WEBVTT - Cats of Cyprus 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:13.080 --> 0:00:15.520 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:18.599 name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:21.440 we're continuing Cat Week here on Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:24.239 If you are not aware, it is Cat Week, a 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:27.920 celebration of cats in our own weird stuff to Blow 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:32.880 your Mind and eventually weird house cinema manner. In this episode, 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:36.160 we're going to be talking about, to a large extent, 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:39.360 the domestication of cats. And when we think about the 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:43.519 oldest human civilizations to value the domestic cat, I think 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:46.239 a lot of us tend to, in many ways rightfully 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:49.360 think about the ancient Egyptians. After all, the ancient Egyptians 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:52.879 held the cat in high esteem, living with them, depicting 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:56.520 them in their art, casting gods and their likeness, and 0:00:56.600 --> 0:01:02.040 of course sometimes mummifying their remains. So you'd be quite excused, 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:05.160 I think of you came into this episode assuming that 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:08.600 that ancient egypt provided us with the earliest evidence of 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:13.480 domesticated cats, and in fact up until I mean reasonably recently, 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:16.800 like the early two thousands, but certainly recent enough that 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:20.520 it occurred on the other end of a lot of 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:24.120 our schooling used to this was exactly what was assumed 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:27.640 based on evidence from something like thirty six hundred years 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:32.160 ago concerning the domestication of the Near Eastern and Egyptian 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:35.840 populations of the African wildcat. But then in the early 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:39.319 two thousands, as we'll be discussing, new archaeological findings pointed 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:43.000 researchers to a new possible location for the oldest known 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:46.440 evidence of domesticated cats, and that is on the Isle 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:49.640 of Cyprus. For those of you trying to pull up 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:52.080 the map in your own head, or perhaps you know, 0:01:52.120 --> 0:01:55.640 opening another window on whatever device you maybe I'll save 0:01:55.680 --> 0:01:58.960 you a trip and a little brain power. The Mediterranean 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:02.760 island of Cyprus is the third largest Mediterranean island after 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:06.120 Sicily and Sardinia, and it was first settled by hunter 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:11.080 gatherers approximately thirteen thousand years ago, and it's been uniquely 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:15.400 situated over the millennia to experience cultural exchange with Europe, Africa, 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:19.560 and Asia, shaping the Cypriot culture. And so, as we'll discuss, 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:23.200 it's possible that evidence of domesticated cats does indeed go 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:28.320 back some nine five hundred years and of course then 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:30.480 some maybe two ancient humans in. 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:34.440 Cyprus, that's right. But before we get to the archaeological 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:38.480 evidence for cats as human companions on the island of Cyprus, 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:41.840 I thought we should briefly look at the question how 0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:46.600 did cats become domesticated? Where does the cat come from? 0:02:47.000 --> 0:02:50.280 So my main source here is a paper by Atoni 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:53.720 at all Claudio Atoni and co authors published in the 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:57.760 journal Nature, Ecology and Evolution in twenty seventeen, and it's 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:01.720 called the Palaeogenetics of Cat dis bersail in the Ancient World. 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:06.520 The top line here is the discovery. And this wasn't 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:10.200 always known because there are a number of different wildcats 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:13.560 sub varieties you find around the world. There you know, 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:17.720 there's a European wild cat, there is a Central Asian wildcat, 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:21.800 different wildcats you find all over the place, and so 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:25.440 it was not always known where the domesticated cat came from. 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:28.119 But now researchers can say with a pretty high degree 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:33.679 of confidence that all domesticated cats are thought to descend 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:39.400 from an original population of wildcats native to North Africa 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:44.280 and Southwest Asia, known as Felis silvestros libica, or the 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:49.120 African wildcat. So the cats that are domestic cats around 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:53.640 the world originally come from the subgroup of the African wildcats, 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:58.440 and there appear to have been two waves of domestication. 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:01.080 So the authors of this paper a tony at all 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:03.880 that they studied cat DNA collected from all around the 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:08.920 globe and they determined through genetic analysis that cat domestication 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:12.600 started first in the Fertile Crescent, that's the earliest time 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:15.360 in the Neolithic period, that's the last part of the 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:19.279 Stone Age, and then it accelerated in Egypt in the 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:20.320 first millennium BCE. 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:24.240 So we can still basically look at our household cats 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:27.240 and think think of them as being descendants of the 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:31.800 goddess Bastett, right or bast So there's a lot of 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:34.920 Egyptian heritage to the domestic cat species. 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:38.600 It does seem like ancient Egyptian civilization does contribute hugely 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:43.240 to the domestic cats of today. But ancient Egypt was 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:46.359 not the first time cats were domesticated. That seems to 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:48.520 be in the Fertile Crescent a little bit earlier in 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:50.400 the in the Neolithic period. 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:53.080 But maybe the last time they would be domesticated. Because 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:54.560 it seems like we're done, it seems like we're at 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:57.159 a good, good level with the current domestication of the 0:04:57.520 --> 0:04:58.920 of the of the common healthcat. 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:03.080 I think they're here to stay. But speaking of the 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:06.520 idea that a domestication attempt of an animal could not 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:10.800 stick around, I was reading about an interesting variation in 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:12.839 a paper by an author that we'll come back to 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:17.160 several times in this episode. A paper by Jean Denis 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:21.279 Vignert and a bunch of co authors from PLUS one 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:26.760 in twenty sixteen called earliest domestic cats in China identified 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:32.120 as leopard cat. So in this paper the authors agree 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:36.720 that all domestic cats today are descended from the African wildcat, 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:39.840 so it's not a dispute about like the leopard cat 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:44.600 being a part of the genetic heritage of any cat 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:47.719 that you would find in a house today. Instead, this 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:53.560 paper documents archaeological remains from China dating from between fifty 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:58.760 five hundred to forty nine hundred years before present, showing 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:02.800 what appeared to me to be domesticated cats buried in 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:07.200 human contexts, so found in human storage areas or dwellings, 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:11.160 and analysis of the bones of these animals shows that 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:16.160 these are not African wildcats, but rather from a historically 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:20.880 short lived attempt to domesticate the Asian leopard cat and 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:23.080 now an extant wild animal. 