African

291
00:16:31,400 --> 00:16:37,000
Speaker 1: elephant's tusk. Again this is in an Iberian Spain, an

292
00:16:37,000 --> 00:16:42,120
Speaker 1: ivory comb, an ostrocheg shell, a flint dagger inlaid with amber,

293
00:16:42,800 --> 00:16:46,360
Speaker 1: which in and of itself is a pretty fascinating sounding dagger,

294
00:16:46,400 --> 00:16:49,160
Speaker 1: but also a crystal dagger, which I'll come back to.

295
00:16:49,600 --> 00:16:53,040
Speaker 1: She also had a large ceramic plate bearing trace elements

296
00:16:53,080 --> 00:16:57,200
Speaker 1: of wine and cannabis, and some of these items seem

297
00:16:57,240 --> 00:17:00,200
Speaker 1: to have been buried with her, while others include the

298
00:17:00,200 --> 00:17:04,879
Speaker 1: crystal dagger, were left as offering some time after her death.

299
00:17:05,119 --> 00:17:07,520
Speaker 1: Its thought that the crystal dagger was placed maybe some

300
00:17:07,600 --> 00:17:09,160
Speaker 1: eighty years after her death.

301
00:17:09,359 --> 00:17:09,919
Speaker 3: Oh wow.

302
00:17:10,200 --> 00:17:12,919
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can find images of this dagger online if

303
00:17:12,960 --> 00:17:18,040
Speaker 1: you look for ivory lady, crystal dagger, that sort of thing.

304
00:17:18,720 --> 00:17:21,400
Speaker 1: I included an image here for your Joe though, and

305
00:17:21,080 --> 00:17:24,960
Speaker 1: you can see the blade and the reconstructed hilt here.

306
00:17:25,480 --> 00:17:29,399
Speaker 1: So it was composed of rock crystal and had an

307
00:17:29,480 --> 00:17:33,480
Speaker 1: ivory handle. The ivory, as with the other examples of ivory,

308
00:17:33,520 --> 00:17:36,560
Speaker 1: would have been imported, and it was decorated with some

309
00:17:37,440 --> 00:17:43,199
Speaker 1: ninety different decorative beads made of mother of pearl. The

310
00:17:43,280 --> 00:17:48,240
Speaker 1: rock crystal itself. This is a transparent, colorless variety of quartz,

311
00:17:48,280 --> 00:17:51,160
Speaker 1: so it's essentially a quartz dagger. But I think rock crystal,

312
00:17:51,160 --> 00:17:53,960
Speaker 1: of course, is just going to sound a little more exciting.

313
00:17:54,680 --> 00:17:57,680
Speaker 1: But still it does very much look like crystal.

314
00:17:57,760 --> 00:17:57,840
Speaker 2: Like.

315
00:17:58,520 --> 00:18:00,960
Speaker 1: You can imagine this thing perhaps being held up to

316
00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:04,320
Speaker 1: the light, be it fire light or sunlight, and it

317
00:18:04,440 --> 00:18:06,720
Speaker 1: being quite an evocative site.

318
00:18:06,720 --> 00:18:11,479
Speaker 3: Casting rainbows everywhere. Yeah, I mean perhaps wow. Yeah, So

319
00:18:11,480 --> 00:18:13,760
Speaker 3: I'm trying to tell just looking at the picture if

320
00:18:13,800 --> 00:18:16,280
Speaker 3: I'm seeing this correctly, So you said it is transparent

321
00:18:16,359 --> 00:18:18,879
Speaker 3: or translucent, this is a blade that you can see

322
00:18:18,920 --> 00:18:20,280
Speaker 3: through to some extent.

323
00:18:20,400 --> 00:18:23,440
Speaker 1: To some extent, yeah, one gets the impression that would

324
00:18:23,440 --> 00:18:24,720
Speaker 1: have done interesting things.

325
00:18:24,480 --> 00:18:26,520
Speaker 3: With the light. Yeah.

326
00:18:26,720 --> 00:18:29,840
Speaker 1: And so clearly this is a rather different beast than

327
00:18:29,880 --> 00:18:34,000
Speaker 1: the working and fighting blades we were talking about earlier, Like,

328
00:18:34,040 --> 00:18:39,359
Speaker 1: this is clearly an item of prestige, of symbolic importance,

329
00:18:39,920 --> 00:18:43,320
Speaker 1: and it was finally crafted. So it's a combination of

330
00:18:43,440 --> 00:18:48,120
Speaker 1: rare materials, imported materials, and also just a high level

331
00:18:48,119 --> 00:18:50,960
Speaker 1: of craftsmanship, especially when it comes to the working of

332
00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:54,080
Speaker 1: the rock crystal, which I'm to understand would have been

333
00:18:54,800 --> 00:18:59,280
Speaker 1: extra labor intensive and also maybe not as ideal for

334
00:18:59,400 --> 00:19:02,480
Speaker 1: actual use if you were intending to stab a bunch

335
00:19:02,520 --> 00:19:04,640
Speaker 1: of people with it or use it for some sort

336
00:19:04,680 --> 00:19:07,159
Speaker 1: of you know, day to day sort of purpose. So

337
00:19:07,200 --> 00:19:10,639
Speaker 1: it was something that would have signified class and or power.

338
00:19:11,840 --> 00:19:14,880
Speaker 1: In this paper, they also include an illustration of what

339
00:19:14,920 --> 00:19:18,359
Speaker 1: they think the lady, the Ivory Lady might have looked

340
00:19:18,440 --> 00:19:21,200
Speaker 1: like in life. I included this for you here as well, Joe,

341
00:19:21,200 --> 00:19:25,119
Speaker 1: and you can see her seated in a position of authority,

342
00:19:25,560 --> 00:19:29,879
Speaker 1: and you'll notice that they've depicted her with like red

343
00:19:29,920 --> 00:19:34,240
Speaker 1: pigment over part of her torso. And this is actually

344
00:19:34,359 --> 00:19:37,760
Speaker 1: really key and quite interesting. This would be due to

345
00:19:38,119 --> 00:19:40,680
Speaker 1: the red and the red ranges from like a bright

346
00:19:40,760 --> 00:19:45,600
Speaker 1: scarlet to a brick red form of mercury sulfide. This

347
00:19:45,640 --> 00:19:48,480
Speaker 1: is cinnabar, and this has been used in various places

348
00:19:48,480 --> 00:19:52,720
Speaker 1: around the world for pigmentation and everything from art and

349
00:19:52,840 --> 00:19:56,919
Speaker 1: clothing to cosmetics and body adornment, and it's also been

350
00:19:56,960 --> 00:20:00,800
Speaker 1: used in various traditional medicines as well. But again it

351
00:20:00,840 --> 00:20:05,280
Speaker 1: is mercury so far, so it is quite toxic.

352
00:20:05,359 --> 00:20:07,560
Speaker 3: And we were not recommending it.

