WEBVTT - Interview Interlude Playlist, Part 4: Gene Kritsky 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.160 Welcome to Stuff to blow your Mind from housetop works 0:00:06.200 --> 0:00:20.120 dot com. The god Ray wept, and the tears from 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:23.160 his eyes fell on the ground and turned into a bee. 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:27.200 The bee made his honeycomb and busied himself with the 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:31.400 flowers of every plant, and so wax was made, and 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:42.560 also honey out of the tears of Ray. Hey, welcome 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:44.120 to stuff to blow your mind. My name is Robert 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:46.800 Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And that was a beautiful 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:50.440 little reading. Robert, what was that? That quote comes to 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:54.760 us from a nineteen translation of a three hundred BC 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:59.920 bit of writing. It's it's essentially cursive hieroglyphs, which is 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:04.759 called the hieratic writing. And more specifically, this wonderful uh 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:08.920 little excerpt comes from a book titled The Tears of 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:13.480 Ray be Keeping an Ancient Egypt by Jean Kritzky. And 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:15.520 at the end of this episode we're going to chat 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:18.000 with the author just a little bit about some of 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:20.319 the material we're discussing here and about the book The 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:23.280 Tears of Ray. This was a very interesting book. Robert 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:25.400 and I both read it for this episode, and it 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:29.600 essentially it covers the relationship between the ancient Egyptians and 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:36.160 the honeybee, the complex economic, religious, and scientific relationship you 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:39.080 might say, going back and forth between them. But we 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:42.440 should start, I guess with Ray, because that's the focus 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:44.720 of this little poems segment. You read at the beginning. 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:48.840 Who is Ray? Right, you may be more familiar with 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:53.120 the name raw are a Uh, the sun god, the 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:56.720 creator god of the ancient Egyptians, as often depicted as 0:01:56.760 --> 0:01:59.640 sort of like a bird's head, the head of a falcon, 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:03.040 but also a sun disc that travels across the sky 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:06.920 and then of course dusk it gets eaten and then 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:09.040 goes into the underworld. Well, actually I think those are 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:11.160 two different myths. Right, it goes into the underworld and 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:13.320 then comes back out. But there's another version where Ray 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:16.360 gets eaten and then gets re birthed. Yeah, and there's 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:18.480 a there's a lot of material about the like he 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:21.240 travels across the sky and a solar barge, and then 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:24.000 there's a different barge that travels through the underworld at night, 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:29.000 and and sometimes the additional gods on those barges. It's uh, 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:32.160 it's it's very complex. One of the things I definitely 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:34.880 did find out from this book is that these days, 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:37.799 if you want to be in line with the academic 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:42.040 egyptology community, you say Ray, not Raw. Now, I I 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:45.640 got Raw from the movie Stargate, where Raw is the 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:49.040 bad guy who is essentially an alien version of an 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:53.399 Egyptian god. But but that that's not anymore, it's y Yeah. 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:59.040 Plus most most Egyptologists dismissed uh Stargate as a reputable 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:02.440 source of data these days. Yeah, I don't know why, 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:06.400 but but yeah, this this episode, hopefully what we're gonna 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:09.520 do here is is we will will allow you to 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:13.080 leave the podcast with maybe a little more understanding and 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:16.320 respect for the kingdom of the bees and a little 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:19.840 more respect and understanding for the kingdom of ancient Egypt, 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:24.720 because there's a there's so much complexity in both and uh, 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:27.760 and it's fascinating to sort of look here at this, 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:31.440 this kingdom within a kingdom, and how they how they 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:34.280 were related to each other. Oh, the b kingdom within 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:38.040 the Egyptian because because yeah, we have a monarch, uh, 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:43.720 monarchy within the honey bee hive. And then workers, we 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:48.320 have a lot of workers toiling away involved in this industry. 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:52.120 And then uh, we have this, we have ancient Egypt. 