Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.
Speaker 1: Time to go into the vault for an older episode
Speaker 1: of the show. This one was the first in our
Speaker 1: series on the Halo, the Halo Iconography, which I remember
Speaker 1: that one was was one of my favorite series we
Speaker 1: did in the past couple of years. This one originally
Speaker 1: published on February. I'm excited to be revisiting it so
Speaker 1: we we hope you enjoy as well. Welcome to Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In today, I
Speaker 1: wanted to start off with a kind of thought experiment
Speaker 1: that I think we've actually used on the show before,
Speaker 1: but we'll use it again because I think it is useful.
Speaker 1: It's it's the Martian Archaeologists thought experiment. Uh and so
Speaker 1: uh imagine an exo archaeologist from another planet is coming
Speaker 1: to study the physical remains of human civilizations long after
Speaker 1: humanity has gone. Who knows what we did. We we
Speaker 1: screwed up somehow, and there are none of us around
Speaker 1: here anymore, but the physical remains of our cities and
Speaker 1: institutions are still hanging about the earth. I've seen enough
Speaker 1: episodes of out our Limits to to make a few
Speaker 1: guesses as to how it could have happened. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the neutron bombs of the Facebook wars, they did the job.
Speaker 1: Or hey, maybe maybe there's a better option, and maybe
Speaker 1: we we warped ourselves into the seventeenth dimension and escaped
Speaker 1: this world, you know, not a bad end. So this
Speaker 1: alien archaeologist is trying to understand lost cultures of humankind
Speaker 1: through the works of art that they created and preserved,
Speaker 1: and at some point she ends up browsing museums. Maybe
Speaker 1: she's walking through the louver and looking at the paintings
Speaker 1: that we're you know, we're once housed and revered here.
Speaker 1: And if she were to look over many of the
Speaker 1: famous paintings of of medieval and Renaissance Europe, she might
Speaker 1: arrive at a question that would be weird to us,
Speaker 1: but I think perfectly reasonable to her, And that would
Speaker 1: be why did so many of the people considered wholly
Speaker 1: by these artists where wide brimmed gold hats or gold
Speaker 1: wires around their heads? Now, of course, with enough cultural context,
Speaker 1: we ourselves know that these are not hats in the
Speaker 1: paintings there. You know, they're not even supposed to represent
Speaker 1: real physical objects. This, of course is the artistic convention
Speaker 1: known today as the halo. But I think it's interesting
Speaker 1: that in a lot of these paintings there might not
Speaker 1: be anything in the painting that would tell you that
Speaker 1: in isolation, it just looks like people have something that's
Speaker 1: yellow or gold, often circular, sometimes square shaped, or just
Speaker 1: like a cloud or a kind of glow or radiance
Speaker 1: around their head. Yeah, it is well discuss it. It
Speaker 1: ranges from something that is very subtle to to sometimes
Speaker 1: things that are very unavoidable, even where it goes beyond
Speaker 1: the halo and becomes this all encompassing nimbus. But but
Speaker 1: you know, you mentioned earlier how the alien might look
Speaker 1: and say, why why are these people considered holy? Why
Speaker 1: do they have the halo? But I think it would
Speaker 1: go even beyond that, like why did these other organisms
Speaker 1: that are represented in these works of art, why do
Speaker 1: they have like they wouldn't know they're they're they're holy,
Speaker 1: not necessarily you know, they're true, they're the subject of
Speaker 1: a painting. But otherwise, you know what, they might not
Speaker 1: even be able to piece together what this signifies, what
Speaker 1: it means. Why is it there? You know, why was
Speaker 1: it that some of these humans but not others appear
Speaker 1: to have bioluminescence? Like why does their hair emit light?
Speaker 1: You know, did they have a do they have like
Speaker 1: chemo luminescence in the keratin of their hair cells or something?