353
00:20:07,760 --> 00:20:09,880
Speaker 1: Yes, ye, do not decide that you want to go

354
00:20:10,920 --> 00:20:14,160
Speaker 1: upgrade your look with cinebar. Now it is toxic. And

355
00:20:14,240 --> 00:20:20,000
Speaker 1: we know that she used cinnebar because she had quote

356
00:20:20,040 --> 00:20:24,840
Speaker 1: striking strikingly high levels of mercury in the bones and

357
00:20:24,880 --> 00:20:29,399
Speaker 1: these revealed intense anti mortem exposure to cinebar, So she

358
00:20:29,440 --> 00:20:32,680
Speaker 1: would have she would have been using cinnabar on a

359
00:20:32,800 --> 00:20:35,560
Speaker 1: level that she wouldn't have just picked up through just

360
00:20:35,640 --> 00:20:39,320
Speaker 1: sort of like casual usage, like she had privileged access

361
00:20:39,359 --> 00:20:42,959
Speaker 1: to this stuff. So this would again, as with her

362
00:20:43,000 --> 00:20:46,960
Speaker 1: association with wine and cannabis. The argument here is that

363
00:20:47,000 --> 00:20:50,600
Speaker 1: she probably had some sort of priestly role in the society.

364
00:20:51,720 --> 00:20:53,639
Speaker 1: Now I mentioned already that this grave side is in

365
00:20:53,640 --> 00:20:59,960
Speaker 1: close proximity to another grave site, that Tolos de Monteluerio site,

366
00:21:00,240 --> 00:21:04,680
Speaker 1: and there are other women buried there as well, and

367
00:21:06,280 --> 00:21:09,400
Speaker 1: they also have high levels of mercury due to cinebar

368
00:21:10,720 --> 00:21:13,680
Speaker 1: and these were seemingly buried, according to the paper, two

369
00:21:13,760 --> 00:21:17,760
Speaker 1: or three generations later. And so the assumption here is

370
00:21:17,800 --> 00:21:20,240
Speaker 1: this they would have been buried close to her grave

371
00:21:20,920 --> 00:21:23,000
Speaker 1: in an attempt to sort of connect them to her,

372
00:21:23,280 --> 00:21:25,840
Speaker 1: or because they were you know, they were part of

373
00:21:26,000 --> 00:21:30,159
Speaker 1: a lineage that was connected to her. And the authors

374
00:21:30,160 --> 00:21:32,960
Speaker 1: of the paper make an argument for a powerful priestess

375
00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:37,320
Speaker 1: class in this coppy age Iberian culture. One of the

376
00:21:37,760 --> 00:21:41,960
Speaker 1: later buried females had an extra toe on each foot, incidentally,

377
00:21:42,000 --> 00:21:45,239
Speaker 1: which they point out would have possibly been interpreted as

378
00:21:45,280 --> 00:21:48,080
Speaker 1: a signifier of her special class and powers.

379
00:21:48,359 --> 00:21:48,919
Speaker 3: Interesting.

380
00:21:49,400 --> 00:21:52,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, So again, the argument here is that she was

381
00:21:52,720 --> 00:21:55,720
Speaker 1: an important person, and perhaps more than that, perhaps the

382
00:21:55,760 --> 00:22:01,040
Speaker 1: most important person in her society at the time. And

383
00:22:01,119 --> 00:22:05,639
Speaker 1: so this is not necessarily to say that The argument

384
00:22:05,720 --> 00:22:08,800
Speaker 1: then therefore is that Copper Age Iberian people were part

385
00:22:08,800 --> 00:22:12,320
Speaker 1: of a matriarchal society, though some might make that case,

386
00:22:12,400 --> 00:22:14,440
Speaker 1: but I believe based on the reading here, like the

387
00:22:14,680 --> 00:22:18,520
Speaker 1: main argument they're making is that previously it's kind of

388
00:22:18,560 --> 00:22:22,200
Speaker 1: like the default assumption was, oh, they were a patriarchal society,

389
00:22:22,440 --> 00:22:24,400
Speaker 1: and we can kind of see that in the idea

390
00:22:24,440 --> 00:22:27,040
Speaker 1: that when we first discovered the Ivory Lady, we thought

391
00:22:27,080 --> 00:22:29,919
Speaker 1: she was the Ivory Man, and then we came to

392
00:22:29,960 --> 00:22:34,840
Speaker 1: realize that error later on with additional analysis, and so

393
00:22:34,960 --> 00:22:38,040
Speaker 1: the idea here would be that women, and especially the

394
00:22:38,040 --> 00:22:40,879
Speaker 1: Ivory woman, enjoyed a great deal of power in a

395
00:22:40,920 --> 00:22:44,480
Speaker 1: society that was socially and politically more complex than we

396
00:22:44,520 --> 00:22:47,880
Speaker 1: previously thought, or more complex than we previously gave them

397
00:22:47,880 --> 00:22:48,359
Speaker 1: credit for.

398
00:22:49,480 --> 00:22:49,680
Speaker 3: Now.

399
00:22:49,840 --> 00:22:53,040
Speaker 1: Sadly, when it comes to the exact significance of the

400
00:22:53,119 --> 00:22:57,480
Speaker 1: rock Crystal Dagger, you know, we just have to speculate again.

401
00:22:57,720 --> 00:23:02,440
Speaker 1: A prestige item made with great skill and imported costly materials,

402
00:23:03,080 --> 00:23:05,800
Speaker 1: we can only assume it had sacred or even magical

403
00:23:05,880 --> 00:23:09,199
Speaker 1: attributes in the eyes of the people who crafted it

404
00:23:09,280 --> 00:23:12,359
Speaker 1: and carried carried on with it, and ultimately buried it

405
00:23:12,440 --> 00:23:17,280
Speaker 1: with the Ivory lady, and that adjacent gravesite also reveals

406
00:23:17,359 --> 00:23:21,120
Speaker 1: other examples of rock crystal artifacts, so I don't believe

407
00:23:21,280 --> 00:23:25,119
Speaker 1: there has been another rock crystal dagger discovered, but there

408
00:23:25,160 --> 00:23:29,120
Speaker 1: are arrowheads and other examples of the craftsmanship with rock crystal,

409
00:23:29,800 --> 00:23:32,520
Speaker 1: so the item wasn't completely a one off. But as

410
00:23:32,560 --> 00:23:35,520
Speaker 1: far as I can tell, the surviving artifact is one

411
00:23:35,560 --> 00:23:36,119
Speaker 1: of a kind.

412
00:23:37,520 --> 00:23:39,560
Speaker 3: You know, this kind of connects to something I've been

413
00:23:39,600 --> 00:23:41,560
Speaker 3: thinking about wanting to do on the show for a while.

414
00:23:42,240 --> 00:23:45,120
Speaker 3: I haven't locked in exactly what the topic would be yet,

415
00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:50,000
Speaker 3: but something about interesting transparent materials in the ancient world.

416
00:23:50,680 --> 00:23:53,600
Speaker 3: You know, there are some stories in the ancient texts

417
00:23:53,680 --> 00:23:57,000
Speaker 3: hard to verify exactly how true they are about things

418
00:23:57,080 --> 00:24:01,640
Speaker 3: that sound like transparent rocks or something in cases where

419
00:24:01,640 --> 00:24:03,600
Speaker 3: it would be hard to imagine something of that sort.