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:26.719 Wow, that is fascinating. Yeah, I mean you think about 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:32.320 we tend to think about the domestication success stories, and 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:35.520 you know, with the cat, I think we're still figuring 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:38.600 out how successful that was. I know, I had my 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:41.440 own household cat just pee all over the place this morning, 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:45.200 So yeah, it definitely gave me some time for a 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:48.120 little A few sidebars. As I was finishing the research 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:50.480 for this episode, it's like, have we reached a good 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:52.960 point with this domestication. I'm not sure, but clearly there 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:56.440 are cases where there's even less of a match and 0:06:56.480 --> 0:07:00.880 where not enough lines up in short enough time for 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:03.320 the domestication to really take hold. 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:05.360 Well yeah, I mean I guess you're sort of asking 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:07.599 this question now, but yeah, it raises the question like 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:12.160 what counts as domesticated? Like how sticky does the relationship 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:14.560 have to be between the humans and these animals for 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:17.080 it to really be domesticated, Because yeah, in the case 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:22.400 of these semi domesticated or proto domesticated leopard cats, the 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:26.160 practice appears to have died out. There's not like a widespread, 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:30.320 you know, population of domesticated leopard cat descendants. 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:32.600 Yeah. Yeah, imagine there are a number of different elements, 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:37.000 like the cultural attachment, religious significance, and then just is 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:40.560 it useful? Like are they serving a purpose in the 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:43.720 household or on you know, or on the land surrounding 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:47.120 the household? Are they killing the enemies of man? And 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:47.680 so forth? 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:50.800 I have to wonder. I don't have direct evidence of this, 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:53.680 but I have to wonder if the spread of the 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:58.120 domesticated African wildcat descendant could have possibly replaced, you know, 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:01.600 previous attempts to domesticate cats or cat like animals. 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:03.760 That's a good point, yeah, because if you're kind of 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:05.440 like putting in a lot of work to try and 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:08.880 domesticate these leopards and then someone shows up with something 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:11.600 maybe a little more, a little more closely aligned to 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:13.400 what we think of as a modern house cat, yeah, 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:15.320 you might be inclined to think, well, heck, let's just 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:16.480 go at this. 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:26.160 This model seems to work. 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:32.199 So how did domestic cats come to cover the entire globe? 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:35.559 Since the African wild cat is native to North Africa 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:38.520 and the Middle East, how did it spread all over 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:42.560 the world? A TONI had all determined by looking at 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:46.559 DNA from cat remains, especially in major ancient port cities. 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:50.920 That domestic cats spread around the world on ships, it 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:53.280 had to have been by sea travel that they made 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:55.680 it from place to place and eventually basically to the 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:59.240 whole world. And they argue, I think this makes a 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:02.680 lot of sense. They were probably kept aboard ships to 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:05.480 kill rats and mice that would otherwise get into food 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:09.920 stashes during transport. And this will be a theme. Actually. 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:13.200 You know, it's funny how a lot of people listening 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:16.280 probably today do not think of the cat as like 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:19.800 a functional or working animal. It's a companion animal. You 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:22.520 have a cat, you know, to be friends with it, 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:24.920 you know, to feel nice when you're petting it and 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:28.360 taking care of it, to feel good, just you know, 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:32.800 getting that reciprocal relationship of companionship and mutual enjoyment with 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:36.520 another creature. But for much of history the cat had 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:37.280 a job to do. 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:40.160 Absolutely, And you know, I don't know, I still think 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:43.880 about this. I think of my cat primarily as a 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:46.920 companion animal. But you know, there are times where you know, 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:50.440 live I live near some railroad tracks, there's always there's 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:54.400 some there are rodents out there, and so it does 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:56.600 cross my mind from time to time. That she is 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:59.640 also kind of like the last line of defense that 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:03.120 I Odin's center the house. It's her job to take 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:05.840 to take care of it, and if not, I will 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:08.280 satirize her with poetry so hard. 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:12.719 Well, you better be careful you don't summon the King 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:13.160 of Cats. 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:14.680 Well, yeah, I'm not going to drag him into this. 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:17.719 I'm gonna just target Mochi, my cat with that. 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:21.040 Oh right, I forgot what Shaun chan Jin was not. 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:24.520 Did he not satirize cats hard enough to invite the 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:27.160 King of cats just like to protect them on the 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:29.880 Did he actually have to satirize the King of cats himself? 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:31.840 He went straight to the King of cats because he's like, 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:35.320 it's like cats are under his jurisdiction and cats have 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:37.400 failed me and not eating the mice that ate this 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:40.360 egg that I was going to eat. Yeah, yeah, okay, 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:41.600 he went straight to the top. 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:43.839 You run in his mouth about the boss. That's a 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:46.559 bad idea. Oh but this all brings us back to 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:50.040 the connection between cats and the island of Cyprus and 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:52.880 the Mediterranean, because, as you were alluding to earlier, Rob, 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:58.400 it seems that our earliest archaeological evidence of cat human 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:03.839 companionship may be in an ancient Stone age grave on 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:05.040 the island of Cyprus. 