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:57.480 We have another monarchy with a very complex system of order. Uh, 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:00.160 a lot of industry going on, a lot of workers, uh, 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:03.080 toiling to make it all possible. And also sort of 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:07.440 a two way cyberbiotics symbiotic relationship. Yeah, indeed, But I 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:10.920 guess we should start with the bee first, because obviously 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:14.640 the b pre dates ancient Egypt as a civilization, probably 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:18.960 not the land mass. So Robert, where do bees come from? Well, 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:21.760 I'm glad you asked, Joe. Let me tell you about 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:25.120 the bees. Uh. You'd have to travel back about a 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:28.359 hundred million, maybe a hundred thirty million years, depending on 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:31.000 who you're talking to, all the way back to the 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:35.400 Cretaceous period. Okay, you'd find dinosaurs roam to the earth. Yeah, 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:38.440 we're going away back here, and you'd find a world 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:41.680 rather different than the one we're we encountered today. Uh, 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:46.320 devoid of flowering plants and occupied mostly by conifers, which 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:50.600 depend on the wind to spread their seats. Wow. Can 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:53.520 you imagine that? I mean a world where where reproduction 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:56.960 depends entirely on the whims of the weather. Like can 0:04:57.000 --> 0:05:00.800 you imagine if animals Because trees can't walk around and 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:04.560 find each other to mate, they're stuck in place, trees 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:07.320 and bushes, you know, whatever you want. Plants are not 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:12.680 very mobile, so they essentially have to spray their reproductive 0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:16.919 material into the air, just hoping it gets somewhere worthwhile 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:20.080 by chance. Yeah, indeed, this is just an earlier state, 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:22.920 and it's just the the the evolution of seed transfer. 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:25.360 So there are no flowers and there's certainly no pollination. 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:29.080 Now there were There were no bees at this point, 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:32.960 but there were wasps. And these wasps were also kind 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:36.800 of different from the wasps that we encounter today. They 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:40.080 were hymenoptera, the order that wasts some bees are. Yeah, 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:42.479 indeed they were, now they were, but they were carnivorous. 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:45.800 They preyed on spiders and other insects, and many of 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:50.320 which in turn fed on vegetation. Uh so along, So, 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:52.480 so we have a traffic going on here, all right. 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:55.000 Seeds are going into the air, the wasps are eating 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:57.640 the insects that live on the plants. But plant of 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:00.560 evolution eventually begins to make the most stat of this 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:04.920 constant insect traffic, using it like the wind, to carry 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:08.400 a genetic material from plant to plant, and this results 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:10.920 in the rise of angiosperms. These are plants that depend 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:14.320 on insects to spread genetic material and pollen from male 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:19.120 plant parts called anthers to female parts called stigmas. This 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:21.880 is one of those moments I often want to say, like, oh, 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:25.440 how smart that is, which it's like as if somebody 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:27.479 planned it. Now, of course it wasn't. These are just 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:33.200 the wonderful ingenuities of evolution acting upon the environment. But uh, 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:35.960 it's fascinating how things like this come about. So you 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:38.520 have to imagine a system where these plants are pollinating 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:42.080 by wind, but they have this this sperm the pollination 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:46.520 material I guess you would say pollen. Uh, And somehow 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:51.239 insects start getting this stuff on their bodies. Right, Essentially, 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:54.680 a new wind emerges and that wind is the movement 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:57.880 of these insects. And then, of course it once that 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:01.120 works out for long enough, plants sort of evolved traits 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:04.280 to specialize in that mode of transmission. It's no longer 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:07.120 an accident. It's how they work now. In indeed, you 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:10.640 see the the emergence of delicious nectar to sweeten the 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:14.520 deal for the pollen carrying insects, saying hey, come here, 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:17.679 get all nice and covered in polony and I'm totally 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:22.840 anthropomorphizing the entire process here. My apologies, but but yeah, 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:26.920 essentially bribing the insects with the with the the delicious 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:28.720 nectar to give them to carry the pollen, giving them 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:31.600 a specific reason to traffic the parts of the plant 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.160 where pollen is produced. So I can imagine if you're 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:38.120 some wasp DT thirty million years ago and you've been 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:41.760 hunting insects. That's that's tough work, you know, it's it's 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:44.400 really tough. Now, if you could just start getting all 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:48.600 of your meals from a passive plant that will sit 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:52.360 there and let you just lap up delicious sweet things 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:56.240 from its open maw, that I mean, what a nice deal. Yeah, yes, 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:59.600 suddenly there's this, there's this wonderful new way to get 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:03.240 the food you need. Now. Granted, they're still they're still 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:06.720 sort of tied to their predatory past, and indeed, today, 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:09.800 um you'll you have you can look at most common 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:14.120 wasps and they're depending upon upon nectar as their primary food. 