420
00:24:03,640 --> 00:24:06,160
Speaker 3: But then we do have these, you know, these rock

421
00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:10,040
Speaker 3: crystals that are at least partially transparent or translucent like

422
00:24:10,080 --> 00:24:13,080
Speaker 3: we have here with the dagger, So yeah, I think

423
00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:15,040
Speaker 3: be worth looking at sometimes.

424
00:24:15,119 --> 00:24:18,480
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it reminds me of the episode of Invention

425
00:24:18,640 --> 00:24:21,359
Speaker 1: that we did on sunglasses and getting into some of

426
00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:25,840
Speaker 1: these older accounts that may or may not have been

427
00:24:25,880 --> 00:24:30,359
Speaker 1: something like sunglasses. Yeah, and and of course we also

428
00:24:30,400 --> 00:24:32,119
Speaker 1: we've talked a little bit about the history of glass

429
00:24:32,160 --> 00:24:33,800
Speaker 1: and mirrors and so forth as well.

430
00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:46,520
Speaker 3: All right, you ready to look at another ancient dagger.

431
00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:49,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm putting this one back in the drawer. And yeah,

432
00:24:49,680 --> 00:24:50,800
Speaker 1: go ahead and pull another one out.

433
00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:53,719
Speaker 3: I'm going to talk for a minute here about the

434
00:24:53,760 --> 00:24:58,399
Speaker 3: bush Barrow dagger. The Bush Barrow dagger is a partially

435
00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:03,199
Speaker 3: preserved artifact from Bronze Age Britain found inside the ancient

436
00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:07,000
Speaker 3: barrow grave known as Bush Barrow, which was excavated in

437
00:25:07,119 --> 00:25:10,640
Speaker 3: the year eighteen oh eight by an English antiquarian named

438
00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:14,080
Speaker 3: William Cunnington who was working for a patron named Sir

439
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:17,560
Speaker 3: Richard cult Whore. Rob if got a photo taken from

440
00:25:17,560 --> 00:25:19,560
Speaker 3: a bit up in the air a bit overhead that

441
00:25:19,720 --> 00:25:23,119
Speaker 3: shows Bush Barrow and some of the surrounding grave sites

442
00:25:23,160 --> 00:25:27,920
Speaker 3: in this field in England. Bush Barrow is a mound

443
00:25:28,119 --> 00:25:32,200
Speaker 3: shaped burial site also known as a tumulus, located on

444
00:25:32,240 --> 00:25:37,359
Speaker 3: a ridge about one kilometer southwest of Stone Hinge, which

445
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:40,680
Speaker 3: is so it's part of a larger grave complex known

446
00:25:40,760 --> 00:25:45,440
Speaker 3: as the Normanton Down Barrow Cemetery. So if you stand

447
00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:49,720
Speaker 3: at Bush Barrow. You are actually looking out directly over

448
00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:52,760
Speaker 3: the stone circle at Stone Hinge. It's the good seats.

449
00:25:54,119 --> 00:25:58,240
Speaker 3: The bush Barrow Grave dates back to around nineteen hundred BCE,

450
00:25:58,560 --> 00:26:00,720
Speaker 3: give or take a century or so, so this is

451
00:26:00,720 --> 00:26:04,879
Speaker 3: a roughly four thousand year old burial and it is

452
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:09,600
Speaker 3: famous for being one of the richest Bronze Age tombs

453
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:13,679
Speaker 3: in Britain when measured by the quality and quantity of

454
00:26:13,760 --> 00:26:17,360
Speaker 3: the grave goods deposited with the body inside. So who

455
00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:20,240
Speaker 3: is this grave four? We don't know the person's name,

456
00:26:20,520 --> 00:26:24,400
Speaker 3: but it was obviously a figure of great power and status,

457
00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:28,439
Speaker 3: maybe a great priest or a great warrior or political leader.

458
00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:32,520
Speaker 3: Usually this person is referred to as the Bush Barrow Chieftain.

459
00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:35,280
Speaker 3: If you want to look up some of these artifacts

460
00:26:35,280 --> 00:26:38,000
Speaker 3: from Bush Barrow online, you can find good photos of

461
00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:41,720
Speaker 3: them and some good video content about them hosted by

462
00:26:41,840 --> 00:26:46,640
Speaker 3: the Wilchair Museum and by the Wessex Museums. I think

463
00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:50,520
Speaker 3: the Wilchair Museum might fall under the Wessex Museums, I'm

464
00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:53,800
Speaker 3: not quite sure, but the Wiltshire Museum website. I found

465
00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:56,680
Speaker 3: a good video hosted by them that sort of goes

466
00:26:56,720 --> 00:26:59,680
Speaker 3: through the artifacts from Bush Barrow one by one by

467
00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:02,760
Speaker 3: and it's hosted by an expert affiliated with the museum.

468
00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:05,320
Speaker 3: So before I get to the main dagger, I want

469
00:27:05,359 --> 00:27:07,480
Speaker 3: to mention a few other things from this grave that

470
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:11,760
Speaker 3: are quite interesting. One is known as the gold lozenge.

471
00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:16,360
Speaker 3: Lozenge is not just the thing you know grandparents take

472
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:18,880
Speaker 3: for when you got a cold. It's another word for

473
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:23,639
Speaker 3: a rhombus or a diamond shape. So to picture this artifact,

474
00:27:23,720 --> 00:27:28,520
Speaker 3: think of a flat, very thin gold plate shaped like

475
00:27:28,560 --> 00:27:31,880
Speaker 3: a diamond. It's about one hundred and eighty four millimeters

476
00:27:31,960 --> 00:27:35,199
Speaker 3: long by one hundred and fifty six millimeters wide, so

477
00:27:35,280 --> 00:27:37,919
Speaker 3: that's a little over seven inches by six inches and

478
00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:42,080
Speaker 3: it's about one millimeter thick, so very thin. And on

479
00:27:42,119 --> 00:27:46,000
Speaker 3: the Wessex Museum's website they include a passage about the

480
00:27:46,080 --> 00:27:50,080
Speaker 3: discovery of this lozenge in the in the mound from

481
00:27:50,119 --> 00:27:54,160
Speaker 3: the text of the original excavation report. So the passage

482
00:27:54,160 --> 00:27:58,320
Speaker 3: starts off describing attempts by William Cunnington and several allied

483
00:27:58,359 --> 00:28:01,520
Speaker 3: farmers to dig into the mound. At first they failed

484
00:28:01,840 --> 00:28:04,800
Speaker 3: to get into the grave, but eventually they break through

485
00:28:04,840 --> 00:28:08,920
Speaker 3: to the floor of the barrow in September eighteen oh

486
00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:12,520
Speaker 3: eight and they write, quote, we discovered the skeleton of

487
00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:15,919
Speaker 3: a stout and tall man lying from south to north.

488
00:28:16,400 --> 00:28:19,680
Speaker 3: The extreme length of his thigh bone was twenty inches.