Speaker 1: And then I think the exo archaeologists might notice something
Speaker 1: that a lot of us don't tend to notice when
Speaker 1: we grow up looking at images of like Jesus and
Speaker 1: saints and stuff with halo uh, And that would be
Speaker 1: the similarity of the iconography here the glow or the
Speaker 1: or the gold circle or disk around the heads of
Speaker 1: saints and and God's in a Christian context, the similarity
Speaker 1: of that to depictions of God's from other religions, religions
Speaker 1: that still exist in the world today or the religions
Speaker 1: of ages past. Absolutely, you can easily start looking at
Speaker 1: these halos and things like halos, and you could just
Speaker 1: go crazy with a conspiracy theory connection board, right um.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's easy to do. Even if you're
Speaker 1: not prone to conspiracy thinking. You could think like, oh, well, look,
Speaker 1: clearly they're all describing the same thing, either the same
Speaker 1: mysterious light source that it is forbidden to represent an
Speaker 1: art that is always positioned directly behind a person, or
Speaker 1: this the same like alien disks that we're interacting with
Speaker 1: ancient people's or you know, you could also go h
Speaker 1: and and use it to prop up various theories such
Speaker 1: as say that, you know, the bicameral mind hypothesis, things
Speaker 1: like that, you know, which I think actually will probably
Speaker 1: uh come to people's minds a lot as we roll
Speaker 1: through this episode in particular, Oh yeah, there will be
Speaker 1: some very specific and interesting connections there. But anyway, so
Speaker 1: to come back to the idea of you know, what
Speaker 1: we do know about the Halo, the fact that it's
Speaker 1: an artistic convention. This is one of these subjects that
Speaker 1: I really love because it's something that I've seen and
Speaker 1: just taken for granted my entire life without ever stopping
Speaker 1: to wonder where it comes from, what it means, and
Speaker 1: how it connects to history and religion and science. So
Speaker 1: for the next couple of episodes, we wanted to take
Speaker 1: a look at the Halo from a bunch of different
Speaker 1: angles and see what kind of sense we can make
Speaker 1: of it now? That opening question I asked of imagining
Speaker 1: an alien archaeologist looking at these depictions in art that
Speaker 1: weren't supposed to be physical golden hats, but could have
Speaker 1: been mistaken for such. Uh. This actually connects to an
Speaker 1: episode of the Artifacts that I did back in January
Speaker 1: about ancient Egyptian head cones. If you to get the
Speaker 1: full story, you can go and listen to that episode.
Speaker 1: But the short and simplified version goes like this. A
Speaker 1: lot of ancient Egyptian art shows people with these weird
Speaker 1: white cones on top of their heads. You know, maybe
Speaker 1: about the size of a soft ball, but cone shaped.
Speaker 1: And there has long been a debate about what these
Speaker 1: cones were supposed to represent. One popular theory is that
Speaker 1: this is a depiction of a real thing from ancient Egypt,
Speaker 1: which would have been lumps of unguent or perfumed animal fat,
Speaker 1: which would melt into the scalp and then perform a
Speaker 1: kind of ritual purification as as the oils came down
Speaker 1: over your head. It would be somewhat analogous to the
Speaker 1: to the kind of anointing with oil rituals that we
Speaker 1: see in other ancient Near Eastern traditions that you can
Speaker 1: even find in the Bible. But because until recently these
Speaker 1: cones had only been seen in art and never explicitly
Speaker 1: given physical grounding, there was always some reason to wonder, well,
Speaker 1: were these cones maybe not physical objects at all, but
Speaker 1: symbolic artistic conventions like halos. Well, a few years back,
Speaker 1: some physical examples of head cones were actually found in
Speaker 1: some graves in Egypt, so we now know that at
Speaker 1: least some of them were physical objects. Though a lot
Speaker 1: of questions still remain about about these head cones. But
Speaker 1: the analogy to Halo's really got the gears turning in
Speaker 1: my brain and got me wondering about halo's themselves. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's ultimately a fascinating subject. Again, I'm in the
Speaker 1: same boat, like I grew up seeing all these images
Speaker 1: of halos, to the point where halos didn't even feel
Speaker 1: suitably weird or even majestic. And I think part of
Speaker 1: that is the part of that comes from uh angel
Speaker 1: costumes and cartoon depictions of angel costumes, where even someone
Speaker 1: like Tom and Jerry will have some sort of a
Speaker 1: halo above their head made out of maybe like foiled cardboard,
Speaker 1: and it is visibly held in place by some sort
Speaker 1: of wire that goes down to the back of their net.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm talking about, Oh, exactly. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: domestication of this imagery really kind of takes the awe
Speaker 1: inspiring element out of it. Yeah, it ends up making
Speaker 1: it look kind of stupid, you know. Um and um
Speaker 1: and and I think you also see some of that
Speaker 1: in the actual tradition of the halo, with a sort
Speaker 1: of eventually falling out of favor except in places where
Speaker 1: it was really firmly established. Um. But but of course,
Speaker 1: like we said already, you'll see so many different versions
Speaker 1: of the halo, even in um, you know, Western art
Speaker 1: depicting Christian saints and important holy individuals. Uh. The one
Speaker 1: that I ran across it I really liked was Carravaggio's