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:16.440 But they still have to turn to their carnivorous ways 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:20.480 when it comes to rearing their young, implanting their young 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:24.679 in the belly half another creature that wasps. Oh yeah, yeah, 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:28.800 which is just a wonderful area that we have explored 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:31.520 in past podcast and I'm sure will return in the future. 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:34.360 Christian and I talked about it in our X Files episode. Yes, 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:39.120 of course, yeah, that parasitoid wasps are not only is 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:41.600 it just an endlessly fascinating area, but we just get 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:45.440 new studies each year with either a new type of 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:48.800 parasitoid wasps or some new details about a species we 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:52.400 are already familiar with. Yeah, so the wasps evolved to 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:54.600 to live off of what is provided by the plants, 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:57.160 and in an interesting way, I think we could think 0:08:57.200 --> 0:09:02.040 about this as the plants domestic aiding livestock. Yeah, the 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:05.360 plants have domesticated the live stock of insects in order 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:07.719 to do their bidding. And of course the wasps are 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:11.240 one thing, but it's the bees where we really see 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:15.200 this takeoff, because of course bees evolve from wasps, they're 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:19.280 all related. But the bees are actually they're getting the nectar, 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:22.839 they're bringing it back for their young. They're they're they're 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:26.520 they're they're creating honey, they're creating these uh, these these 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:32.000 waxy nests. They are completely beholden to the nectar. Uh, 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:35.160 they're no longer going out and the and and specifically 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:38.840 killing other creatures to rear their young. Okay, so when 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:41.600 we're talking about honey bees, true honey bees, that this 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.520 is the genus APIs, right, yes, and that's why we 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:48.600 also refer to it as uh is apriculture. Oh yeah, 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:52.960 bee keepingture, not the keeping of apes. A fun fact 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:55.480 to remember, by the way, next time you're adding a 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:58.720 dab of honey to your earl gray tea, is that 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:02.840 honey is bee bar right? Yes? Is how honey is produced. 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:07.400 It's produced by bees grabbing some sweet nectar, which is 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:10.800 pretty much sugar water from plants and then going through 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:15.440 a complex process of regurgitation and evaporation. Yeah, so they're 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:20.160 kind of uh distilling it, refining it through their their 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:23.080 just regigitation of the material, you know, And I should 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:26.520 I should also mentioned that, uh, when it comes to 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:29.240 two bees, we have bumble bees, we have stainless bees, 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:31.680 and we even have a few other non bee species 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:34.520 that produce honey and small amounts. But for the most part, 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:37.359 we're you know, we're dealing with those uh, those APIs 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:41.280 honey bees, which are the superstars, the generators of like 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:44.520 a true bounty and excess of honey, uh, in the 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:47.200 amount that it makes sense for humans to raise them 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:50.000 and pillage their stores. Now, when I was a kid, 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:52.680 I used to wonder how we eat honey? But I 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:54.720 know bees make honey. I did not know that they 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:57.200 barfed honey up for us. I didn't know that they 0:10:57.280 --> 0:10:59.679 made honey, but I didn't know what they did with it. 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:01.400 I was why do they make it? Is it just? 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:05.080 What is it? What's it for? Did the bees themselves 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:08.320 eat the honey? Yeah, they stored as a primary food source. 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:11.800 They also eat what is called bee bread, which is 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:14.920 a semary cute name. Yeah. Yeah, it's essentially like a 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:18.280 pollen cake, you know. But yeah, the the honey is 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:23.320 a food source for the bee people, if you will. Um. 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:28.160 And they stored away in those waxy cells in the honeycomb. 