489
00:28:20,280 --> 00:28:23,280
Speaker 3: Immediately over the breast of the skeleton was a large

490
00:28:23,359 --> 00:28:27,840
Speaker 3: plate of gold Tumuli plate twenty six, in the form

491
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:31,640
Speaker 3: of a lozenge and measuring seven by six inches. It

492
00:28:31,680 --> 00:28:34,119
Speaker 3: was fixed to a thin piece of wood over the

493
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:37,720
Speaker 3: edges of which the gold was lapped. It is perforated

494
00:28:37,760 --> 00:28:41,280
Speaker 3: at top and bottom for the purpose probably of fastening

495
00:28:41,320 --> 00:28:44,600
Speaker 3: it to the dress as a breastplate. The even surface

496
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:48,760
Speaker 3: of this noble ornament is relieved by indented lines, checks

497
00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:52,480
Speaker 3: and zigzags, following the shape of the outline and forming

498
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:58,920
Speaker 3: lozenge within lozenge, diminishing gradually towards the center. Rob I

499
00:28:58,960 --> 00:29:00,880
Speaker 3: included a picture for you to look at here, and

500
00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:02,800
Speaker 3: I think if you zoom in you can see some

501
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:07,680
Speaker 3: of these interesting geometric etchings where you see lozenge within lozenge,

502
00:29:07,760 --> 00:29:10,240
Speaker 3: like the vision of Ezekiel, but with sharp angles.

503
00:29:10,840 --> 00:29:13,479
Speaker 1: Wow, I just have to say, especially in these images,

504
00:29:13,520 --> 00:29:16,800
Speaker 1: which again there's no like reconstruction of the clothing. It's

505
00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:19,160
Speaker 1: not placed on a human body or anything, is just

506
00:29:19,200 --> 00:29:22,640
Speaker 1: set against a field of black. I mean this, I

507
00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:26,280
Speaker 1: would mistake this for something like a solar sail or.

508
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:32,400
Speaker 1: It feels cosmic. You know. There are no etchings that

509
00:29:32,480 --> 00:29:34,560
Speaker 1: I can see of anything like an animal or a

510
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:37,040
Speaker 1: human on them. It really feels kind of alien.

511
00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:39,360
Speaker 3: Much like a solar sale. It is made to catch

512
00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:42,200
Speaker 3: the light. And here's another way may relate to a

513
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:47,000
Speaker 3: solar sale. It may have an astronomical orientation. So speaking

514
00:29:47,040 --> 00:29:50,880
Speaker 3: of those angles, the angles within angles, one really interesting

515
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:53,840
Speaker 3: thing about this gold lozenge is that at the two

516
00:29:54,280 --> 00:29:57,160
Speaker 3: sharper points of the diamond shape, the points on the

517
00:29:57,200 --> 00:30:02,200
Speaker 3: longer side, the meeting angle of the outline is eighty

518
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:07,040
Speaker 3: one degrees, which also happens to be at the latitude

519
00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:10,479
Speaker 3: of Stone Hinge, the same as the angle between the

520
00:30:10,520 --> 00:30:13,440
Speaker 3: sunrise at the winter solstice and the sunrise at the

521
00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:18,880
Speaker 3: summer solstice. That, among other features, including the association with

522
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:23,240
Speaker 3: Stone Hinge through the burial, has led some experts to

523
00:30:23,320 --> 00:30:27,200
Speaker 3: speculate that the bush Barrow lozenge is maybe not just

524
00:30:27,400 --> 00:30:30,720
Speaker 3: a decoration that happens to have these angles, but it

525
00:30:30,840 --> 00:30:35,120
Speaker 3: has some kind of relationship to astronomy or to the

526
00:30:36,360 --> 00:30:39,680
Speaker 3: movement of the heavens. At least of the sun. Maybe

527
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:43,720
Speaker 3: it could be used as some kind of astronomical orienting

528
00:30:43,840 --> 00:30:48,000
Speaker 3: or calculator tool, perhaps in conjunction with other tools or infrastructure,

529
00:30:48,080 --> 00:30:51,200
Speaker 3: such as the alignment of stone hinge itself. We don't know.

530
00:30:51,280 --> 00:30:55,040
Speaker 3: That's interesting possibility to think about. And even if it

531
00:30:55,080 --> 00:30:58,480
Speaker 3: is not actually an astronomical tool of any kind, then

532
00:30:58,520 --> 00:31:02,240
Speaker 3: this is just a decorative motif. It's interesting to imagine

533
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:07,640
Speaker 3: that maybe there would be esthetic reasons for making jewelry

534
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:12,680
Speaker 3: intentionally with the exact angle between the soulsticial dawns. It

535
00:31:12,760 --> 00:31:15,040
Speaker 3: seems to me if so, this would imply a kind

536
00:31:15,040 --> 00:31:19,120
Speaker 3: of sacred attitude towards certain mathematical ratios relating to the

537
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:24,680
Speaker 3: heavenly bodies. In any case, the precise and complex geometrical

538
00:31:24,720 --> 00:31:29,160
Speaker 3: design of the lozenge indicates a really sophisticated understanding of

539
00:31:29,320 --> 00:31:32,720
Speaker 3: mathematics and probably astronomy. Wow.

540
00:31:32,800 --> 00:31:36,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean again, you can kind of you

541
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:39,280
Speaker 1: can see that when you look at this artifact, it

542
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:41,680
Speaker 1: feels precise.

543
00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:43,200
Speaker 3: You know, it has their size.

544
00:31:43,280 --> 00:31:46,880
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but just you know, without actually busting out

545
00:31:46,880 --> 00:31:49,480
Speaker 1: a ruler like it just reads in the mind as such, you.

546
00:31:49,440 --> 00:31:53,160
Speaker 3: Know, yeah. Yeah. Other things from this grave include a

547
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:56,120
Speaker 3: gold belt hook, which I think would be used to

548
00:31:56,160 --> 00:31:59,720
Speaker 3: hold a dagger in place. There was a ceremonial mace

549
00:31:59,800 --> 00:32:03,320
Speaker 3: where the haft is banded with decorative bones and the

550
00:32:03,320 --> 00:32:07,880
Speaker 3: club head is made from a fossil sponge that has

551
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:12,000
Speaker 3: been polished smooth. There are a pair of daggers also

552
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:14,840
Speaker 3: and an axe. So let's look at one of those

553
00:32:14,880 --> 00:32:17,960
Speaker 3: two daggers, the more famous one, the one known as

554
00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:21,040
Speaker 3: the bush barrow dagger. Now in this case is sort

555
00:32:21,080 --> 00:32:23,040
Speaker 3: of the opposite of the rock crystal dagger of the

556
00:32:23,040 --> 00:32:26,720
Speaker 3: Ivory Lady. In the blade I think is the least

557
00:32:26,760 --> 00:32:32,520
Speaker 3: interesting part. The blade is made of bronze. There are

558
00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:34,920
Speaker 3: notes by a few sources that the dagger may have

559
00:32:34,960 --> 00:32:37,600
Speaker 3: been made or forged in Brittany, which is now in

560
00:32:37,680 --> 00:32:43,600
Speaker 3: northern France. The original wooden handle is mostly gone disintegrated,

561
00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:48,120
Speaker 3: but it has been replaced in display at the museum,

562
00:32:48,120 --> 00:32:51,560
Speaker 3: where it's now held with a modern wooden handle reconstruction,