Speaker 1: The Madonna di Loretto, or more at least a detail
Speaker 1: from that. Um and it's such a faint halo you
Speaker 1: could easily you could easily miss it, perhaps, but it
Speaker 1: but it also really stands out at you because it
Speaker 1: that the lines in it run counter to the vertical
Speaker 1: lines behind her. Yeah, and I like that in Carvaccio's
Speaker 1: art because the it suggests that in a way, holiness
Speaker 1: is something that is subtle to the human imagination. Maybe
Speaker 1: it would be obvious to the heavens, but you know,
Speaker 1: here on Earth, it's just the faintest glimmer of a circle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have to look for it. Yeah. Um. You know
Speaker 1: our Scott Baker and some of his fantasy books that
Speaker 1: they're particularly magical individuals who occasionally developed halos around the
Speaker 1: palms of their hands, and it's not visible all the time,
Speaker 1: but just at certain moments by certain people. And I
Speaker 1: feel like that kind of captured some of the energy
Speaker 1: that you see in illustrations such as this um. But
Speaker 1: but other times you see realizations of the halo and
Speaker 1: art that are just they look very much like some
Speaker 1: sort of a physical ring or a physical disc, like
Speaker 1: they have one of the Golden records that we sent
Speaker 1: into space situated either right above their head or directly
Speaker 1: behind it. Yeah. I've read that this I think was
Speaker 1: especially common among like Florentine artists of the Renaissance, who
Speaker 1: would start depicting the halo almost as if it was
Speaker 1: a disc in three dimensional space that was balanced on
Speaker 1: the back of the head. Yeah. One of my favorite
Speaker 1: saints from Art was the subject of some paintings that
Speaker 1: I saw at the Louver. It's this guy named Peter
Speaker 1: of Verona, who is usually shown with a machete sticking
Speaker 1: out of his head. Here is with blood and everything. Yeah, blood,
Speaker 1: and I feel like these paintings of Peter of Verona
Speaker 1: should be the new this is fine meme because he
Speaker 1: really looks like, you know, we're making it work. Um.
Speaker 1: Peter was a thirteenth century inquisitor. I think he was
Speaker 1: some kind of heresy hunter. I think he preached against
Speaker 1: the Cathars, and the story goes that the Cathars hired
Speaker 1: an assassin to kill him and then he got hit
Speaker 1: in the head with a blade of some kind, like
Speaker 1: this guy brained him with an axe, and then the
Speaker 1: I think, according to the story, he wrote out the
Speaker 1: Apostles Creed or part of the Apostles Creed in his
Speaker 1: own blood as he was dying. He also, in both
Speaker 1: of these has the images that you shared with me.
Speaker 1: He also has a blade piercing his heart. It looks
Speaker 1: like he was stabbed in one of them and backstabbed
Speaker 1: in the other depiction. Yeah, so he I mean, ultimately,
Speaker 1: the jump between this and full blown Clive Barker cinobyte
Speaker 1: is not that far, you know. And yes, he's very
Speaker 1: close to a cinobyte, the machete head, cinobyte, serene face
Speaker 1: and all. I mean the sign between, I mean, there's
Speaker 1: there's probably a direct line to be made between his
Speaker 1: vision of the cinobytes and the depictions of saints suffering
Speaker 1: but not not suffering on holy tortures. What's medieval Latin
Speaker 1: for savior tears? It's a waste of good suffering. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't have that one an easy recall
Speaker 1: for it from me. But the funny thing is about
Speaker 1: with Peter and so in both of these he's got
Speaker 1: like a machete or a butcher knife stuck in just
Speaker 1: in his head, like you know, like the lightning bolt
Speaker 1: or the arrow party gag headset just sticking out at
Speaker 1: the top of his head. And you're you're so fixated
Speaker 1: on the weapon you don't even notice that he's got
Speaker 1: a faint circle around his head or behind it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there it is the halo the and and you know
Speaker 1: it's you think it's helpful too to think about, to
Speaker 1: ask yourself, like, what could it be? What is this
Speaker 1: thing behind the head you know, the physical plate, a
Speaker 1: glow an aura, but also you see various interpretations where
Speaker 1: you can think of it as the Sun itself or
Speaker 1: the moon, some sort of cosmic entity, or perhaps a window,
Speaker 1: a portal uh to another realm. Like all of all
Speaker 1: of these things uh you see arise at different times
Speaker 1: and interpretations of the halo, and things that inspired the
Speaker 1: halo or seemed to have inspired it, or just have
Speaker 1: some just basic connection to it based on similar symbology. Yeah,
Speaker 1: since there's so many variations on the halo and the
Speaker 1: related concept of the aureole, I think that it's best
Speaker 1: to think about the halo not as something that has
Speaker 1: like strict criteria for what counts as a halo, but
Speaker 1: more a a collection of family resemblance. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like the definition of a game in the Wittgensteinian sense. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, It's just like there are a lot of
Speaker 1: things that you can tell they're all related in some way,
Speaker 1: but there's no set of criteria area that all of
Speaker 1: them meet. But I think we can at least generally
Speaker 1: say that a halo is something like an area of
Speaker 1: light or golden color, or some kind of radiant cloud,
Speaker 1: usually circular but not always surrounding the head of a
Speaker 1: holy or revered figure. It's also sometimes called a nimbus.