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:08.959 That's right, And so we're gon we're gonna skip over 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:12.600 Egyptian cats here and mostly focus on Cyprus. But I 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:14.640 do want to note that we could easily come back 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:19.600 in another episode, maybe next Cat Week, maybe sooner, and 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:23.040 discuss the ancient Egyptians and their cats. But again, this 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:25.840 was an important find. This really changed the way we 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:32.960 understood humanity's relationship with domesticated or nearly domesticated felines. And 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:35.520 again this is the work of French scientists Jean Denis 0:11:35.600 --> 0:11:39.960 Vignier of the French National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:45.000 along with his co authors. The big initial paper was 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:47.720 Early Taming of the Cat in Cyprus, published in two 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:50.560 thousand and four in the journal Science, and it essentially 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:53.000 set the clock back, I believe, like a good five 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:58.320 thousand years on what we understood about humanity's relationship with 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:02.679 a domesticated cat. Yeah, so this is essentially how it 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:05.439 went down, And Joe, we were both looking at the 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:08.319 same sources here, so jump in if you want to 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:11.920 expand on anything that I'm mentioning here. But essentially the 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:17.000 researchers discovered a mostly complete skeleton. And I want to 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:19.960 add the caveat that it seems to have been buried 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:23.199 in complete form. It's just parts of the skeleton were 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:25.360 damaged at some point or another. 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:28.200 And the fact that it's in complete form is important 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:29.800 for reasons. We'll get into it in a minute. 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:34.320 Exactly. Yes, so mostly complete skeleton of an eight month 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:38.360 old cat next to the nine five hundred year old 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:40.840 grave of a human being. And this grave was located 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:46.240 in the Shiluru Combas archaeological site. This is a pre 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:50.640 Pottery Neolithic b site. I'm to understand this was a 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:53.520 settlement occupied from the end of the ninth till the 0:12:53.720 --> 0:12:56.640 end of the eighth millennium BCE. And this is in 0:12:56.720 --> 0:13:01.040 southern Cyprus, a site that had been first excavated just 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:04.080 a decade earlier. And this would have been one of 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:08.400 the Neolithic people that had traveled from the mainland bringing 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:12.520 crops and livestock to Cyprus, not individually one of the people, 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:17.679 I mean more broadly, like the people the strain of 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:19.400 humanity that came to the island. 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:22.760 Right, so, sometime previous in the previous few thousand years, 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:26.680 there had been settlers from the mainland. Originally occupants of 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:31.199 somewhere in the Fertile Crescent were Stone Age humans that 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:35.160 got in boats and made their way to the island. 0:13:35.840 --> 0:13:39.160 Yeah. Yeah, So this particular human that was buried again 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:42.240 alongside this cat was apparently about thirty when they died, 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:45.480 and they were buried with various items, which was always 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:48.680 interesting to see what kind of items they were buried with, 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:50.440 or at least the ones we know about because they've 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:52.720 survived in one form or another. And it consisted of 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:57.600 a marine shell, a stone pendant, a flint scraper, two 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:02.400 small polished axes and those was damaged, a pumice stone, 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:06.600 a fragment of ochre, a large flint piercing tool, and 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:10.199 then several flint blades, so a lot of utilitarian tools 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:13.079 on their body. They'd probably been buried in a bag 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:17.000 placed in a circular pit that also contained various additional 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:20.840 shells and stones. The cat's grave was oval shaped and 0:14:20.880 --> 0:14:25.760 about fifteen centimeters deep. The body was seemingly again complete 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:27.880 at burial, though parts of it were destroyed I believe 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:31.680 by plowing, because it was like the uppermost bones that 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:35.240 had been damaged here and the cat was laid out 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:37.520 on its side, head to the west and back to 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:40.720 the south. That happens to be the exact same positioning 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:44.560 as the human buried beside it. The cause of death 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:47.520 for the feline could not be determined, but evidence suggested 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:49.560 that it had not been cut, had not been burned, 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:53.360 its body had not been opened up. Gender of the 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:58.000 cat was unknown due to missing or destroyed pelvic bone pieces, So. 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:00.640 We don't know if the cat died of nashe causes 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:03.400 or was killed, but the evidence of its death was 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:03.960 not clear. 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:08.200 Right, It's entirely possible that it could have been killed 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:11.640 as a sacrifice and buried alongside the human, but there's 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:14.600 no evidence that that happened. There's no evidence that that 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:19.920 didn't happen. And you know, it's not like either possibility 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:24.080 really alters the argument for this animal being important to 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:27.240 the person who's buried with I mean, either way, it 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:30.880 has a privileged position alongside the human, or vice versa, 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:32.960 the human has a privileged position alongside the cat. 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:36.760 Yeah. Well, and the really important thing here being that 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:40.840 it's clear to the archaeologists that this cat was intentionally 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:44.600 buried on purpose. This isn't it's not a situation where like, oh, 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:46.640 a cat was running around and it just happened to 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:49.760 die near the grave, and they're mistaking it for and 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:52.480 for there were several reasons for thinking that this is 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:56.359 an intentional burial alongside the human, not just the proximity 0:15:56.440 --> 0:15:59.400 it is right beside the other grave, but also you 0:15:59.480 --> 0:16:03.080 mentioned the fact that the cat's skeleton was articulated, maybe 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:05.600 like the joints and were still connected and intact. 