563
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:56,040
Speaker 3: on which are mounted the few pieces of the handle

564
00:32:56,280 --> 00:32:59,760
Speaker 3: that are still intact. And it's those pieces of the

565
00:32:59,800 --> 00:33:03,400
Speaker 3: hand that have attracted the most attention and make the

566
00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:07,560
Speaker 3: bush barrow dagger so extraordinary. So what's the deal? In

567
00:33:07,600 --> 00:33:11,520
Speaker 3: its original form? The wooden handle of the stagger was

568
00:33:11,600 --> 00:33:19,120
Speaker 3: decorated with tens of thousands of microscopically tiny gold studs,

569
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 3: so not coated, not made of gold. It wasn't a

570
00:33:22,760 --> 00:33:25,080
Speaker 3: handle that was solid gold. It wasn't coated in a

571
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:28,400
Speaker 3: single flat piece of gold leaf. It was a wooden

572
00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:32,680
Speaker 3: handle that had these tiny tiny holes in it, bored

573
00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:36,360
Speaker 3: with a tight with a little bronze all probably, and

574
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:38,840
Speaker 3: then it had been coated in some kind of resin,

575
00:33:39,400 --> 00:33:44,920
Speaker 3: and into those tiny microscopic holes, thousands and thousands of

576
00:33:45,160 --> 00:33:50,000
Speaker 3: gold pins had been mounted individually into the wood. Each

577
00:33:50,040 --> 00:33:53,080
Speaker 3: of these pins about the thickness of a human hair.

578
00:33:53,320 --> 00:33:56,240
Speaker 3: A human hair, of course, convary in thickness. People often

579
00:33:56,280 --> 00:34:00,240
Speaker 3: say that the pins are like one fifth of a

580
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:04,400
Speaker 3: millimeter wide. They're usually less than a millimeter long, stuck

581
00:34:04,520 --> 00:34:08,160
Speaker 3: vertically into the handle with their heads. The flat ends

582
00:34:08,280 --> 00:34:12,239
Speaker 3: overlapping like scales, like the scales of a fish. And

583
00:34:12,280 --> 00:34:15,040
Speaker 3: they're packed in so tight that there are more than

584
00:34:15,080 --> 00:34:19,680
Speaker 3: a thousand for each square centimeter. Rob I've got some

585
00:34:19,760 --> 00:34:21,719
Speaker 3: pictures for you to look at in the outline here,

586
00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:24,120
Speaker 3: so you can get an idea of the texture of

587
00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:26,080
Speaker 3: these pins all crowded together.

588
00:34:26,920 --> 00:34:30,800
Speaker 1: Oh wow, This is incredible. It reminds me of that

589
00:34:30,920 --> 00:34:32,840
Speaker 1: what is the little device with the pins in it

590
00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:34,960
Speaker 1: that you stick your hand on. It makes an impression

591
00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:38,040
Speaker 1: of your hand the little yeah yeah, yeah, like imagine that,

592
00:34:38,160 --> 00:34:41,360
Speaker 1: but with but much smaller and little little gold pins

593
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:43,319
Speaker 1: instead of you know, some other metal.

594
00:34:43,200 --> 00:34:46,120
Speaker 3: Yeah hair with pins. And they're all crowded right up

595
00:34:46,160 --> 00:34:50,000
Speaker 3: against each other, in fact, overlapping at the at the ends. Wow.

596
00:34:50,360 --> 00:34:52,520
Speaker 3: And even though I just gave the dimensions, I am

597
00:34:52,560 --> 00:34:55,120
Speaker 3: afraid that some of you hearing this might not be

598
00:34:55,280 --> 00:35:01,560
Speaker 3: understanding how tiny these pins are, how incredible small so

599
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:04,480
Speaker 3: rob At least I can show you the third picture

600
00:35:04,480 --> 00:35:06,560
Speaker 3: I've got here in the outline shows a bunch of

601
00:35:06,560 --> 00:35:09,400
Speaker 3: the pins that have been separated from their original mounting

602
00:35:09,440 --> 00:35:11,759
Speaker 3: on the wood of the handle. They're just kind of

603
00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:15,959
Speaker 3: scattered as dust in this little dish. They're they're they're

604
00:35:16,120 --> 00:35:18,960
Speaker 3: so tiny you can barely pick out that they're made

605
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:21,160
Speaker 3: of gold. But of course the gold surfaces when all

606
00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:26,440
Speaker 3: the pins are crowded together, takes on this composite gold appearance.

607
00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:30,399
Speaker 3: But individually they're so small it's hard to read them

608
00:35:30,440 --> 00:35:30,880
Speaker 3: as gold.

609
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:33,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, this picture that you have of them and the

610
00:35:33,760 --> 00:35:37,160
Speaker 1: little dish. It looks it looks like it's crushed up

611
00:35:37,160 --> 00:35:40,359
Speaker 1: straw or something like. That's how tiny it is. It

612
00:35:40,360 --> 00:35:42,960
Speaker 1: doesn't even read as gold particles necessarily.

613
00:35:43,080 --> 00:35:45,480
Speaker 3: It looks like I've been grinding human to put in food.

614
00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:47,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, it looks like some sort of a herb.

615
00:35:47,680 --> 00:35:51,680
Speaker 3: Yeah. So by looking at the parts of the handle

616
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:55,880
Speaker 3: that are preserved and seeing how tightly the studs are packed,

617
00:35:56,360 --> 00:36:00,520
Speaker 3: and then multiplying that density across the total surface area

618
00:36:00,600 --> 00:36:04,719
Speaker 3: of the decorated part of the original handle, experts have

619
00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:08,200
Speaker 3: been able to estimate that the intact dagger would have

620
00:36:08,239 --> 00:36:13,600
Speaker 3: had about one hundred and forty thousand gold pins. In

621
00:36:13,800 --> 00:36:15,920
Speaker 3: one of those videos I mentioned put up by the

622
00:36:15,960 --> 00:36:20,080
Speaker 3: Wheelchair Museum, the curator who's presenting it says, this means

623
00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:23,200
Speaker 3: if you could place one pin per minute, that would

624
00:36:23,200 --> 00:36:25,960
Speaker 3: be nine months of work to work on the handle.

