WEBVTT - The Artifact: Cones! 0:00:03.320 --> 0:00:05.640 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of 0:00:05.640 --> 0:00:11.160 I Heart Radio. Hi, my name is Joe McCormick, and 0:00:11.280 --> 0:00:14.880 this is the Artifact, a short form series from Stuff 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:19.119 to Blow Your Mind, focusing on particular objects, ideas, and 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:24.680 moments in time. If you look at ancient Egyptian artwork 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:29.400 starting around the early New Kingdom period so about b c. E, 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:34.760 you might notice a weird recurring feature. Sometimes people have 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:38.360 little cones on top of their heads. They don't look 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:42.320 like hats exactly. They're a little small for that, usually 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:45.520 about the size of a drinking cup, but turned upside down. 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:49.000 When I see them, I think of a huge, rounded 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:54.680 alligator tooth. Sometimes they're white all over. Sometimes they're pale 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:58.840 with red and brown colorations that look like inverted flames. 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:03.520 In paintings and ba relief spanning more than a thousand years, 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:06.839 you can find them in all kinds of scenes. People 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:09.959 wear the cones when they're worshiping the gods or playing 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:13.520 musical instruments. Cones appear on the heads of men who 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:17.520 are being prepared for funerary rituals or receiving a blessing 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:21.160 from the king. Sometimes they show up in scenes of 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:25.720 childbirth or on guests being welcomed and served at a feast. 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:28.839 People are even shown with these head cones and other 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:32.880 planes of existence, for example, while hunting or fishing in 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:38.679 the afterlife. For decades, Egyptologists have debated what these objects were. 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:42.520 One of the most popular hypotheses is that the cones 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:48.520 were actually lumps of perfumed ngwent. So imagine a softball 0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:53.480 sized conical mound of animal fat infused with a fragrant 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:57.360 resin like mirr. As the cone melted under the sun 0:01:57.560 --> 0:02:00.080 or from the body's heat, it would turn into an 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:04.720 oozing bath of sweet smelling grease that infused the hair 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:08.240 and the scalp. This fragrance was meant to cleanse the 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:11.800 person both physically and spiritually, to make them fit to 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:17.560 interact with the gods. The Danish egyptologist Lisa Manicky discusses 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:23.760 evidence for the unguin interpretation in her book Sacred Luxuries, Fragrance, 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:28.960 Aromatherapy and Cosmetics in Ancient Egypt from Cornell University Press. 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:33.000 Quote paintings and reliefs from the beginning of the New 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:35.840 Kingdom and On show men and women with a lump 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:39.200 of solid unguin perched on top of their head either 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:42.240 on a bald skull, on the hair, or on top 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:45.239 of a wig. There is little doubt that the material 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:48.840 is supposed to be scented matter, for in some contexts 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:52.720 we see servants carrying bowls of the same white mass 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:56.000 streaked with red or yellow, whilst at the same time 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:59.680 they position it on men and women seated at a banquet. 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:03.359 She writes that these images are sometimes accompanied by texts 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:06.440 that mentions placing a scented resin on top of the head. 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:10.560 But one difficulty with any physical explanation of the cones 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:13.919 is that, despite how often they appear in art, no 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:17.400 one had ever found physical evidence of one. In the 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:21.840 absence of physical examples from archaeology, some experts came to 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:26.640 a different conclusion. Maybe the cones never existed as three 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:31.840 dimensional objects at all. Instead, maybe they were an artistic convention, 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:36.680 a symbol like the halos of saints in medieval Christian artwork. 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:39.800 There was no need to assume that Christian saints and 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:44.880 martyrs literally wore wide brimmed gold hats. Instead, the halos 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:47.880 told us something about the hidden qualities of the person. 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:51.440 A holiness that was invisible to the naked eye was 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:55.000 revealed in painting. Could it be that the cones served 0:03:55.000 --> 0:04:01.280 a similar purpose within Egyptian religious psychography. But Incember twenty nineteen, 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:05.720 a report was published in the journal Antiquity by Anna Stephens, 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:09.800 Karina E. Rogi, Yolanda E. M. F. Bosch, and Gretchen 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:13.760 our Dabs, and this report added interesting new evidence to 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:17.680 help answer the mystery of the cones. This evidence takes 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:21.120 the form of two recently excavated graves from the ancient 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:26.039 city of Akatatum, now known as Amarna. Amarna plays a 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:30.359 strange and interesting role in Egyptian history. It was something 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:34.520 of a religious boom town created by the eighteenth dynasty 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:39.200 pharaoh Akatan, who tried to change the official religion of Egypt, 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:44.280 forsaking its long time polytheistic pantheon and replacing it with 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:49.720 what is sometimes considered an early example of monotheism or monolatry, 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:53.880 the special reverence for and worship of only one god, 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:58.200 in particular, in this case, the Sun deity Aten. When 0:04:58.279 --> 0:05:01.880 Accinatin struck out to cement his new religion, he founded 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:04.720 a city to become the home base of the Otton cult. 