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:09.800 Basically, yeah, and Vigne also points out that the mere 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:16.320 fact that it was buried like this articulated almost entirely intact, 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:20.000 if not entirely intact, it means it was likely a 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:24.720 tame species because when wild animals were rarely buried during 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:28.240 this time, the skeletons were generally rather incomplete. So just 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:30.960 everything about the way this creature has been buried, in 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:33.360 the way that, the way it's positioned, and so forth, 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:38.040 it seems to indicate that this animal was likely domesticated 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:40.840 to some degree. And we should also note that these 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:44.120 findings Vigner backs up by pointing to various other cat 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:46.920 remains found at least in pieces elsewhere on the island, 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:50.880 and also the idea. He mentions the idea that cats 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:55.080 had special status among these individuals is also backed up 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:58.240 by discovery of figurines in neighboring regions from this time, 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:00.520 as well as the one that was found at the 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:05.320 same archaeological site in Cyprus, though from a slightly earlier time. 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:08.800 So everything seems in place here to suggest. Yeah, a 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:12.520 tame cat, a cat that is that is considered close 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:15.320 to humans for one reason or another. We'll get into 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:19.760 more about, you know, some of those reasons. And and 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:23.359 also by a culture that that values the cat enough 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:28.000 to create its likeness. Again, maybe for religious purposes, maybe 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:32.200 you know, for some other purpose, but they certainly held 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:33.479 the cat in the high esteem. 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:36.600 Now, another thing that would be interesting to know is 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:38.879 do we know what kind of cat this was? 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:45.239 Yes? Yeah, So Vigner contends that that the quote the 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:48.880 post cranial and cranial measurements fall in the upper half 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:52.720 of the range variation of size of the western Asian 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:56.919 Felis Silvestris livica. So this does seem to be the 0:17:56.960 --> 0:17:59.760 African wildcat. And I'm only just now realizing that the 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:04.680 cartoon cat Sylvester gets its name probably from this. Well. 0:18:04.720 --> 0:18:07.920 I think the name Sylvester means like from the forest 0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:09.960 or of the woods, though I assume that's what it 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:12.080 means in the context of this cat's name as well 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:17.160 the cartoon cat, well, the real species and the cartoon cat. Okay, 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:19.360 I don't know about the cartoon cat. That probably just yeah, 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:20.200 maybe that comes. 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:22.960 From this, but anyway, this does seem to be the 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:26.920 African wildcat, so the ancestor of the domestic cat, though 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:30.840 this would of course have been the earlier domestication wave, 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:34.680 not the one that really took hold. And this specimen 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:38.960 was apparently bigger than a modern domestic cat, had longer limbs, 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:45.800 but it is definitely an African wildcat. Points out that 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:48.480 there's no evidence of a native field species of cat 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:51.080 on Cyprus, so they would have had to have been 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:53.160 introduced by these neolithic settlers. 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:55.280 Yeah, and I'll have more on that in just a minute. 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:59.520 So this updated timeline would put the domestication just three 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:03.040 thousand years after the likely domestication point of the dog, 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:07.679 and alongside the human domestication of the sheep mastery of 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:10.520 wheat as well. So I think settlers of Katan fans 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:13.040 out there will recognize that this is just one stone 0:19:13.080 --> 0:19:14.960 short of getting to buy a development cost. So this 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:17.080 is a big deal and when it comes to the 0:19:17.119 --> 0:19:19.320 advancement of your civilization. 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:21.160 But does it help you with the longest road. 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:24.439 Nope, You're going to need what bricks and wood for that. 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:29.360 Now, just a note about the timeline of dog domestication, 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:32.840 because I think reading about the timeline of dog domestication 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:38.400 can be confusing sometimes because while the earliest undisputed archaeological 0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:42.960 evidence of a dog buried with humans comes from the 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:45.960 fifteenth millennium before present, so that that's from a site 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:51.280 in modern Germany, genetic evidence shows that modern domestic dogs 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:56.320 began to diverge from their wolf ancestors something like twenty 0:19:56.359 --> 0:19:58.439 to forty thousand years ago. I think there are some 0:19:58.560 --> 0:20:03.520 different figures on that commonly cited range. So genetic evidence 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:08.040 shows the process beginning much earlier, But the genetic evidence 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:13.280 doesn't tell us exactly how domesticated those proto dogs or 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:18.040 divergent wolves were in terms of behavior and living arrangements. So, 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:21.199 for example, it could be that for thousands of years 0:20:21.240 --> 0:20:26.480 these proto dogs were only partially domesticated, not necessarily treated 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:32.080 as companions, but genetically and behaviorally adapted to increased interaction 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:35.440 with human populations. One example of this would be following 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:39.960 humans around and scavenging their camps. So yeah, the truth 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:43.920 is we don't know exactly when people started treating dogs 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:47.280 like pets or like working animals, but the first clear 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:50.639 archaeological evidence for that kind of relationship comes from the 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:54.719 fifteenth millennium before now. And again, like with the cat example, 0:20:54.800 --> 0:20:57.640 that's from an example of humans being buried along with 0:20:57.720 --> 0:21:00.000 their dog. I think it's from a couple being buried 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:00.560 with their dog. 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:04.040 It's also going to fusing because sometimes we use BP 0:21:04.720 --> 0:21:08.880 in measuring this, because we're just saying before Pluto, before Pluto, 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:12.640 the Disney cartoon dog. Yeah, so it's essentially the same, 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:14.159 but it's off by a few decades. 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:19.320 So apart from the proximity to a human grave, one 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:24.520 clue that the cat skeleton found at schileuro Cambos might 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:29.720 have been a domesticated cat begins with the observation that, 0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:33.160 as you said a minute ago, Rob, the African wildcat, 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:37.560 was not native to Cypress before the arrival of humans. 0:21:37.600 --> 0:21:42.840 That's worth stressing there were no wildcats on Cypress at all, 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:45.760 and we know that pretty conclusively from the fossil record. 0:21:45.840 --> 0:21:49.800 No cats. In fact, the fossil record indicates that before 0:21:49.880 --> 0:21:55.000 humans there were very few terrestrial mammals at all on Cypress. 