625
00:36:27,040 --> 00:36:30,400
Speaker 3: And indeed, it is hard for me to imagine shaping

626
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:34,560
Speaker 3: and mounting one of these microscopic pins, much less one

627
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:37,839
Speaker 3: hundred and forty thousand of them packed so close that

628
00:36:37,880 --> 00:36:42,080
Speaker 3: their ends are overlapping. It really is amazing. And so

629
00:36:43,120 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 3: there's also I wanted to mention this a tragic story

630
00:36:46,080 --> 00:36:49,960
Speaker 3: of the original find as told by William Cunnington, quoted

631
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:54,000
Speaker 3: on the Wessex Museum's exhibit. So this is from his

632
00:36:54,120 --> 00:36:56,520
Speaker 3: text about the dig and he's talking about the discovery

633
00:36:56,560 --> 00:36:59,759
Speaker 3: of the handle and talking about he was doing the

634
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:03,880
Speaker 3: excavation with a father and son digging team named Stephen

635
00:37:04,040 --> 00:37:07,840
Speaker 3: and John Parker, and he says, quote, the handle of

636
00:37:07,880 --> 00:37:10,680
Speaker 3: wood belonging to the dagger had been richly and most

637
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:15,000
Speaker 3: singularly ornamented by an immense quantity of minute gold rivets,

638
00:37:15,080 --> 00:37:18,000
Speaker 3: no thicker than the smallest pin. The end of the

639
00:37:18,040 --> 00:37:21,000
Speaker 3: handle had been filled with these small points of gold,

640
00:37:21,400 --> 00:37:23,640
Speaker 3: but in the flat part of the handle these rivets

641
00:37:23,640 --> 00:37:26,720
Speaker 3: had been most elegantly arranged in a Van Dyke pattern,

642
00:37:26,800 --> 00:37:29,560
Speaker 3: so as to procure a novel and most pleasing effect.

643
00:37:29,920 --> 00:37:34,719
Speaker 3: Mister Crocker, talking about their illustrator, who did watercolors of

644
00:37:34,760 --> 00:37:37,520
Speaker 3: the stuff they discovered, has drawn part of the end

645
00:37:37,520 --> 00:37:39,360
Speaker 3: of the handle, which may give you a better idea

646
00:37:39,360 --> 00:37:42,720
Speaker 3: of the whole. When we first discovered these shining points

647
00:37:42,719 --> 00:37:46,360
Speaker 3: of gold, we had no concept of their nature. Otherwise

648
00:37:46,440 --> 00:37:51,000
Speaker 3: we might perhaps have preserved thousands of them, But unfortunately John,

649
00:37:51,160 --> 00:37:54,760
Speaker 3: with his trowel, had scattered them in every direction before

650
00:37:54,800 --> 00:37:57,839
Speaker 3: I had examined them with a glass. Oh no, And

651
00:37:57,960 --> 00:38:03,080
Speaker 3: I've read elsewhere of this event that when they found

652
00:38:03,160 --> 00:38:06,040
Speaker 3: the dagger, the wayver Edit described is that the dagger

653
00:38:06,120 --> 00:38:10,400
Speaker 3: was positioned facing up when it was uncovered, and the

654
00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:14,640
Speaker 3: excavators mistakenly believed that they had come across the blade

655
00:38:14,680 --> 00:38:17,439
Speaker 3: of a spear, and so they were trying to dig

656
00:38:17,520 --> 00:38:21,560
Speaker 3: down deeper to dig out the handle, and apparently Parker's

657
00:38:21,600 --> 00:38:25,200
Speaker 3: trowel just smashed on in there and caused quote a

658
00:38:25,920 --> 00:38:29,360
Speaker 3: scatter of shining points of gold, and so he severely

659
00:38:29,440 --> 00:38:31,560
Speaker 3: damaged the handle by accident.

660
00:38:32,880 --> 00:38:35,800
Speaker 1: Oh wow, yeah, that is tragic. By the way, I

661
00:38:35,840 --> 00:38:37,480
Speaker 1: had to look this up. I did not know what

662
00:38:37,480 --> 00:38:39,680
Speaker 1: a Van Dyke pattern is. Maybe I should know what

663
00:38:39,760 --> 00:38:42,120
Speaker 1: that is, but this is like this would be like

664
00:38:42,160 --> 00:38:43,720
Speaker 1: little arrows or points.

665
00:38:44,200 --> 00:38:47,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, like a I think of it as like sort

666
00:38:47,239 --> 00:38:48,719
Speaker 3: of like Chevron's I think.

667
00:38:48,760 --> 00:38:51,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's one of those. If you look

668
00:38:51,280 --> 00:38:53,400
Speaker 1: up Van Dyke pattern, you're like, you know what it is.

669
00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:56,399
Speaker 1: You see it all the time, especially in like knitted wear,

670
00:38:58,040 --> 00:39:09,720
Speaker 1: not so much in ornamental daggers, at least not today.

671
00:39:11,280 --> 00:39:15,879
Speaker 3: So back to the question, how on earth would bronze

672
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:22,160
Speaker 3: age crafts people do such delicate work with almost microscopic

673
00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:26,320
Speaker 3: pieces of gold. This would have been again four thousand

674
00:39:26,400 --> 00:39:30,800
Speaker 3: years ago, long before the invention of the magnifying glass.

675
00:39:31,520 --> 00:39:35,960
Speaker 3: How would they do it well? One hypothesis suggested by

676
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:38,759
Speaker 3: some experts, this is not proven or like the full

677
00:39:38,840 --> 00:39:43,200
Speaker 3: consensus of experts, but it's an idea that is taken seriously,

678
00:39:44,040 --> 00:39:48,960
Speaker 3: is that the craft work was done by children. Oh

679
00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:51,120
Speaker 3: so what's the reasoning here? Well, I was reading a

680
00:39:51,120 --> 00:39:54,879
Speaker 3: few articles talking about this idea. These came out around

681
00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:57,160
Speaker 3: twenty fourteen and when there was some work on this

682
00:39:57,840 --> 00:40:00,799
Speaker 3: being released, and so there was one article I read

683
00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:03,160
Speaker 3: in The Guardian by may of Kennedy, another one in

684
00:40:03,320 --> 00:40:07,719
Speaker 3: The Independent by David Keyes. One thing worth noting is

685
00:40:07,760 --> 00:40:10,680
Speaker 3: that this is not the only dagger ever found with

686
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:15,000
Speaker 3: these microscopically tiny gold studs. It's just, i think, considered

687
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:18,759
Speaker 3: the best one or one of the best. And scientists

688
00:40:18,840 --> 00:40:22,200
Speaker 3: have proposed that there may have been an industry producing

689
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:26,680
Speaker 3: artifacts of this type in Bronze Age Brittany, because that's

690
00:40:26,840 --> 00:40:29,239
Speaker 3: where the greatest number of the gold pin daggers have

691
00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:31,760
Speaker 3: been found. So again that would be you know, across

692
00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:35,800
Speaker 3: the English Channel from England in northern France. The crafts

693
00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:39,680
Speaker 3: people would likely have required special tools to craft the pins,

694
00:40:39,719 --> 00:40:42,840
Speaker 3: to cut them and roll them out into these tiny shapes,

695
00:40:43,200 --> 00:40:46,520
Speaker 3: and then to set them in place. I've read speculation

696
00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:48,759
Speaker 3: that for the latter job for setting them, they might

697
00:40:48,800 --> 00:40:51,960
Speaker 3: have done it with like delicate bone or wooden tweezers.

698
00:40:52,520 --> 00:40:54,719
Speaker 3: But the real question is how do you see what

699
00:40:54,760 --> 00:40:57,839
Speaker 3: you're doing? Again, it's hard to communicate if you haven't

700
00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:01,440
Speaker 3: looked up these magnified pictures. How how tiny these things are.