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:08.600 This city was a Marna. One of the reasons a 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:11.719 Marna has been important from an archaeological standpoint is the 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:15.120 quality of its cemeteries, where we can find evidence of 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:18.080 how common people of the time, and not just rich 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:22.080 elites with elaborate tombs, were laid to rest and commemorated. 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:25.800 It's two of these common graves from a Marna that 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:29.440 are the focus of the twenty nineteen study. What Stevens 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:32.120 at all described in the report are the graves of 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:36.719 two fourteenth century b C. Egyptians who were buried wearing 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:41.320 head cones, the first three dimensional head cones ever discovered. 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:45.920 The more intact example measured about eight centimeters in height 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:50.799 and ten centimeters across. The cones were cream colored and brittle, 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:55.440 with what the authors described as a silky feeling exterior surface. 0:05:56.360 --> 0:05:59.520 They were ridden with little tunnels made by insects over 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:03.520 the cent trees. The cones were not solid, but hollow, 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:07.240 and criss crossing patterns on the inner walls indicate that 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:10.799 the wax domes were probably shaped around an inner core 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:15.600 made of textile Spectroscopic analysis revealed that the cones were 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:21.600 made of biological wax, almost certainly bees wax. These discoveries 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:25.600 didn't seem perfectly consistent with either of the two interpretations 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:31.560 we've previously discussed. Obviously, these were physical, three dimensional objects 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:35.839 and not merely an artistic convention like a halo. As 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:39.920 for the unguint interpretation, Stevens and co authors found no 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:43.480 chemical or physical evidence that these cones would have melted 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:47.920 into the hair and released perfume. They seem more like tiny, 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:53.080 rigid wax hats. Speaking to Colin Barris for an article 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:56.920 in Science, Lisa Manicky mentioned the possibility that the cones 0:06:57.000 --> 0:07:00.520 worn by the people in these graves were dummy cones. 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:04.560 If the true cones were in fact melting lumps of 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:09.880 animal fat infused with expensive perfumes, it's possible that less 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:13.840 wealthy members of society could attempt to imitate the appearance 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:18.440 of the cones without the olfactory function. It's also possible 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:21.400 that the kinds of cones worn with the grave clothes 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:24.880 would be different from what was used in life. So 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:28.080 what can we conclude from this discovery? A lot of 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:30.920 questions remain, but the authors of the study claim that 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:34.240 at the very least, the analysis of the Amarna graves 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:38.640 quote confirms that three dimensional wax based head cones were 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:42.040 sometimes worn by the dead in ancient Egypt and that 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:45.679 access to these objects was not restricted to the upper elite. 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:48.960 Beyond that, they say that the cones may have had 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:53.040 religious significance related to fertility, and that they could reasonably 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:55.960 be interpreted as part of quote a suite of personal 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:59.920 accouterments deemed appropriate for use in a range of cell 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:04.119 librations and rituals for and involving the living, the dead, 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:08.720 the autun and other deities, which, as they acknowledge, doesn't 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:12.400 narrow things down too much. In his article for Science, 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:17.200 Barris also quotes run Njord of Emory University, who raises 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:20.480 the critique that sometimes modern scholars can read too much 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:25.160 religious or afterlife significance into artifacts from ancient Egypt. It's 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:28.800 worth keeping open the possibility that these were just little hats. 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:38.480 Tune into future editions of the artifact each week, hosted 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:41.800 by either Robert or myself. As always, you can email 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:55.480 us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:58.079 Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:00.800 For more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the i heart 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:03.600 Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:04.280 favorite shows.