Speaker 1: I think we've mentioned that already, but it is related
Speaker 1: to and with significant overlap on, the concept of an aureole,
Speaker 1: which is a glow or area of brightness that surrounds
Speaker 1: a person, especially their head. So I think there's some
Speaker 1: looseness with the language here, but as best I can tell,
Speaker 1: halo usually refers to the disc or ring or light
Speaker 1: around the head specifically, and the aureole would include halos,
Speaker 1: but would would also include something like the full body
Speaker 1: being surrounded by a glow or a golden shine or
Speaker 1: or fire. Yeah, and that's a U r e O
Speaker 1: l e ario, not oreo, though in an artistic depiction
Speaker 1: you could have an oreo areole. Uh, it's entirely possible.
Speaker 1: It's the right shape. Oh, you certainly could. Oh. Have
Speaker 1: you ever noticed that sometimes products in uh, in TV
Speaker 1: commercials and in advertisements are given a kind of aureole,
Speaker 1: Like a box of cereal will be lit as if
Speaker 1: there's a light bulb right behind it, so there's a
Speaker 1: glow emanating from all the sides. Yeah, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: that that's one of the reasons I started thinking about,
Speaker 1: you know what some of these uh, these these paintings
Speaker 1: we see in these images where it looks like there
Speaker 1: is a light behind the head. You know, you can
Speaker 1: easily imagine panning to one side and there is a
Speaker 1: tripod back there and there's the photographer's light, you know,
Speaker 1: and then ultimately that's what we we do to backolet
Speaker 1: things today. UM. But yeah, you do see you see
Speaker 1: things that are like halos, and sometimes things that are
Speaker 1: very much like halos in modern photography, and a lot
Speaker 1: of it is just by virtue of that sort of positioning.
Speaker 1: We're talking about either a light position behind the individual
Speaker 1: just by happenstance because the light's got to go somewhere,
Speaker 1: or it's some sort of the existing symbol or decoration.
Speaker 1: And I want to draw a specific example here that
Speaker 1: I've I've been kind of obsessed with the last couple
Speaker 1: of months, um, back since the since the most recent
Speaker 1: presidential election. UM. You will see photographs of the US
Speaker 1: president or presidential Canada is president elect, etcetera in which
Speaker 1: the presidential seal is positioned directly behind the individual's head,
Speaker 1: sometimes in sharper focus, but other times blurred a bit
Speaker 1: just by virtue of being behind them in a way
Speaker 1: that looks a lot like halo iconography. Oh yeah, so
Speaker 1: I did not know about this before you brought it up,
Speaker 1: but now that you have mentioned it, or or since
Speaker 1: I read that you were writing about this, I was
Speaker 1: seeing it all over the place. Yeah. So you can
Speaker 1: see George W. Bush with a halo, Barack Obama with
Speaker 1: a halo. Just seems like there's often enough a big
Speaker 1: circular seal behind their head when they're getting photographed that
Speaker 1: these things just naturally happen. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 1: because you generally have a back drop back there, and
Speaker 1: then that's where the presidential seal is. The presidential seal
Speaker 1: is circular um, and yeah, it ends up looking like halo.
Speaker 1: And I was thinking about this. I'm like, well, this
Speaker 1: is interesting, but I'm sure some people do not like it.