0:21:55.440 --> 0:22:00.119 This is probably because even during glacial maximum periods the 0:22:00.119 --> 0:22:03.879 sea levels were at their lowest, Cypress was never connected 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:08.320 to the mainland, so the only pre human terrestrial mammals 0:22:08.320 --> 0:22:11.560 on Cypress appear to have been The following one was 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:15.560 the dwarf hippopotamus. This seems to have gone extinct when 0:22:15.640 --> 0:22:19.600 humans arrived, which was about twelve five hundred years before present, 0:22:20.400 --> 0:22:23.439 so they were very likely hunted or otherwise driven extinct 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:27.720 by humans. The dwarf elephant also disappeared when we showed up. 0:22:28.200 --> 0:22:32.320 The Cypriot genet, which is a small carnivore sort of 0:22:32.320 --> 0:22:36.760 a catlike weasel like creature, a little bit raccoony maybe 0:22:37.040 --> 0:22:40.120 it's got a long tail, may have survived a few 0:22:40.160 --> 0:22:43.440 thousand years after humans arrived, but it is now extinct. 0:22:43.920 --> 0:22:47.280 And then finally, the Cypriot mouse, which is the only 0:22:47.440 --> 0:22:51.520 native land mammal from Cypress that still exists today. 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:54.880 And you know, that's quite a compliment for the Cypriot 0:22:54.880 --> 0:22:57.600 mouse to have survived given what is about to follow. 0:22:57.960 --> 0:23:00.199 Well, mice are hardy, but yeah, when humans show up 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:02.600 on an island, we do a lot of damage, especially 0:23:02.920 --> 0:23:04.520 us and the things we bring with us. 0:23:05.040 --> 0:23:07.919 Do you think humans are the reason that the hippopotamus 0:23:07.920 --> 0:23:10.919 and the elephant disappeared? Just a coincidence size. 0:23:12.320 --> 0:23:15.320 So, since cats were not native to the island and 0:23:15.359 --> 0:23:19.320 thus not acquired locally, we know that ancient humans and 0:23:19.359 --> 0:23:22.240 these would have been in Stone Age farmers originally from 0:23:22.280 --> 0:23:26.240 the Fertile Crescent, must have crossed the sea with cats 0:23:26.400 --> 0:23:30.120 in their boats. And given the size of the boats 0:23:30.160 --> 0:23:33.120 that would have been used, and given the fact that 0:23:33.200 --> 0:23:38.399 you need multiple breeding pairs to establish a stable island population, 0:23:39.200 --> 0:23:42.000 it's just not very plausible that we could be dealing 0:23:42.000 --> 0:23:45.840 with the case of cat stowaways that established themselves on 0:23:45.880 --> 0:23:49.240 an island. That's not I don't know, it's not impossible, 0:23:49.320 --> 0:23:51.240 but it seems very unlikely. 0:23:51.560 --> 0:23:55.879 Right, especially because you know, to be clear, over the 0:23:56.000 --> 0:24:02.560 course of time, unlikely introduction do occur. We see that, 0:24:02.640 --> 0:24:06.320 especially when you go beyond the span of human civilizations 0:24:06.359 --> 0:24:08.800 and you look at just like you know, more like 0:24:08.840 --> 0:24:09.680 geologic time. 0:24:09.720 --> 0:24:13.160 But this is about millions of years is years. 0:24:13.200 --> 0:24:16.480 This is within the range of human domain, and it 0:24:16.600 --> 0:24:21.160 suspiciously involves an animal that humans took a liking to yes. 0:24:21.640 --> 0:24:24.879 Yeah, so it seems much more likely that humans brought 0:24:24.960 --> 0:24:30.440 cats to Cyprus across the sea on purpose. But why Well, 0:24:30.840 --> 0:24:34.160 one clue is that cats were not the only non 0:24:34.320 --> 0:24:38.680 native animal species introduced by humans. So here I want 0:24:38.680 --> 0:24:43.040 to reference another paper again where Jean Deni Vignier is 0:24:43.080 --> 0:24:46.399 the first author. This one is called Historical Dynamics of 0:24:46.440 --> 0:24:49.720 the Human Environment Interactions in Cyprus during the twelfth to 0:24:49.840 --> 0:24:54.399 tenth millennium before present the last thirty years of contributions 0:24:54.560 --> 0:24:59.320 of the Amathus area. This was published in the Journal 0:24:59.320 --> 0:25:02.760 of Archaeological Science Reports in the year twenty twenty three, 0:25:02.920 --> 0:25:06.280 once again by vigne at All. So in this paper 0:25:06.320 --> 0:25:08.480 the authors are actually looking at a lot of different stuff. 0:25:08.720 --> 0:25:11.680 They're tracking what we know about how the physical environment 0:25:11.800 --> 0:25:17.160 of Cyprus changed before, during, and after its early colonization 0:25:17.280 --> 0:25:21.760 by humans. And they look at quote, hydrological changes and 0:25:21.800 --> 0:25:25.320 their impact on the establishment and preservation of Neolithic sites, 0:25:25.720 --> 0:25:29.159 Plant and vertebrate faunal evolution, especially as a consequence of 0:25:29.200 --> 0:25:32.840 the introduction of new wild and domestic species. Birth and 0:25:32.920 --> 0:25:37.200 evolution of the commensal fauna e g. Mice, cats and crows, 0:25:38.200 --> 0:25:43.879 and commensal fauna means things living alongside. Commensalism in biology 0:25:43.920 --> 0:25:47.480 is typically it's a type of symbiotic relationship in which 0:25:47.720 --> 0:25:50.040 one organism gets a benefit and the other is not 0:25:50.119 --> 0:25:53.600 really affected one way or another. And then the list 0:25:53.680 --> 0:25:58.159 goes on local domestication of wild boar and goats, adaptation 0:25:58.400 --> 0:26:02.280 and intensification of cultiv and breeding to the local environments, 0:26:03.160 --> 0:26:05.920 so to zoom in specifically on the introduction of new 0:26:06.000 --> 0:26:10.159 animal species. The author is right that the first introduction 0:26:10.560 --> 0:26:14.560 we have evidence of is actually the wild bore, which 0:26:14.680 --> 0:26:19.120 was established on the island during the Epipalaeolithic, probably as 0:26:19.560 --> 0:26:24.680 hunting stock. So the bore remains found on Cyprus show 0:26:24.800 --> 0:26:29.440 insular dwarfism, meaning that they're about fifteen percent smaller than 0:26:29.440 --> 0:26:33.240 the mainland variety and they were often wounded with arrowheads. 0:26:33.600 --> 0:26:37.440 So this would be an interesting early case of intentional 0:26:38.160 --> 0:26:42.760 animal management, or like game management, bringing a live stock 0:26:43.200 --> 0:26:47.040 of a wild species to an island to release so 0:26:47.080 --> 0:26:50.080 that it can establish itself there and so you can 0:26:50.160 --> 0:26:51.560 hunt it on the island. 0:26:52.520 --> 0:26:54.960 Yeah. Yeah, this is fascinating to think about because I 0:26:54.960 --> 0:26:58.080 know it for my own part. I often think about 0:26:58.119 --> 0:27:04.199 this more when I'm thinking about Europeans, you know, setting 0:27:04.200 --> 0:27:07.920 off during the age of Discovery and as well as 0:27:08.680 --> 0:27:13.000 the the as well as the expansion you know of Polynesian, 0:27:13.080 --> 0:27:18.320 Micronesian and so forth, seafaring folks coming to an island 0:27:18.320 --> 0:27:21.240 and realizing, Hey, nice island here, but there's nothing to 0:27:21.240 --> 0:27:23.480 eat here. I better leave some pigs, I better leave 0:27:23.520 --> 0:27:25.600 some goats, and then I can come back in. This 0:27:25.680 --> 0:27:28.919 island will be my larder. But you know, clearly this 0:27:29.000 --> 0:27:31.600 has been in the human playbook for a very long time. 0:27:31.720 --> 0:27:34.200 Right, I mean this is like thousands of years before 0:27:34.240 --> 0:27:37.600 I imagine there was such a practice. Yeah, so seeding, Yes, 0:27:37.720 --> 0:27:40.679 seeding an island with a new game species that can 0:27:40.720 --> 0:27:44.440 be hunted for generations to come. But then well after 0:27:44.480 --> 0:27:47.960 the introduction of the board during the eleventh millennium before present, 0:27:48.000 --> 0:27:51.760 we get other mammals appearing, and this includes domestic dogs 0:27:51.800 --> 0:27:57.160 brought from the levant, the Western European house mouse, and cats. 0:27:57.400 --> 0:27:59.720 This would be the African wildcat, as we've been talking 0:27:59.720 --> 0:28:03.840 about now. To clarify, there is no evidence that the 0:28:03.920 --> 0:28:09.120 wildcats brought along were initially treated as companions or had 0:28:09.160 --> 0:28:13.119 any special significance to humans. That evidence would start to 0:28:13.119 --> 0:28:16.560 appear more than a thousand years later. With that human 0:28:16.640 --> 0:28:21.120 cat co burial. So why were cats brought The authors 0:28:21.119 --> 0:28:24.359 here argue that it was likely that African wildcats were 0:28:24.359 --> 0:28:30.000 brought to Cyprus as an already semi domesticated commensal species 0:28:30.400 --> 0:28:33.919 that were valued for pest control, because if you are 0:28:33.960 --> 0:28:38.080 a farming society and you take foods, you take grain 0:28:38.360 --> 0:28:41.240 or other food somewhere with you, it is pretty much 0:28:41.240 --> 0:28:44.440 a guarantee that rodents are sneaking along for the ride, 0:28:44.640 --> 0:28:47.640 or that there are already rodents where you're going, and 0:28:47.840 --> 0:28:51.240 either way they're going to get into your food. Rodent 0:28:51.320 --> 0:28:55.360 attacks on human food caches are just a perennial problem 0:28:55.440 --> 0:28:58.200 for human cultures going back as far as we have evidence. 0:28:58.720 --> 0:29:03.760 So if these moody, little carnivorous critters, these cats already 0:29:03.840 --> 0:29:06.880 like to hang out around your villages and kill the mice, 0:29:07.320 --> 0:29:10.720 it is definitely worth bringing some of them along with 0:29:10.760 --> 0:29:13.680 you when you move to a new place across the sea. 0:29:14.000 --> 0:29:17.920 So these early cats were probably intentionally brought to Cyprus 0:29:18.320 --> 0:29:21.920 for the purpose of pest control. And then after this, 0:29:22.360 --> 0:29:25.240 well around the same time, maybe a few hundred years later, 0:29:25.280 --> 0:29:27.640 we start to see some other things goats and cattle. 0:29:28.080 --> 0:29:31.800 Goats seem to have been treated not as domestic animals initially, 0:29:31.840 --> 0:29:34.080 but as wild game stocks. So kind of like the 0:29:34.080 --> 0:29:37.720 bors like hunted for some time wild on the island 0:29:38.080 --> 0:29:42.080 before they were either domesticated or redomesticated on the island. 