701
00:41:02,960 --> 00:41:07,120
Speaker 3: The Guardian piece by may If Kennedy describes this child

702
00:41:07,200 --> 00:41:13,280
Speaker 3: goldsmith hypothesis, citing an amusingly named British optician named Ronald B. Rabbits,

703
00:41:13,600 --> 00:41:18,640
Speaker 3: who argues that he says only children, really children and

704
00:41:18,719 --> 00:41:22,719
Speaker 3: young teenagers would naturally have eyesight sharp enough to do

705
00:41:22,800 --> 00:41:26,120
Speaker 3: craft work like this. So if you imagine they started

706
00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:30,560
Speaker 3: working on these crafts around age ten, he said that

707
00:41:30,680 --> 00:41:34,279
Speaker 3: steady work focused on these extremely tiny objects, if you're

708
00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:36,839
Speaker 3: doing this all the time, would leave probably a lot

709
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:40,759
Speaker 3: of them shortsighted by age fifteen and partially blind by

710
00:41:40,800 --> 00:41:45,560
Speaker 3: twenty hikes. Yeah, and so Rabbits argued that this would,

711
00:41:45,640 --> 00:41:48,399
Speaker 3: you know, leave the young goldsmith's unfit to do many

712
00:41:48,440 --> 00:41:51,120
Speaker 3: other tasks, because if you're, you know, getting to age

713
00:41:51,160 --> 00:41:53,520
Speaker 3: twenty and you're having a hard time seeing things one

714
00:41:53,600 --> 00:41:56,640
Speaker 3: meter in front of you, you would need to be

715
00:41:56,719 --> 00:42:00,399
Speaker 3: cared for in some way. But that maybe these people

716
00:42:00,400 --> 00:42:02,399
Speaker 3: would be taken care of by the community for their

717
00:42:02,440 --> 00:42:05,680
Speaker 3: service as specialists in this valuable trade of gold crafting.

718
00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:07,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, are you better make me a part of the

719
00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:10,120
Speaker 1: special priest class if you have one? If I just

720
00:42:10,680 --> 00:42:13,200
Speaker 1: burned up my eyesight to make your fancy dagger.

721
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:15,920
Speaker 3: Yelts Reading from that article in the Independent quote, by

722
00:42:15,920 --> 00:42:19,320
Speaker 3: their early twenties, many would have perceived people and objects

723
00:42:19,360 --> 00:42:22,640
Speaker 3: more than a meter away as just blurred impressions. In

724
00:42:22,680 --> 00:42:25,400
Speaker 3: a world without spectacles, it would have been impossible for

725
00:42:25,440 --> 00:42:28,520
Speaker 3: them to operate normally within society, and they would have

726
00:42:28,520 --> 00:42:31,640
Speaker 3: had no alternative but to continue with and develop their

727
00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:36,120
Speaker 3: microworking crafts. But ironically, that would have made them valuable

728
00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:40,799
Speaker 3: economic assets despite their poor site. You know, I don't think.

729
00:42:40,800 --> 00:42:45,160
Speaker 3: I guess I was aware that people's eyesight often deteriorates

730
00:42:45,200 --> 00:42:48,439
Speaker 3: throughout life, but I guess I wasn't aware how much

731
00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:52,040
Speaker 3: better on average, the eyesight of children and young teenagers

732
00:42:52,200 --> 00:42:55,560
Speaker 3: is even from you know, that of you, that of adults,

733
00:42:55,560 --> 00:42:58,839
Speaker 3: people in their twenties who, again, according to this one

734
00:42:58,880 --> 00:43:01,040
Speaker 3: optician at least, and some other people who have talked

735
00:43:01,040 --> 00:43:04,279
Speaker 3: about this idea, by that point we probably age out

736
00:43:04,280 --> 00:43:06,120
Speaker 3: of being able to do work this small.

737
00:43:06,800 --> 00:43:11,600
Speaker 1: I mean, I have definitely reached and passed the threshold

738
00:43:11,800 --> 00:43:15,560
Speaker 1: in my life where I found myself passing things with small,

739
00:43:15,680 --> 00:43:19,439
Speaker 1: small script to children and saying, hey, can you read

740
00:43:19,440 --> 00:43:19,920
Speaker 1: this for me?

741
00:43:20,200 --> 00:43:20,399
Speaker 3: Yeah?

742
00:43:20,760 --> 00:43:23,280
Speaker 1: And then, of course, you know, turning increasingly to various

743
00:43:23,360 --> 00:43:28,359
Speaker 1: lenses and devices that allow me to to either read

744
00:43:28,960 --> 00:43:31,759
Speaker 1: text or if I'm working on like a miniature painting

745
00:43:31,760 --> 00:43:34,920
Speaker 1: on the shirt, it's like I'm wearing multiple magnifying lenses.

746
00:43:35,480 --> 00:43:38,160
Speaker 1: And then and then I'm I'm left with a rather

747
00:43:38,200 --> 00:43:41,319
Speaker 1: curious situation where I've been painting on a figure that

748
00:43:41,400 --> 00:43:45,200
Speaker 1: is going to be used by fellow adults who also

749
00:43:45,239 --> 00:43:47,719
Speaker 1: have deteriorated vision. Nobody's going to see any of the

750
00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:51,719
Speaker 1: details I've been slaving over, and I cannot see them

751
00:43:51,760 --> 00:43:54,800
Speaker 1: myself without the aid of various lenses.

752
00:43:54,840 --> 00:43:56,120
Speaker 3: But it helps to know they're there.

753
00:43:56,239 --> 00:43:57,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's the fun of it.

754
00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:00,160
Speaker 3: Until you started talking there, I had forgotten, by the

755
00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:02,880
Speaker 3: fact that you paint miniatures, and so yeah, that's so

756
00:44:02,920 --> 00:44:05,720
Speaker 3: you have more experience with this kind of very tiny,

757
00:44:05,800 --> 00:44:07,880
Speaker 3: delicate work using the help of lenses.

758
00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:13,440
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, without lenses, like yeah, would would many painters

759
00:44:13,440 --> 00:44:14,680
Speaker 1: be able to I mean, they would be able to

760
00:44:14,760 --> 00:44:16,480
Speaker 1: do something, but you just wouldn't be able to see

761
00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:20,000
Speaker 1: what you were doing. And so I guess yeah that,

762
00:44:20,200 --> 00:44:23,160
Speaker 1: I mean, it does seem like such a tragedy. Well,

763
00:44:23,280 --> 00:44:26,920
Speaker 1: one wonders, though, again you alluded to this, like how

764
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:29,640
Speaker 1: these skills that they had developed would still be appliable

765
00:44:29,680 --> 00:44:34,319
Speaker 1: to other crafts. You know, maybe maybe maybe not the

766
00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:37,000
Speaker 1: these precise gold work that they were doing obviously when

767
00:44:37,040 --> 00:44:40,480
Speaker 1: they were younger, but maybe there there are other crafting

768
00:44:40,520 --> 00:44:42,960
Speaker 1: skills that they can still utilize at that point in

769
00:44:43,000 --> 00:44:48,160
Speaker 1: their life. I'm thinking especially of fiber arts, baskets and

770
00:44:48,200 --> 00:44:48,840
Speaker 1: so forth, you.