Speaker 1: I'm sure sure enough. I found a wonderful Associated Press
Speaker 1: blog post about it from and this was from Paul
Speaker 1: co Ford. The APIs former vice president of media Relations,
Speaker 1: and he points out that the so called halo issue
Speaker 1: has been around for a while and that no matter
Speaker 1: who happens to be president at a given time, people
Speaker 1: complain about it, you know it because they can make
Speaker 1: the charge like, what are you doing. You're taking pictures
Speaker 1: of this president who I don't like, and you're making
Speaker 1: them look like they are anointed by God? Like, clearly
Speaker 1: you have an agenda here in the way that the
Speaker 1: presidential seal is positioned behind their skull. Well, I would
Speaker 1: say whether I like the president or not if somebody
Speaker 1: if I thought the photographer was doing that on purpose,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't like it. I mean, you know, right, yes,
Speaker 1: But knowing a bit about photography and perspective, I can
Speaker 1: actually see why this might be something that's difficult to avoid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Go for drives home that it's never the intention of
Speaker 1: a photographer to give the president a holy glow. But
Speaker 1: in according to J. David A. Key, a P. Washington's
Speaker 1: then assistant chief of the Bureau for Photography, quote, the
Speaker 1: out of focus presidential seal is simply a tool to celebrate,
Speaker 1: to separate the subject from the background so he is
Speaker 1: not speaking in a sea of black. And then he
Speaker 1: adds that they try to make it clear that it's
Speaker 1: the seal and it's not some sort of glowing blur,
Speaker 1: And they've tried different things they've tried shooting a lot closer,
Speaker 1: you know, getting like cropping in tighter to the individual's
Speaker 1: face so nothing is seen around the head. But then
Speaker 1: if you do that, well, first of all, you just
Speaker 1: have like a real close tight shot of somebody's face
Speaker 1: and you can give me the president. But then also
Speaker 1: more to the point, you lose any sense of context
Speaker 1: or sense of location. And that's one of the things
Speaker 1: you're supposed to do as a photographer too, is to
Speaker 1: provide that contact in sense of location. And then if
Speaker 1: you do the reverse, like you pan out more, uh
Speaker 1: and you know, try and move that seal around in
Speaker 1: the background, well, then you risk creating a photo that's
Speaker 1: not suitable for many uses such as mobile use. You know,
Speaker 1: you don't want to be you know, pull up your
Speaker 1: news app and you're you're flipping through it and then
Speaker 1: you're like, who's that. I don't I don't know. There's
Speaker 1: some some white haired dude there in the background. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's the president. I had to zoom in to see it.
Speaker 1: I think the real solution is that presidents just should
Speaker 1: not have the presidential seal behind them and instead should
Speaker 1: have like a big, like psychedelic tableau you know, like
Speaker 1: the like the cover of the of the Jimmy Hendrix
Speaker 1: Axis Bold as Love album. Yeah, yeah, maybe so. I
Speaker 1: mean basically, one of the things that comes down to
Speaker 1: is this is a shot. This is a photograph that
Speaker 1: gets taken a lot every time the president gives an
Speaker 1: address or what have you, and the typical background just
Speaker 1: doesn't really give photographers much to work with, and photographers
Speaker 1: are constantly trying to figure out how to frame things
Speaker 1: up in a way that is visually appealing. So, at
Speaker 1: least for now, until they shake things up and get
Speaker 1: that new mural background you're talking about, the presidential halo
Speaker 1: is largely unavoidable. Like you can play around with it yourself,
Speaker 1: and Matt put yourself in the photographer's shoes and try
Speaker 1: to imagine what your options are there. Like, ultimately, the
Speaker 1: halo is kind of the best way to go. Well,
Speaker 1: maybe we can help you out with that today, just
Speaker 1: by helping you, as the viewer, reframe you're thinking about
Speaker 1: the halo so that it is not only the projection
Speaker 1: of a Christian saint, but in fact is an older
Speaker 1: and more widespread tradition of showing the radiance around the
Speaker 1: head or body of an interesting or important figure throughout
Speaker 1: world mythology. Yeah. Yeah, but but I will I will
Speaker 1: say that once you start looking for the halo and
Speaker 1: identifying the halo, you will see it more and more places.
Speaker 1: So certainly, listeners, as you encounter photographs of people with
Speaker 1: unintended halos or even intended halos just by virtue of
Speaker 1: their environment, send those to us. Share those with us,
Speaker 1: Go go to the discussion module, the Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind discussion module, that's the Facebook group. Share them there.
Speaker 1: I think it'll be a lot of fun. Bring them on.
Speaker 1: Thank thank Now. One thing we've already touched on is
Speaker 1: that not all halos or aureoles are circular in nature,
Speaker 1: but an awful lot of them are. There's a reason
Speaker 1: that you couldn't mistake a lot of halos in paintings
Speaker 1: for being you know, disc shaped gold hats. So so
Speaker 1: maybe we should probe the circular element here for a minute. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The halo, and it's it's most traditional form, is of
Speaker 1: course going to be either a pair of concentric circles.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be or it's gonna be a disc, or
Speaker 1: it's just gonna be a circle or a hoop of
Speaker 1: some sort. Um and you know, part of this is
Speaker 1: we've always been fascinated by circles because the circle is
Speaker 1: the shape of the sun, it's the shape of the moon,
Speaker 1: it's the shape of the pupil and our eyeballs. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just an irresistible It's it's a line that goes
Speaker 1: on forever. I mean, you can, you can go on
Speaker 1: and on, like the circle is fascinating in the same
Speaker 1: way that the triangle in the square are fascinating, will
Speaker 1: never stop, you know, finding wonder in these shapes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the fact that there are no perfect circles in nature,
Speaker 1: but so much of the physical and biological world ends
Speaker 1: up imperfectly approximating circles and spheres. Um. And then and
Speaker 1: then it gets even more mysterious and gets into like
Speaker 1: mathematical mysticism once once you have consciousness of geometry, because
Speaker 1: there you get all kinds of ideas. You know, I think, uh,
Speaker 1: the circle has special mystical allure because of its special
Speaker 1: status among two dimensional shapes like uh, you know, it
Speaker 1: has this relationship to the strange mathematical constant pie and uh.