0:29:42.480 --> 0:29:45.040 They may have been domesticated earlier on the mainland and 0:29:45.040 --> 0:29:48.400 then released wild on the island, but eventually they get 0:29:48.440 --> 0:29:52.000 redomesticated or domesticated for the first time. Then after this 0:29:52.400 --> 0:29:56.840 we start to see more introductions. You get fallow deer 0:29:57.000 --> 0:30:00.080 again brought and established as a wild population, and then 0:30:00.120 --> 0:30:04.120 to domestic sheep, and then curiously, I thought this was 0:30:04.160 --> 0:30:06.080 so interesting. Foxes. 0:30:06.520 --> 0:30:07.120 Foxes. 0:30:07.360 --> 0:30:10.560 Foxes not native to the island of Cyprus. They were 0:30:10.600 --> 0:30:12.760 not there on their own. They had to have been 0:30:12.920 --> 0:30:17.560 brought by humans. It is hard to imagine foxes could 0:30:17.680 --> 0:30:21.760 establish themselves by accident, like just stowing away in boats. 0:30:21.920 --> 0:30:25.800 Right again, you need multiple breeding pairs to have a 0:30:25.840 --> 0:30:29.640 stable population there. How would you get enough foxes to 0:30:29.800 --> 0:30:33.400 the island. Uh, It's it's harder for foxes to stow 0:30:33.400 --> 0:30:34.520 away than it is for mice. 0:30:34.640 --> 0:30:37.200 I think, why bring them? 0:30:37.280 --> 0:30:37.360 Like? 0:30:37.680 --> 0:30:39.760 I don't know. This seems along the lines of, say, 0:30:40.000 --> 0:30:43.080 intentionally introducing raccoons to this. 0:30:43.120 --> 0:30:44.960 Is like you to get into your trash cans. 0:30:45.080 --> 0:30:47.200 Yeah. Like, well, I mean, and I imagine, you know, 0:30:47.200 --> 0:30:49.880 folks living in urban foxes probably see that as a 0:30:49.920 --> 0:30:53.120 more direct comparison. Yeah, but like, ye, why bring the foxes? 0:30:53.960 --> 0:30:56.480 Uh? The authors say, we don't know, we don't know 0:30:56.520 --> 0:31:00.000 why they brought the foxes. Maybe this is just a guess. 0:30:59.840 --> 0:31:02.000 There's not a reason to think this. You're just having 0:31:02.040 --> 0:31:05.080 to guess. Maybe foxes had some kind of cultural or 0:31:05.120 --> 0:31:10.320 religious significance to the settlers. Possibly the physical evidence indicates 0:31:10.560 --> 0:31:14.240 that foxes were not hunted and they were tolerated as 0:31:14.320 --> 0:31:18.720 commensals in the early Cypriot villages. The authors say, quote 0:31:18.760 --> 0:31:22.360 this also strengthens the idea that early Neolithic people were 0:31:22.400 --> 0:31:27.240 experimenting with a lot of different systems of relationships with animals. 0:31:28.280 --> 0:31:30.560 So just like just try it out, why not? 0:31:31.400 --> 0:31:33.640 Yeah, I mean, if you if you think about like 0:31:33.720 --> 0:31:36.480 the idea of bringing cats with you, and these cats 0:31:36.520 --> 0:31:39.600 are not necessarily your friends. They just live in the 0:31:39.600 --> 0:31:43.120 same area and they eat something, they kill something that 0:31:43.200 --> 0:31:45.240 is useful to you that they're. 0:31:45.240 --> 0:31:47.080 They're killing them enemy of my enemy. 0:31:47.120 --> 0:31:49.440 Yeah. Yeah, so maybe something similar with foxes here, Like 0:31:49.440 --> 0:31:52.960 we have seen the foxes eat the mice or something 0:31:53.000 --> 0:31:55.760 that we don't want around. They seem to have a 0:31:55.800 --> 0:31:57.920 meaningful purpose, so let's just bring them along. 0:31:58.240 --> 0:32:01.760 Yeah, I wonder, Yeah, could boxes have possibly been thought 0:32:01.760 --> 0:32:04.320 of as pest control? I don't know how plausible that is. 0:32:05.040 --> 0:32:07.520 Somebody who has more experienced with foxes please write in 0:32:07.560 --> 0:32:10.800 about that. Is that plausible that there were a complementary 0:32:10.840 --> 0:32:14.800 pest control system? Possibly? Once again, I want to make 0:32:14.840 --> 0:32:17.040 clear the authors don't say that we don't know. 0:32:17.320 --> 0:32:19.560 Yeah, And it seems to me anyway that it like 0:32:19.840 --> 0:32:22.960 the discovery that any of these introductions could backfire on 0:32:23.080 --> 0:32:27.320 us is a pretty recent revelation for human beings. So 0:32:28.720 --> 0:32:33.320 maybe I'm wrong. Maybe earlier civilizations did realize that they 0:32:33.320 --> 0:32:37.080 could blow it introducing animals intentionally for one purpose and 0:32:37.080 --> 0:32:41.360 then it just doesn't work out. But yeah, but either way, 0:32:41.200 --> 0:32:43.440 they had to have some reason to bring them there, 0:32:43.440 --> 0:32:45.520 and it's yeah, it's fascinating to try and guess what 0:32:45.560 --> 0:32:48.080 that could have been. They just like the look of them, maybe. 0:32:47.880 --> 0:32:52.000 Yeah, Well, I would not dismiss the idea of people 0:32:52.040 --> 0:32:55.400 simply liking the look of cats. In the gradual evolution 0:32:55.480 --> 0:32:57.600 of the cat from a working animal, you know, a 0:32:57.680 --> 0:33:02.040 commensal tolerated because of their pest can troll capabilities into 0:33:02.160 --> 0:33:04.520 becoming a companion animal that you would want to have 0:33:04.600 --> 0:33:07.200 sit in your lap and pet and feed and have 0:33:07.320 --> 0:33:08.440 buried alongside you. 0:33:08.920 --> 0:33:11.560 Yeah. Yeah, And I imagine another thing you could factor 0:33:11.600 --> 0:33:15.240 in is always how cute do the pops look? How 0:33:15.280 --> 0:33:18.000 cute do do the kittens look? And so forth. I 0:33:18.000 --> 0:33:20.360 mean that has been a major factor with dogs and 0:33:20.400 --> 0:33:24.000 cats and various other animals. You know, if they kind 0:33:24.000 --> 0:33:27.320 of look like human babies, if they get that cute 0:33:27.360 --> 0:33:31.920 response out of us, then that has a benefit to us, 0:33:31.960 --> 0:33:34.840 but it also really benefits the animal that we are 0:33:34.960 --> 0:33:39.320 inevitably trying to domesticate. It's true, baby foxes are quite cute. 0:33:39.320 --> 0:33:42.240 I imagine I'm not summoning an image to my mind 0:33:42.320 --> 0:33:44.400 right off the bat, but I'm just going to assume 0:33:44.440 --> 0:33:47.440 they're very cute to look at. So, yeah, maybe that's 0:33:47.480 --> 0:33:47.920 part of it. 0:33:48.240 --> 0:33:52.400 But how this relationship evolved on Stone age cypress, we 0:33:52.760 --> 0:34:06.160 don't know. We can only speculate. But Rob, you had 0:34:06.160 --> 0:34:09.760 some other stuff on cats and cypress for more recent history, right. 0:34:10.160 --> 0:34:14.279 That's right. There are still domesticated cats on the isle 0:34:14.280 --> 0:34:16.800 of Cypress, which should not come as a surprise to anyway, 0:34:16.840 --> 0:34:20.680 because domesticated cats are everywhere now and there's a part 0:34:21.680 --> 0:34:24.239 yeah there again they're here to stay. I think this 0:34:24.280 --> 0:34:28.560 is the last domestication of the African wild cat. And 0:34:28.680 --> 0:34:31.839 there's there's apparently no known connection between all of the 0:34:31.840 --> 0:34:35.560 cats you'll find there on Cypress today and and this, 0:34:35.680 --> 0:34:39.000 you know, the so called ancient Cypriot wild cat, this 0:34:39.000 --> 0:34:42.640 this initial wave of domestication that we see in the 0:34:43.040 --> 0:34:48.359 archaeological record there. But the Cypress cat is a designated 0:34:48.400 --> 0:34:51.759 domestic cat breed found on the island. Again, just a 0:34:51.800 --> 0:34:55.720 breed of domestic cat, sometimes called the Saint Helen cat 0:34:55.920 --> 0:34:59.120 and sometimes called the Saint Nicholas cat. 0:34:59.560 --> 0:35:02.280 So if you are those two things are the same animal. 0:35:02.360 --> 0:35:06.600 Yes, But I want to walk through the saintly connections here, 0:35:07.880 --> 0:35:11.000 and in this we're going to be dealing more with 0:35:11.239 --> 0:35:15.960 a lot of legends as in some fact, but certainly 0:35:16.040 --> 0:35:21.000 less science. So let's let's discuss this Saint Helen connection first. 0:35:21.120 --> 0:35:25.360 This refers to Helena of Constantinople, who would have lived 0:35:25.440 --> 0:35:27.960 two forty six or two forty eight through three point 0:35:27.960 --> 0:35:34.040 thirty CE, mother of Constantine the first and she does 0:35:34.320 --> 0:35:38.480 again an actual historic person here who does. It does 0:35:38.520 --> 0:35:40.920 seem like she may have spent some time in Cyprus, 0:35:41.200 --> 0:35:44.840 as it was under her patronage. And the legend here 0:35:45.000 --> 0:35:49.160 is that she imported hundreds of cats from Egypt, or 0:35:49.200 --> 0:35:52.239 Persia or Palestine. The exacts on this seemed to vary. 0:35:52.280 --> 0:35:56.239 I've seen various sources that point to different places, but 0:35:56.600 --> 0:36:00.360 somewhere that had cats, she, according to this legend, ship 0:36:00.440 --> 0:36:03.680 them in like a thousand or so, and this would 0:36:03.680 --> 0:36:06.800 have been in the fourth century CE, and the purpose 0:36:07.440 --> 0:36:12.360 was to rid the monastery there which she founded of snakes. 0:36:13.560 --> 0:36:16.560 There are a lot of legends about the travels and 0:36:16.640 --> 0:36:20.200 pilgrimages of Saint Helen. I know it said also that 0:36:20.320 --> 0:36:22.840 didn't she make a journey to find the True Cross? 0:36:23.239 --> 0:36:24.880 Well, a lot of that going on. 0:36:25.160 --> 0:36:28.080 Yes, she was at least one of the people who 0:36:28.120 --> 0:36:29.080 found the True Cross. 0:36:29.200 --> 0:36:32.480 Yeah, so take all of these legends with at least 0:36:32.480 --> 0:36:34.200 a grain of salt, you know, especially what we were 0:36:34.200 --> 0:36:37.560 dealing from saints with saints from this era like this 0:36:37.640 --> 0:36:39.759 is where you can potentially run into the problem of 0:36:39.800 --> 0:36:43.200 like this person has there are too many relics out there. 0:36:43.440 --> 0:36:46.960 They're more relics than she had. Bones, not specifically in 0:36:46.960 --> 0:36:49.240 this case. But that sort of thing can sometimes occur. 0:36:49.320 --> 0:36:53.640 There's a lot of legends that build up around these individuals, 0:36:53.640 --> 0:36:56.080 even though at the core we're dealing with an actual 0:36:56.160 --> 0:37:01.600 human being who existed. So snakes, yeah, Cypress is home 0:37:01.640 --> 0:37:06.000 to numerous snake species, venomous and non venomous. There's one 0:37:06.040 --> 0:37:09.000 that's actually called the cat snake, and there's a there's 0:37:09.040 --> 0:37:12.520 one called the Cypress whipsnake, and this one is endemic 0:37:12.600 --> 0:37:16.640 to Cypress. But this is the legend that the monastery 0:37:16.800 --> 0:37:20.480 had a snake problem, and so Saint Helena brings in 0:37:20.520 --> 0:37:24.360 a bunch of cats, or has cats brought in. According 0:37:24.400 --> 0:37:25.680 to the Slate. 