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:31.160 But you mentioned wax. Of course, wax is another important 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:36.840 byproduct of bee culture. It's it's their second great technology. Yes, indeed, 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:39.920 and uh and the wax that the workers actually secrete 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:43.200 from specialized glands on the underside of their abdomens. Wait 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:45.920 what they secrete it? Yeah? Essentially, you know, you can 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:48.200 think of them as like wax nipples. I guess, um, 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:51.120 the bee. The bees have wax nipples and they put 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:54.880 out the wax. What it's a little flaky lipids for us. Yeah, 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:58.720 and they get the raw materials for this metabolized product 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:01.079 through the consumption of that honey and that be bread, 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:04.720 which we already mentioned and the bee bread. I should 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:08.000 also have have pointed out that it's essentially a collected 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:12.720 fermented pollen. So um, so these service there. So it 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:15.000 kind of goes around in a circle, right, the nectar, 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:18.439 the honey, the wax, this whole um, this whole little 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:22.160 little city for the insects built from the bounty of 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:26.760 the flowers. Yeah. Now, long before humans started formalized apriculture, 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:29.840 before they started making bee hives to keep bees in 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:34.920 to sort of have an agriculture of insects, they hunted honey. Right, 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:37.280 there was wild honey hunting. The same way you would 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:40.280 hunt game in the forest or on the savannah. You 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:43.480 could hunt honey just as it occurred in a bee 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:45.880 hive that might be hanging from a tree. And there 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:49.319 are actually ancient works of cave art that depict this. Yeah, 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:52.720 there's still also honey hunting traditions that survived this day 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:55.080 and it's essentially the same thing a bear does. Right 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:56.960 of a bear breaks into a honey hive or a 0:12:56.960 --> 0:12:59.560 honey badger, it goes after some some bees as well. 0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:02.440 You just you find out where the hive is, you 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:05.800 locate it, and then you use the best skills at 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:08.720 your disposal to break in there and get as much 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:11.400 dripping honeycomb as possible and run off with it. Now, 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:15.040 Krisky's book has an illustration, or not an illustration. It 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:17.120 does have an illustration, but also a photo of this 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:21.120 great cave painting from Spain that seems to depict honey 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:23.920 hunting from How how old is this thing? Yeah, this 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:27.160 dates back seven thousand to eight thousand years, so that 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:31.400 gives us a rough estimate not not where it began, 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:34.600 but at least how far it probably goes. And so 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:37.480 what what's depicted in the painting is this great setup. 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:39.480 It looks like a scene from a movie where you've 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:43.000 got somebody hanging from a rope, apparently off a cliff, 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:46.520 being lowered down to an area where there's a tree 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:49.319 with a bees nest hanging off of it and reaching 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:51.439 in to grab the honey, and you can see bees 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:55.200 swarming around the person I mean that's a lot of 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:59.040 trust and whoever's holding the rope, right, yeah, and uh 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:01.240 and and and you know you're just getting just the 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:04.080 Jesus stung out of you the whole time. But it's 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:08.120 just such I mean, especially in the energy density and 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:10.760 connicity of that of that that score. I mean, this 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:14.800 stuff is just is pure gold, uh, nutritionally speaking, So 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:18.000 you're going to occasionally do what it takes to get 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:20.520 it and bring it back, not to mention the value 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:23.720 you're going to have bringing that stuff back to your community. 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:26.200 But I guess we should now look at when when 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:31.040 true apriculture started. When did we start having bee hives 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:34.280 where we sort of set up an enclosure and said 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:36.640 bees go live in there, here's where you should make 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:39.960 your homes. And they obeyed alright, So it's best we 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:44.600 can tell bee keeping probably emerged by accident, probably in 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:47.880 the fertile crescent um. And probably what you had happened 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:51.640 was you have human industries is creating all of these 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:56.680 different pots and containers, uh, for your various agricultural efforts, 0:14:57.040 --> 0:15:01.040 and one might leave a pot hanging around some where unused. 