Speaker 1: And the fact that if you try to think about
Speaker 1: it as a polygon, I guess maybe it's technically not
Speaker 1: a polygon, but if you were to try to frame
Speaker 1: it as one, it would have to be a polygon
Speaker 1: with like an infinite number of sides. But the Sun,
Speaker 1: I think is is a particular note here, and not
Speaker 1: only because of its circular shape and sort of it's
Speaker 1: it's all consuming place and human myth making, but also
Speaker 1: because of of what we call solar halos. And that's
Speaker 1: something we'll get into more in second episode. But there
Speaker 1: you know recordings of depictions of solar halos dating back
Speaker 1: to antiquity. Um you know, in particular the eruption of
Speaker 1: Mount Etna in one two and forty four b C
Speaker 1: resulted in rainbow like halos that were observed at that time.
Speaker 1: UM I was reading Ancient Meteorological Optics by Richard Stouther's
Speaker 1: in the Classical Journal from two thousand nine, and he
Speaker 1: goes into this and includes a list of such observations
Speaker 1: from roughly two oh three b C e on up
Speaker 1: till three C in addition to mocks sons, which is
Speaker 1: another optical phenomenal will discuss in the next episode. Uh.
Speaker 1: And these have been recorded from as far back is
Speaker 1: five b C in Egypt. Up through Roman observations. In one,
Speaker 1: so the observation of light based discs and rings in
Speaker 1: space and in the sky, I think could naturally, uh
Speaker 1: suggest some associations between those types of shapes or figures
Speaker 1: and holiness because of the long standing religious associations with
Speaker 1: celestial objects, space and the sky. Right. And then on
Speaker 1: top of that too, you start thinking about just symbol
Speaker 1: making and uh in the creation of of lines, the
Speaker 1: etching of lines into things. And as you begin to
Speaker 1: juggle different symbols and combining symbols, it's it's inevitable that
Speaker 1: you would combine the human form with the circle, with
Speaker 1: the sun, disc, etcetera. All Right, so we've already mentioned
Speaker 1: that the halo is a very common uh piece of
Speaker 1: religious symbolism in Christian art, especially in like the Medieval
Speaker 1: through the Renaissance period. Um. So, so how exactly does
Speaker 1: that happen? How does the halo become a part of
Speaker 1: how Christians depict their their God and their saints. So
Speaker 1: these only pop up in Christian religious art after the
Speaker 1: fifth century see and before that it was used to
Speaker 1: highlight literally highlight right, um, important secular people such as
Speaker 1: kings and emperors. Yeah, there is a long tradition going
Speaker 1: back before Christianity in the Greco Roman world of showing
Speaker 1: like kings and emperors, I think, especially when associated with
Speaker 1: Apollo or Helios, gods that are gods of the sun
Speaker 1: or associated with the Sun, to show these figures with
Speaker 1: rays of light emanating from their heads which are very
Speaker 1: similar to or in some cases basically the same as
Speaker 1: a halo. And so you could get a pagan emperor
Speaker 1: with a halo before any depictions of say Jesus with
Speaker 1: a halo. Yeah, exactly, And as pointed out by Derek,
Speaker 1: could see siting Um Tavino, Perry, and Ramsden. I'll discuss
Speaker 1: them in a minute in the impact of the symbolism
Speaker 1: and iconography of the ax Sun disc and wild jet
Speaker 1: Ie on on modern Western society, saints and other religious figures.
Speaker 1: At this time we're just shown as normal humans. Meanwhile, yes,
Speaker 1: the secular rulers, they were the ones with the halos.
Speaker 1: So that's funny. You've got to imagine, like how would
Speaker 1: that be reversed, like if if Christians and say the
Speaker 1: second century in the Roman Empire, we're seeing depictions of
Speaker 1: the the perhaps hated Roman emperor with a Halo. How
Speaker 1: would they end up putting that same kind of imagery
Speaker 1: on Jesus. Yeah, exactly. So it's really fascinating to turn
Speaker 1: that on its on its on its head here at
Speaker 1: least for like I say, modern consideration of the past.