0:37:26.360 --> 0:37:28.719 I was just picturing her trying to bring them all herself. 0:37:28.840 --> 0:37:31.120 Oh God, yes, I mean yeah, if you try to, 0:37:31.239 --> 0:37:33.160 trying to bring one would be a task. I can't 0:37:33.160 --> 0:37:34.960 I don't even want to imagine, Like the effort is 0:37:35.000 --> 0:37:38.280 like load up the ship with a thousand cats. That's 0:37:38.320 --> 0:37:40.200 going to be a pretty cross ship by the time 0:37:40.200 --> 0:37:43.279 you get over. But according to the Slate article, the 0:37:43.280 --> 0:37:46.319 Holy Monastery of Saint Nicholas of the Cats solved a 0:37:46.360 --> 0:37:50.839 snake problem with felines. This is by Eric Grundhauser. I 0:37:50.880 --> 0:37:53.960 also looked at the website of the author, Charlotte Wriggle 0:37:54.120 --> 0:37:57.000 Charlotte Wriggle dot com. She has some materials on this, 0:37:57.360 --> 0:38:00.239 and basically legend has it that Cypress was in the 0:38:00.239 --> 0:38:02.399 midst of an epic drought at the time. I've seen 0:38:02.440 --> 0:38:05.720 it given an account of like thirty seven years of drought, 0:38:06.440 --> 0:38:10.160 and it's just driving the snakes indoors in search of water. 0:38:11.120 --> 0:38:15.160 And namely it's mainly it's running them into the monastery, 0:38:15.280 --> 0:38:17.280 so they're trying to do the Lord's work in there, 0:38:17.480 --> 0:38:19.960 but they're just too many snakes. Somebody's got to do 0:38:20.040 --> 0:38:21.160 something about these snakes. 0:38:21.600 --> 0:38:23.520 Sounds like this up to a a I don't know, 0:38:23.600 --> 0:38:25.800 ancient Snakes on a plane prequel. 0:38:27.680 --> 0:38:31.759 Essentially, the legend makes it sound like that level of infestation, 0:38:31.960 --> 0:38:34.760 like it's just completely out of control, and it's driving 0:38:34.800 --> 0:38:37.560 people off the island, Like people are leaving Cyprus because 0:38:37.560 --> 0:38:39.160 they're just too many snakes. 0:38:39.000 --> 0:38:43.319 Popping out of the Holy Water basin, yeah, dangling from 0:38:43.360 --> 0:38:43.840 the ceiling. 0:38:44.640 --> 0:38:47.600 Yeah. So this this led me to wonder a little 0:38:47.640 --> 0:38:50.000 bit like is this at all reasonable? Like is this 0:38:50.160 --> 0:38:54.319 just purely legendary? Is it possible that snakes would get 0:38:54.320 --> 0:38:58.600 this out of control? I mean, one potentially one way 0:38:58.640 --> 0:39:00.480 to think about this is that we should mentioned that 0:39:00.520 --> 0:39:02.920 this is not the only tidbit from the ancient world 0:39:02.960 --> 0:39:08.000 about snake infestations getting out of control, or or particular 0:39:08.440 --> 0:39:14.239 problem snakes interfering with the machinations of various rulers. There 0:39:14.239 --> 0:39:17.520 are various accounts of plagues of serpents, of course, depictions 0:39:17.719 --> 0:39:21.640 descriptions rather of foreign lands and enemy battlefields that are 0:39:21.680 --> 0:39:25.319 infested with snakes and other undesired creatures, and of course 0:39:25.320 --> 0:39:27.080 a lot of that you can you can think about 0:39:27.640 --> 0:39:30.719 from various angles, like how are you gonna how do 0:39:30.800 --> 0:39:33.600 you want to insult the land of foreigners? You can 0:39:33.640 --> 0:39:35.400 just say, oh, it's just nothing but snake, snakes and 0:39:35.400 --> 0:39:36.480 scorpions everywhere. 0:39:36.719 --> 0:39:39.960 Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of these they just sound 0:39:40.040 --> 0:39:45.160 like obvious exaggeration. Though then again, I don't want to 0:39:45.200 --> 0:39:49.000 say it provides any evidence that this particular story is true. 0:39:49.000 --> 0:39:51.720 But we have talked on the show before about great 0:39:51.760 --> 0:39:55.400 gatherings of snakes, like at the narciss how do we 0:39:55.440 --> 0:39:57.760 pronounce it the narcissa or narciss snake. 0:39:59.239 --> 0:39:59.560 Yeah. 0:40:00.040 --> 0:40:02.200 Again, to be clear, I'm not saying like, oh, that's 0:40:02.200 --> 0:40:04.920 what's happening here, and therefore the story is true. But 0:40:05.360 --> 0:40:07.440 snakes can gather in massive numbers. 0:40:07.880 --> 0:40:10.520 I mean, anyone who's ever been around snakes you know that, yes, 0:40:10.560 --> 0:40:15.319 snakes do enter into human areas, and when they do, 0:40:16.480 --> 0:40:21.200 given the place that snakes hold in our minds, you 0:40:21.239 --> 0:40:24.200 know that the threat that snakes can pose to us, 0:40:25.880 --> 0:40:28.359 the fact that we are often frightened by snakes, and 0:40:28.400 --> 0:40:31.480 also all of the layers of meaning that we attribute 0:40:31.520 --> 0:40:34.400 to snakes, all of this makes it meaningful when a 0:40:34.440 --> 0:40:36.520 snake is where we don't think a snake should be. 0:40:36.760 --> 0:40:39.920 Yeah, yeah, this is magic, this is a curse. 0:40:40.239 --> 0:40:45.880 Yeah there was. Looking around for other examples of it 0:40:45.880 --> 0:40:49.800 honestly gets a little confusing at times, looking for even 0:40:49.960 --> 0:40:56.160 legendary histories that are referring to snake infestations. One reason 0:40:56.320 --> 0:40:59.600 I've found is that there are certain works of Mormon 0:40:59.600 --> 0:41:03.560 apology jedics out there that talk about some of this 0:41:03.960 --> 0:41:06.719 apparent There is apparently an incident in the Book of 0:41:06.760 --> 0:41:10.960 Mormon that involves a serpent infestation, and so some at 0:41:11.000 --> 0:41:14.520 at least some of these works of apologetics like attempt 0:41:14.560 --> 0:41:17.600 to back this up with other examples from ancient history. 0:41:18.000 --> 0:41:19.880 As with any work of apologetics, we often have to 0:41:19.920 --> 0:41:21.719 take that with a grain of salt, because obviously, you 0:41:21.760 --> 0:41:24.920 know it's it's an attempt to back up certain ideas 0:41:24.920 --> 0:41:27.000 with an interpretation of reality. 0:41:27.200 --> 0:41:30.520 Yeah, religious apologetics being one of the most straightforward forms 0:41:30.520 --> 0:41:34.080 of motivated reasoning. Yeah, but not without value as literature. 0:41:34.120 --> 0:41:36.200 I mean, it can still point you to these these 0:41:36.239 --> 0:41:39.200 real examples, but it doesn't necessarily prove that you know 0:41:39.280 --> 0:41:41.280 the story they're using it as evidence. 0:41:40.960 --> 0:41:44.240 For now, this one doesn't involve a bunch of snakes. 0:41:44.280 --> 0:41:49.000 It just involves one giant snake, and that it involves 0:41:49.800 --> 0:41:54.880 the adventures of Roman general Marcus Attilius Regulus during the 0:41:54.880 --> 0:41:59.080 First Punic War. His troops are said to have encountered 0:41:59.080 --> 0:42:01.920 a giant snake and it just became like a whole battle, 0:42:01.920 --> 0:42:03.360 like essentially a kaiju battle. 0:42:04.480 --> 0:42:07.600 Wait, where are you saying in on Cyprus. 0:42:07.280 --> 0:42:09.959 Or no, no, this is elsewhere in the Oh okay, sorry, sorry, 0:42:09.960 --> 0:42:13.840 this was not on Cyprus, but just an example of 0:42:14.080 --> 0:42:16.400 a snake showing up in another legend about it and 0:42:16.440 --> 0:42:20.480 again another historic individual, though in this case it is 0:42:20.520 --> 0:42:24.520 not mentioned in the primary histories. For instance, it's not 0:42:24.600 --> 0:42:28.000 in the writings of Polybius about the Punic Wars. It's in, 0:42:28.200 --> 0:42:30.239 you know, sort of secondary sources, and it's thought to 0:42:30.280 --> 0:42:32.600 just generally be a legend, a tall tale about how 0:42:32.600 --> 0:42:37.520 great this guy was. I see now elsewhere in legends 0:42:37.560 --> 0:42:41.600 and tall tales about holy places infested by snakes. There 0:42:41.600 --> 0:42:43.960 are a couple of stories that popped up, and I realized, yes, 0:42:43.960 --> 0:42:47.080 we're getting a little far away from cats here, but 0:42:47.680 --> 0:42:50.520 these were too fascinating to not cover on the show. 0:42:51.360 --> 0:42:54.280 So from the seventh century CE there is the story 0:42:54.320 --> 0:42:59.040 of Saint Hilda's Abbey. This is in Yorkshire, in Britain. 0:42:59.600 --> 0:43:02.120 This is all also the area where Count Dracula moves 0:43:02.160 --> 0:43:03.600 to in Bromstoker's Dracula. 0:43:03.640 --> 0:43:06.279 By the way, Oh interesting, did I forget about it? 0:43:06.280 --> 0:43:08.880 In the novel? Does he not actually come directly to London. 0:43:09.239 --> 0:43:10.600 He goes somewhere up in the north. 0:43:11.080 --> 0:43:13.880 I believe. I believe so now I haven't actually I 0:43:13.880 --> 0:43:17.080 haven't actually read Dracula in a number of years. I've 0:43:17.080 --> 0:43:22.239 mostly been watching various cinematic adaptations that drift pretty far 0:43:22.280 --> 0:43:24.840 from the sourus at times. But there does seem to 0:43:24.840 --> 0:43:27.359 be a Dracula connection here, very loose loosely, but I'm 0:43:27.400 --> 0:43:30.239 gonna mention it. So the idea here is that Saint 0:43:30.280 --> 0:43:34.400 Hilda's Abbey was infested by snakes until Hilda of Whitby 0:43:34.800 --> 0:43:38.839 turned them to stone with I guess holy magic. And 0:43:39.120 --> 0:43:41.520 there is actually a science tie into this legend, though 0:43:41.560 --> 0:43:44.000 as it seems to be a there seems to be 0:43:44.080 --> 0:43:47.279 a strong case for geo mythology here in order to 0:43:47.320 --> 0:43:51.960 explain the presence of fossilized ammonites in the area. Oh, now, 0:43:51.960 --> 0:43:54.600 you can look up images of ammonites here if you're 0:43:54.800 --> 0:43:57.000 If you're not instantly recognizing them, but once you see them, 0:43:57.000 --> 0:43:59.040 you go like, oh, yes, that I've seen that fossil 0:43:59.080 --> 0:44:02.400 many times. You know, it essentially has the look It 0:44:02.400 --> 0:44:04.880 does look like something curled up. You can easily be 0:44:04.920 --> 0:44:07.120 mistaken for a curled up serpent or a curled up 0:44:07.600 --> 0:44:09.920 centipede or something that has been fossilized. 