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:04.440 Suddenly some bees come in, they take up a residence 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:08.200 in the pot, and this could theoretically serve as is 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:13.080 like the first accidental bee hive that's actually kept by 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:16.440 beekeepers and they realize, oh, bees will will will actually 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:18.960 build their nest in this, uh the spot if I 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:20.800 leave it out for them, there's a chance I'll have 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:23.040 my own captive honey. I've yeah, I mean talk about 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:25.240 turning a loss into a wind. So imagine you know, 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:27.400 you've got this jar that you were planning on keeping 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:30.960 full of urgad infested drye uh, and you go back 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:33.000 to get it and suddenly it's full of bees and 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:36.120 you're like, oh man, my plans are spoiled. I'm gonna 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:38.720 get stung cleaning this thing out. But then you realize 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:42.120 you have access to all this sweet sweet honey. Yeah. 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:44.240 And and not only the honey, but the wax. The 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:48.160 wax is key because uh, there is evidence of lost 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:53.840 wax castings uh dating back to thirty BC. Now, a 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:56.760 lost wax casting for anyone not familiar, this has to 0:15:56.760 --> 0:16:01.960 do with, uh with a cast used to make uh 0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:05.480 like a metal objects in which it's uh you build 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:08.480 like the clay or what have you around a wax 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:10.760 model of the thing you're going to build and then 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:13.320 you melt the wax out of there, and while you 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:16.640 have this mold which you can use to make metals. 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:20.160 It's a way of turning easily multiple wax into metal, 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:23.800 which is pretty awesome. Yeah. So the only thing here 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:27.040 is that you don't have to be a beekeeper to 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:29.760 get that wax. That wax could have been obtained through 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:33.800 honey hunting. We just don't know. Um. But when when 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:39.520 it comes to actually finding the the earliest evidence of 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:43.000 bee raising, of bee keeping, then you really have to 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:46.720 go to the Egyptians, to the ancient Egyptians. Uh. And 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:50.520 this would put us around three thousand b C. That's 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:53.480 five thousand years ago. Yeah. I mean it's amazing just 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:57.240 to consider, completely separate from the topic of beekeeping, how 0:16:57.480 --> 0:17:03.080 enormously long ancient Egypt went on. Yeah, we're talking roughly. 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:07.440 You have five thousand years of of human history wound 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:12.159 up in the ancient Egyptians. U A a civilization that 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:14.639 after you know, even when it was going it was 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:18.080 it was an ancient civilization. Um. And of course it's 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:21.840 gonna it's impossible for us to summarize, you know, thousands 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:23.879 of years of ancient history. The EBB and flow of 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:26.359 political and social change here. Uh you know, in the 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:29.159 In the same way that Egyptian history is tied closely 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:33.359 to the Nile, so too is the region's history a long, twisting, swelling, 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:37.440 shrinking movement across the landscape of human history. But to summarize, 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:41.440 we're talking the civilization of ancient North Africa, generally attributed 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:47.240 to lasting from roughly thirty one hundred BC to three 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:51.560 twenty two uh. See, So that's talking about the transition 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:54.240 out of the Stone Age, out of the Nearithic period, 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:57.800 the beginning of large scale civilization in ancient Egypt until 0:17:57.960 --> 0:17:59.760 the time I think they mark the end of it 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:03.320 with the time that the last hieroglyphic carvings were made 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:05.600 in Egypt. Yes, and made the one in three hundred 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:09.560 some things. He correct. Now. You can also some historians 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:12.800 um and and authors including gene Kritsky also go ahead 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:15.840 and include that Neolithic period, and that would put the 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:20.960 beginning around fifty BC. So that's where you would get 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:24.400 a total time period of around uh five thousand, one 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:27.520 hundred and sixty three years of culture. Yeah. So for 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:29.840 those of you who think it's been forever since the 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:34.280 American Revolution or something, like that it is such a 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:37.040 tiny blip. Modern history is such a tiny blip in 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:40.760 humans who really dwarfs the modern age. So you know, 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:44.840 that's essentially at the time period we're talking about, and 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:48.480 during that time, the ancient Egyptians demonstrated their expertise of 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:53.199 a number of general and highly specialized categories and skills. 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:57.000 They were accomplished farmers and engineers. They were artists and linguists, 0:18:57.040 --> 0:19:00.600 they were soldiers, they were astrologers, they were doctors, uh, 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:03.480 and and much more. I mean, everyone knows about the 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:07.880 Pyramids and various architectural marvel marvels that survived this day. 