Speaker 1: Uh So that that tavannor Perry paper, that's J. Tavynor Perry.
Speaker 1: It was a nineteen o seven paper titled The Nimbus
Speaker 1: and Eastern Art. And despite being a nineteen o seven publication,
Speaker 1: you can you can pull this up in j store
Speaker 1: and it's a short, very succinct little piece with some
Speaker 1: wonderful illustrations. And you know, this points out and also
Speaker 1: uh cutsy was was commenting on this, is that while
Speaker 1: there's certainly an urge to connect halo's in the Western
Speaker 1: tradition to the ancient Egyptian use of the sun disc um,
Speaker 1: they conclude that that although the halo came from uh
Speaker 1: the ancient Near East, it stem seems to stem from
Speaker 1: Aspotamian and Persian use that had been appropriated by the
Speaker 1: Greeks and then later by the Byzantines. Okay, so, if
Speaker 1: if this tracing of the history is correct, A's saying
Speaker 1: that there are analogies to the Halo in ancient Egyptian iconography.
Speaker 1: But it looks like the Christians got their use from
Speaker 1: the Greeks and Romans, who in turn got the halo
Speaker 1: ideas from the ancient cultures that would have occupied present
Speaker 1: day like Iraq and Iran, Right, yeah, so the ideas, yeah,
Speaker 1: the you know, the Roman usage of it would have
Speaker 1: been like, hey, we really like this motif, let's use it.
Speaker 1: Let's use it to signify our rulers, and then eventually
Speaker 1: it passes on to Christian use. I mean, it's kind
Speaker 1: of a story of the of just how irresistible a
Speaker 1: and alarming or or captivating images or a combination of
Speaker 1: symbols happens to be. Now that other piece e. H.
Speaker 1: Ramston Uh, this is a much longer piece. It's a
Speaker 1: lengthy notice in the same publication Burlington Magazine from nineteen
Speaker 1: forty one titled the Halo a fur their inquiry into
Speaker 1: its origin, and this one points to the influence of
Speaker 1: Zoroastrianism on Christianity in general, which would which would bring
Speaker 1: with it the Cavarna or the Havarna, which the author
Speaker 1: here describes as quote the Great Havarn. No. The main
Speaker 1: symbol of royal power and age, old motif of Iranian art,
Speaker 1: and so Ramsden draws a connection between these artistic motifs
Speaker 1: and what was to come in both Christian and Buddhist traditions.
Speaker 1: So it's literally a glory or splendor indicating a divine
Speaker 1: force guiding the individual. Also comes from i'me seeing a
Speaker 1: sort of you know, like divine goodwill. It's a kind
Speaker 1: of holy spotlight reserved for kings and leaders. And I
Speaker 1: guess that's something to keep in mind too when we're
Speaker 1: thinking about this, you think about the role of the
Speaker 1: divine king in older traditions, you know, it's like that's
Speaker 1: that's the individual who, you know, the whole system is
Speaker 1: describing as being the chose and one of God or
Speaker 1: the gods, etcetera. Yeah, and so, at least for me,
Speaker 1: it's not hard to see how halo imagery would have
Speaker 1: been more thoroughly integrated into Christian artwork in a period
Speaker 1: after Christianity was made socially acceptable in a widespread way
Speaker 1: in the in the Roman Empires, say under Constantine and
Speaker 1: then eventually became the official religion of the Roman Empire.