771
00:44:48,880 --> 00:44:52,400
Speaker 3: Know, yeah, yeah, you know. One of these articles I

772
00:44:52,480 --> 00:44:56,840
Speaker 3: just mentioned also quote a museum curator I guess this

773
00:44:56,840 --> 00:44:59,719
Speaker 3: would be at the Wheelchair Museum where these artifacts are

774
00:44:59,760 --> 00:45:03,560
Speaker 3: kept to named David Dawson, who's talking about just being

775
00:45:03,600 --> 00:45:07,560
Speaker 3: astonished at how an artifact with gold work this tiny

776
00:45:07,600 --> 00:45:13,359
Speaker 3: could have been produced and comparing the work done by

777
00:45:13,400 --> 00:45:15,719
Speaker 3: these ancient people in Bronze Age Britain, or maybe not

778
00:45:15,760 --> 00:45:17,880
Speaker 3: in Britain, and you know, in the Bronze Age wherever

779
00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:21,920
Speaker 3: this was made to things done by modern metal workers

780
00:45:22,200 --> 00:45:26,000
Speaker 3: and micro artists who you know, make replica pieces, but

781
00:45:26,040 --> 00:45:28,080
Speaker 3: they are able to work with modern tools, and so

782
00:45:28,120 --> 00:45:31,360
Speaker 3: he cites their official metal worker that they work with

783
00:45:31,400 --> 00:45:35,080
Speaker 3: at the museum, a guy named Neil Burridge, who makes replicas,

784
00:45:35,719 --> 00:45:39,120
Speaker 3: but has called this dagger quote the work of the gods.

785
00:45:39,400 --> 00:45:42,200
Speaker 3: And it's interesting to think that, you know, the thing

786
00:45:42,239 --> 00:45:44,240
Speaker 3: that's so hard to explain the work of the gods

787
00:45:44,239 --> 00:45:47,200
Speaker 3: we don't know, but may well, based on some clues,

788
00:45:47,239 --> 00:45:49,120
Speaker 3: have actually been the work of children.

789
00:45:49,520 --> 00:45:53,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like a divine force, ancient aliens. No, just

790
00:45:53,800 --> 00:45:55,400
Speaker 1: good old fashioned child labor.

791
00:45:56,680 --> 00:45:58,960
Speaker 3: But I think this also really drives home what we

792
00:45:58,960 --> 00:46:02,839
Speaker 3: were saying earlier about well the often symbolic nature of

793
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:06,560
Speaker 3: the dagger design, because I don't you know it with

794
00:46:06,719 --> 00:46:12,319
Speaker 3: something like this, something so intricate and obviously expensive. You know,

795
00:46:12,360 --> 00:46:14,640
Speaker 3: this would have been one of the most probably most

796
00:46:14,680 --> 00:46:17,600
Speaker 3: expensive types of items you could possibly get at this

797
00:46:17,760 --> 00:46:21,480
Speaker 3: time in history. It can't be that this is for

798
00:46:21,520 --> 00:46:24,400
Speaker 3: some functional reason. You know, this is a status item.

799
00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:27,320
Speaker 3: This means something. It doesn't have all these gold pins

800
00:46:27,360 --> 00:46:30,160
Speaker 3: because it's like, oh, yeah, it makes the grip feel better. Yeah,

801
00:46:30,200 --> 00:46:32,360
Speaker 3: maybe it does, but I doubt it. It seems like

802
00:46:32,360 --> 00:46:36,280
Speaker 3: it's got to be that this is for symbolizing power

803
00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:38,960
Speaker 3: and prestige and maybe something else.

804
00:46:39,600 --> 00:46:42,279
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, And it's so fascinating again to think about

805
00:46:42,280 --> 00:46:44,040
Speaker 1: the fact that it is the form of the dagger,

806
00:46:44,320 --> 00:46:46,960
Speaker 1: something that at a very base level is again just

807
00:46:47,320 --> 00:46:51,359
Speaker 1: a tool that we invented, that we created that gives

808
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:54,920
Speaker 1: us the powers of having talents or something, you know,

809
00:46:55,000 --> 00:46:58,440
Speaker 1: making up for the biological limitations of the human body

810
00:46:58,760 --> 00:47:02,759
Speaker 1: and giving us the sharp edge. Uh and uh yeah,

811
00:47:02,800 --> 00:47:06,120
Speaker 1: and here we see like the function of it, uh,

812
00:47:07,760 --> 00:47:12,319
Speaker 1: you know, transformed into the symbolic. So yeah, it's fascinating

813
00:47:12,360 --> 00:47:14,840
Speaker 1: to think about these objects and try and imagine, well,

814
00:47:14,960 --> 00:47:17,600
Speaker 1: especially in these cases again where we don't really we

815
00:47:17,640 --> 00:47:19,719
Speaker 1: don't know all the ins and outs of what it

816
00:47:19,840 --> 00:47:23,719
Speaker 1: symbolized exactly and what was said about the blade, what

817
00:47:23,760 --> 00:47:26,520
Speaker 1: it was even called. Uh, but we know that it

818
00:47:26,560 --> 00:47:29,919
Speaker 1: was important because we can see how much work went

819
00:47:29,960 --> 00:47:33,200
Speaker 1: into it. All Right, we're gonna go ahead and close

820
00:47:33,280 --> 00:47:35,319
Speaker 1: up part one here, but we'll be back in the

821
00:47:35,360 --> 00:47:37,840
Speaker 1: next episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. I'm not

822
00:47:37,840 --> 00:47:40,600
Speaker 1: sure exactly which daggers we're going to discuss, but we

823
00:47:40,640 --> 00:47:43,080
Speaker 1: have a we have a short list of possibilities we're

824
00:47:43,120 --> 00:47:45,560
Speaker 1: going to We're gonna pick each one up. We're gonna

825
00:47:45,760 --> 00:47:49,440
Speaker 1: test its heft and see which ones are gonna be

826
00:47:49,440 --> 00:47:51,880
Speaker 1: the most interesting to talk about. Uh and if you

827
00:47:51,920 --> 00:47:53,840
Speaker 1: catch us in time, Hey, if you have a favorite

828
00:47:53,880 --> 00:47:56,680
Speaker 1: dagger right in, we'd love to hear from you. Likewise,

829
00:47:57,440 --> 00:48:00,440
Speaker 1: do you have a dagger or something like it that

830
00:48:00,520 --> 00:48:04,439
Speaker 1: is important to you culturally historically? Is it a piece

831
00:48:04,480 --> 00:48:07,960
Speaker 1: of sci fi memorabilia? Write in, send some pictures. We'd

832
00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:08,920
Speaker 1: love to know more about.

833
00:48:09,200 --> 00:48:13,320
Speaker 3: Huge Thanks as always to our excellent audio producer, JJ Possway.

834
00:48:13,680 --> 00:48:15,319
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

835
00:48:15,320 --> 00:48:18,000
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

836
00:48:18,120 --> 00:48:20,480
Speaker 3: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you

837
00:48:20,480 --> 00:48:23,040
Speaker 3: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your

838
00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:30,880
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.

839
00:48:31,000 --> 00:48:33,960
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

840
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:36,840
Speaker 2: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

841
00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:54,400
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.