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:10.560 Everyone knows about the rich history of mummification, which we've 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:14.000 talked about here on this show before. But there's other 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:17.080 stuff just continues continually fascinates me when I read about it. 0:19:17.119 --> 0:19:20.760 For instance, to find out that ancient Egyptians perform surgical 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:26.240 skin graphs as early as eight hundred BC UM and uh, indeed, 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:29.440 as we're discussing in this episode, that they practice uh 0:19:29.640 --> 0:19:34.160 the earliest known examples of apriculture. Okay, well, once Egyptian 0:19:34.200 --> 0:19:38.080 civilization is underway, once we've got our our dynasties and 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:42.480 our organized hierarchical civilization and culture. We we should look 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:45.159 at the role bees and honey played in that. And 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:47.040 one of the first things I think we can observe 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:51.280 is that there is a glyph in the ancient Egyptian 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:54.840 hieroglyphic language. It's one of their symbols. That's a honey bee. 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:57.679 That's right, Yeah, it's um. It chose up in some 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:01.280 of the earliest examples of ancient Egyptian writing. Um. In fact, 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:05.400 we we see it in use by the Old Kingdom 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:13.520 that's uh seven through And we probably shouldn't try to 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:16.639 get too much into talking about the different ages in Egypt, 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:19.680 but essentially there's an Old Kingdom that goes on for 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:22.480 a long time with many Pharaonic dynasties, and then there's 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:25.960 an intermediate period that's sort of like a Dark Age, 0:20:26.040 --> 0:20:29.320 and then there is a Middle Kingdom, and then there's 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:32.560 another break in that there's another intermediate period, and then 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:34.639 there's a new Kingdom, and then of course there's the 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:39.480 Greco Roman period. But but essentially coming into the Middle Age. Yeah, 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:42.359 but but essentially at this point, just think of this 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:45.240 that the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx are there, they're 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:50.320 relatively newly constructed, and there's evidence already that the Egyptians 0:20:50.359 --> 0:20:55.040 had at that point, uh, mastered to some degree beekeeping 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:59.080 and we're producing honey. Okay. Yeah. According to u Kritsky 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:02.280 here there's evidence from around this point that you actually 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:07.399 had a role in the in the governmental structure known 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:11.040 as the seiler of honey. There's an individual who was 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:14.280 the seiler of honey, and this at least suggests either 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:20.120 very organized honey hunting or quite possibly the beginnings of 0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:24.720 industrialized um beekeeping. You know, I love this title that 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:27.960 you see throughout ancient Egypt, the seiler, Yeah, the person 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:32.679 who seals and that that abuse an authority. Yeah. It 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:35.119 reminds me a lot of our recent episode on the 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:38.080 INCA and we talked about the importance within a government, 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:40.960 with importance with an empire, of of having a way 0:21:41.000 --> 0:21:44.919 to of course record uh you know, amounts when it 0:21:44.960 --> 0:21:47.880 comes to goods, the the price of goods, the exchange 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:50.679 of goods, and then also being able to to seal 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:54.160 it and say this is what is contained within and 0:21:54.359 --> 0:21:56.800 uh and someone is accountable for it. Yeah. It's a 0:21:56.880 --> 0:22:00.480 very wonderful physical metaphor for having the fine a word 0:22:00.600 --> 0:22:04.840 on something. But so we do see in ancient Egypt 0:22:04.960 --> 0:22:08.960 the evidence of the first organized beekeeping, right. Yeah, the 0:22:08.960 --> 0:22:13.200 the current earliest known evidence takes us uh to uh 0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:19.320 around uh hundred and thirteen b C. And specifically it 0:22:19.359 --> 0:22:23.320 takes us to the solar Temple chasup Be brit So 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:27.199 what we have here within the ruins of this solar temple, 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:31.000 that's again it's it's devoted to to ray. We see 0:22:31.040 --> 0:22:35.560 decorative color reliefs that show off scenes of desert wildlife, boating, 0:22:35.640 --> 0:22:38.800 and bee keeping. Yeah, and it's got these different vignettes 0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:40.919 that actually showed the stage. I mean, it's not just 0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:43.560 sort of like a cartoon like, oh, here are some 0:22:43.600 --> 0:22:47.600 people beekeeping it. It's sort of uh comprehensive. It shows 0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:51.000 the different steps you take in order to do the 0:22:51.000 --> 0:22:54.800 main jobs of a beekeeper. Yeah, and uh, there's a 0:22:54.840 --> 0:22:56.919 certain amount of interpretation that has to take place in 0:22:56.960 --> 0:23:00.560 figuring out exactly what they're showing and exactly what those 0:23:00.600 --> 0:23:04.440 of vignettes are showing. They especially because some parts of 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:06.679 it are missing. Yeah, some parts are missing and row 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:09.720 damage and uh and depending on what's going on there, 0:23:09.880 --> 0:23:13.399 you know that that ends up impacting our understanding of 0:23:13.400 --> 0:23:17.680 exactly how advanced they were, so for instance, that there's 0:23:17.840 --> 0:23:21.520 one of the vignettes in particular, represents a man either 0:23:21.680 --> 0:23:25.640 using a smoker to control the bees or he's calling 0:23:25.800 --> 0:23:29.439 a queen to enter a jug. Now, either one of 0:23:29.440 --> 0:23:32.440 those options is very interesting, and we should talk about 0:23:32.480 --> 0:23:35.320