0:44:10.200 --> 0:44:12.799 Yeah, ammonites were cephalopods that lived in the sea that 0:44:12.840 --> 0:44:16.600 went extinct the KPg extinction along with the dinosaurs, the 0:44:16.600 --> 0:44:20.640 non avian dinosaurs. But yeah, the fossils will be basically 0:44:20.640 --> 0:44:23.680 a spiral shell because they had a spiral shell shape, 0:44:24.160 --> 0:44:26.880 kind of like nautiluses today. But from what I understand, 0:44:26.920 --> 0:44:30.319 they're more closely related to some other species than the nautiluses, 0:44:30.360 --> 0:44:34.040 but they look superficially similar. And yeah, and you can 0:44:34.080 --> 0:44:36.800 still find lots of fossils of these shells. I remember 0:44:36.880 --> 0:44:40.920 coming across amonite fossils and reading about the discovery of 0:44:40.920 --> 0:44:43.759 a lot of ammonite fossils on the Jurassic Coast in 0:44:43.800 --> 0:44:44.960 England when I was there. 0:44:45.440 --> 0:44:48.520 Yeah, so you can imagine folks running across these and 0:44:48.560 --> 0:44:51.680 thinking these look like snakes that have been turned to stone. 0:44:51.840 --> 0:44:55.520 And then to add an extra layer here and kind 0:44:55.520 --> 0:44:58.240 of getting back to apologetics, and to a certain extent, 0:44:58.600 --> 0:45:03.200 you have examples where where these ammonites have then been 0:45:03.320 --> 0:45:06.360 carved a little serpent's head or something's supposed to be 0:45:06.400 --> 0:45:09.400 a serpent's head has been carved at the very end 0:45:10.239 --> 0:45:13.000 of the of the creature to make it look like 0:45:13.040 --> 0:45:14.799 it is a snake. And you can you can look 0:45:14.840 --> 0:45:17.360 images up of this online as well. The one I 0:45:17.400 --> 0:45:19.520 found here I shared with you. Joe looks so much 0:45:19.680 --> 0:45:24.000 like the sandworms from Beetlejuice, but except friendlier. It doesn't 0:45:24.040 --> 0:45:28.760 have sharp teeth, and it's going high. Yeah, he doesn't 0:45:28.760 --> 0:45:31.160 look as fearsome and looks a little duck like I'm 0:45:31.200 --> 0:45:44.480 just a little snake. Now there's another legend I ran across. 0:45:44.520 --> 0:45:49.680 This is a legend of the monastery of Langovarda in Greece, 0:45:49.760 --> 0:45:54.000 located on the island of Catalonia, in which the snakes 0:45:54.040 --> 0:45:57.520 are said to have actually defended the monastery against pirates. 0:45:57.520 --> 0:45:59.440 And I believe seventeen oh five. 0:45:59.520 --> 0:46:03.440 That's my kind of story. I like that. I like 0:46:03.520 --> 0:46:06.640 a trap for intruders that involves animals, like a pit, 0:46:06.719 --> 0:46:09.440 a mote with piranhas in it, a pit full of snakes, 0:46:09.520 --> 0:46:13.680 something like that crab pit, crab pit, that'd be really good. 0:46:14.040 --> 0:46:17.680 Well, in this case, it was snakes protecting nuns that 0:46:17.760 --> 0:46:21.600 were living there at the time. And then afterwards these 0:46:22.000 --> 0:46:26.480 snakes find Christ, they become holy snakes, sometimes said to 0:46:26.480 --> 0:46:29.359 have crosses on their heads, and then they show up 0:46:29.600 --> 0:46:31.920 at the monastery it's said in the days leading up 0:46:31.920 --> 0:46:34.680 to August fifteenth, the feast of the Dormition of the 0:46:34.760 --> 0:46:39.560 Virgin Mary. So essentially right now, this place is sometimes 0:46:39.640 --> 0:46:42.320 called the Monastery of the Virgin Mary, of the Snakes, 0:46:42.640 --> 0:46:45.960 of the snakes. You can look up pictures of these 0:46:45.960 --> 0:46:48.400 snakes too. I don't know, I'm not seeing the cross 0:46:48.440 --> 0:46:51.440 on their foreheads so much, but you know this is 0:46:51.480 --> 0:46:54.600 more of a this is more an article of faith 0:46:54.680 --> 0:46:57.360 rather than a matter of herpetology. 0:46:57.800 --> 0:47:00.479 Okay, well, I've really enjoyed this snake hunt. But does 0:47:00.520 --> 0:47:04.239 this inform our attempt to answer the question is there 0:47:04.239 --> 0:47:07.680 any historical truth to the idea of Saint Helena bringing 0:47:07.680 --> 0:47:10.239 a bunch of snakes to the monastery in Cyprus to 0:47:11.080 --> 0:47:14.400 or not sorry, not snakes, bringing cats to the monastery 0:47:14.440 --> 0:47:15.400 to get rid of the snakes. 0:47:15.640 --> 0:47:19.640 I don't know that it actually provides additional answers, but yeah, 0:47:19.640 --> 0:47:21.480 I guess I'll just come back to like, when you're 0:47:21.520 --> 0:47:25.720 dealing with snakes, a snake is just such a loaded creature. 0:47:25.760 --> 0:47:27.799 We have so many thoughts about the snakes, so many 0:47:28.080 --> 0:47:31.680 layers of meaning with the snake, and so the legends 0:47:31.719 --> 0:47:35.320 just pile up. But yeah, there are other accounts of 0:47:35.680 --> 0:47:38.879 snake infestations being a thing, and you know, we do 0:47:38.920 --> 0:47:43.640 see examples. There are places in the world where snakes 0:47:43.640 --> 0:47:45.279 do become a problem, soecially when you're dealing I mean 0:47:45.320 --> 0:47:48.080 mainly when you're dealing with venomous snakes, because a non 0:47:48.160 --> 0:47:52.080 venomous snake is essentially going to do as good, if 0:47:52.080 --> 0:47:54.520 not more good, than having a cat around. I mean, 0:47:54.520 --> 0:47:57.279 it's not as maybe not as too many people's eye, 0:47:57.440 --> 0:48:03.640 not as friendly, maybe not as cutly. Though, listeners who 0:48:03.719 --> 0:48:07.400 keep snakes, you will say, no, this cat, this particular snake, 0:48:07.480 --> 0:48:09.600 is cutly. But and you know you have a strong 0:48:09.640 --> 0:48:11.200 case to make there as well. 0:48:11.440 --> 0:48:13.799 I want to hear from listeners who have cats and 0:48:13.880 --> 0:48:18.120 snakes which one is cuddlier. Well, wait a minute, hold on, 0:48:18.520 --> 0:48:23.280 there's a mystery here. So that explains why the cats 0:48:23.280 --> 0:48:26.960 of Cyprus would be called Saint Helen's cats or Saint 0:48:27.000 --> 0:48:29.279 Helena cats. But wasn't there another name for them, Saint 0:48:29.360 --> 0:48:30.839 Nicholas cats or something. 0:48:30.800 --> 0:48:33.920 Right, And and you might be thinking, well, this couldn't 0:48:34.000 --> 0:48:37.760 possibly be Santa Claus, right, But you'd apparently be wrong, 0:48:38.000 --> 0:48:41.000 because as far as I can tell, this is supposed 0:48:41.000 --> 0:48:43.360 to be the Saint Nicholas, who then went on to 0:48:43.520 --> 0:48:47.160 Mira and, through the accumulation of legend and holiday tradition, 0:48:47.320 --> 0:48:52.240 becomes the figure of Santa Claus. According to the aforementioned sources, 0:48:52.280 --> 0:48:55.800 as well as the Virginia Theological Seminary Saint Nicholas Center, 0:48:57.080 --> 0:49:01.640 this was supposedly where the future Saint Nicholas was at 0:49:01.640 --> 0:49:05.160 the time, like he was there at this monastery, potentially 0:49:05.360 --> 0:49:07.480 like ringing the bell for the for the cats to 0:49:07.480 --> 0:49:08.400 come and eat the snakes. 0:49:08.600 --> 0:49:13.040 Whoa yet another crazy Saint Nicholas story. Do you know 0:49:13.040 --> 0:49:17.960 the one about how he resurrected the three boys who 0:49:17.960 --> 0:49:20.600 had been chopped up and pickled and cooked in a 0:49:20.640 --> 0:49:21.520 pot or something. 0:49:21.600 --> 0:49:23.799 Oh, I'd forgotten about them, but yeah, I think that 0:49:23.800 --> 0:49:27.640 that does ring a bell. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the the 0:49:27.800 --> 0:49:32.759 the legends of Saint Nicholas, we get pretty fascinator. 0:49:32.520 --> 0:49:33.840 Gets here in the Christmas spirit. 0:49:36.040 --> 0:49:40.360 So the monastery or the Monastery of the Holy Monastery 0:49:40.400 --> 0:49:44.000 of Saint Nicholas of the Cats, is still around. It 0:49:44.040 --> 0:49:47.520 became known for taking in stray cats. The local fishermen 0:49:47.760 --> 0:49:50.759 would for a while reportedly donate their entire catch to 0:49:50.800 --> 0:49:54.120 the cats on the feast day of Saint Nicholas. And 0:49:54.640 --> 0:49:59.000 you know, it's a lot has happened over the course 0:49:59.000 --> 0:50:02.319 of its existence, but apparently it's still around today as 0:50:02.360 --> 0:50:06.319 an active monastery and an active cat sanctuary. Like you see, 0:50:06.400 --> 0:50:08.759 you see people visiting it and taking photos in there. 0:50:08.760 --> 0:50:12.160 Indeed are a lot of cats, arguably maybe too many cats, 0:50:12.200 --> 0:50:14.520 but this is a place where they're allowed to do 0:50:14.600 --> 0:50:15.000 their thing. 0:50:15.440 --> 0:50:18.520 Nonsense it's beautiful cat Heaven Monastery. 0:50:19.120 --> 0:50:21.759 So Cypress. So if you are a cat fancier and 0:50:21.760 --> 0:50:25.400 you're trying to plan your next cat based vacation, maybe 0:50:25.440 --> 0:50:26.680 Cypress is your destination. 0:50:27.440 --> 0:50:29.680 By the way, I looked up the Cypress cat breed 0:50:30.200 --> 0:50:31.880 in my opinion certified cute. 0:50:33.320 --> 0:50:35.120 Well, which cats are not cute? Really? 0:50:35.680 --> 0:50:36.600 I guess that's true. 0:50:36.880 --> 0:50:39.440 I mean, I know we'll get some answers for some 0:50:39.520 --> 0:50:42.200 of my listeners out there, but it's all subjective. 0:50:42.600 --> 0:50:45.919 It's got fur, it's got big ears. What more could 0:50:45.920 --> 0:50:48.839 you want? Well, Rob, shall we wrap this up before 0:50:48.880 --> 0:50:50.280 the King of Cats comes a knocking? 0:50:50.840 --> 0:50:52.400 Yes, I think we should. This will be the end 0:50:52.440 --> 0:50:54.680 of our second core episode of Stuff to Blow Your 0:50:54.680 --> 0:50:57.520 Mind here for Cat Week, but we have one more episode, 0:50:57.880 --> 0:51:01.359 Weird House Cinema tomorrow will also be cat based. And 0:51:01.400 --> 0:51:04.799 you know, I didn't expect it to be this way, 0:51:04.840 --> 0:51:06.880 but I feel like the movie we're going to be 0:51:06.880 --> 0:51:09.759 talking about really lines up with a lot of the 0:51:10.840 --> 0:51:14.399 actual serious cat information we've been discussing in the core 0:51:14.400 --> 0:51:17.320 episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. I think the 0:51:17.400 --> 0:51:20.600 King of Cats would approve. Okay, so tune in for 0:51:20.640 --> 0:51:22.759 that if you're interested. 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