Speaker 1: There you would see a unification of Christianity with the
Speaker 1: with the state power in the Roman Empire. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: So it's interesting to think about what the halo does,
Speaker 1: and especially in later art, about how it it signifies
Speaker 1: that the individual you're looking at is indeed holy. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's it's weird when you look at the at
Speaker 1: the quality of the arts, and maybe not the quality
Speaker 1: of the art, but the changing detail of the art,
Speaker 1: the changing lifelike qualities of the art over time, because
Speaker 1: it would it would seem to me, as as someone
Speaker 1: who's not an expert in these things, that once you
Speaker 1: get into the age of Carravaggio, you know, you don't
Speaker 1: need the halo to show, you know, divine suffering in
Speaker 1: an individual individual. You don't need that halo to realize
Speaker 1: that the individual in the painting is divine. Like they're
Speaker 1: all these other tools, all these other leverage you can pull,
Speaker 1: pull to make it so um, and and yet they're
Speaker 1: they're still there. Um. That I was reading this, this
Speaker 1: wonderful piece, very well written by Amelia Arena's titled Sex,
Speaker 1: Violence and Faith the Art of Caravaggio, and they point
Speaker 1: out that the halo, along with other symbolic inclusions, were
Speaker 1: often the only way to recognize any given individual in
Speaker 1: a painting before car Carravaggio and the traditions before him, uh,
Speaker 1: that this was a particular saint, etcetera. They'll be like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: there's the halo, where there's the you know they're holding, um,
Speaker 1: you know, a particular object or some sort of a
Speaker 1: grizzly uh sign of their passing that sort of thing, right,
Speaker 1: because these saints wouldn't have been somebody, you know, it
Speaker 1: wasn't like they had people magazine where you know what
Speaker 1: the famous figures looked like. Know, there were no photographs
Speaker 1: and you probably never would have seen these people, so
Speaker 1: there wasn't like one way that a figure looked. You
Speaker 1: would have to use cues in the painting itself to
Speaker 1: identify who they are or to identify which of the
Speaker 1: figures in the painting was the person, right, and they
Speaker 1: rain as rights that in the older tradition, you know
Speaker 1: a lot of these people with the halos or other symbols,
Speaker 1: they were basically interchangeable looking because they just looked like
Speaker 1: other rich people of the time. And then by the
Speaker 1: time Caravaggio is coming along, he's making them look more
Speaker 1: and more like like actual people. And this is interesting
Speaker 1: too though, because you you know, you you hear about
Speaker 1: the sort of behind the scenes stuff on various famous paintings,
Speaker 1: and you learned that, oh, well, this person that's portraying
Speaker 1: Jesus or whoever, that was just some strapping lad from
Speaker 1: in somewhere around town that came in to pose for
Speaker 1: some paintings. Uh. So there's still you know, not actual
Speaker 1: depictions of of in order there supposed to you know,
Speaker 1: be actual depictions of the person. You know, it's not
Speaker 1: a snapshot of of an historic Jesus or anything, but
Speaker 1: it's some body that's put there. And then you add
Speaker 1: these other things, either other symbols that allow you to,
Speaker 1: uh to gain something from it. And I think that
Speaker 1: gets too into the role the like the long standing
Speaker 1: role of religious art that you see not only in
Speaker 1: Christianity but in Hinduism, Buddhism, etcetera. And that is the
Speaker 1: use of the image to convey often complex uh theological
Speaker 1: ideas that you know that that maybe even be difficult
Speaker 1: to explain with language, things such as the transfiguration of
Speaker 1: Christ and UH the various complex roles and and powers
Speaker 1: of Hindu deities and UH and and also meditative practices
Speaker 1: in Um Tibetan Buddhism. Uh. You know, these are all
Speaker 1: things that are often, you know, laboriously baked into the
Speaker 1: the visual image that you're presented with. Even if you're
Speaker 1: an outsider, you don't necessarily pick up on all of
Speaker 1: these things. I think a lot of times. One thing
Speaker 1: that religious painting tends to do is to inject a
Speaker 1: kind of visceral passion into stories that are actually told
Speaker 1: just in pure linguistic terms, in a kind of spare way.
Speaker 1: Like reading the text of the crucifixion narrative in the
Speaker 1: Gospel of Mark is going to ask you to sort
Speaker 1: of do a lot of work of like reading, you know,
Speaker 1: passionate imagery into it. It's actually a rather lean narrative,
Speaker 1: but you can do a painting of it that's just
Speaker 1: full of pathos and anguish and uh and and showing
Speaker 1: the full suffering that the artists want to depict. Yeah. Absolutely, Now,
Speaker 1: I guess it's time to get into some interesting examples
Speaker 1: of other religious and artistic traditions around the world that
Speaker 1: show something that might be considered analogous to the halo
Speaker 1: or aureole outside of the Christian artistic tradition UM one
Speaker 1: of the oldest analogs to the image of the halo
Speaker 1: that that I came across might be something that is
Speaker 1: found in ancient Mesopotamian mythology. So I want to start
Speaker 1: off with a specific fig example from the many stories
Speaker 1: of Gilgamesh. Now, in the Gilgamesh narratives, there is a
Speaker 1: recurring theme where Gilgamesh and his his friend or his
Speaker 1: servant in ky Do have to travel to the dreaded
Speaker 1: Cedar forest to slay a monstrous giant called who wah
Speaker 1: Wah or Humbaba, who is the terrifying guardian of the woods,
Speaker 1: whose roar is as a flood, whose mouth is fire,
Speaker 1: and whose breath is death itself. One version of the
Speaker 1: story I was looking at included a line that was
Speaker 1: something like Huahwa like a man eating lion, he does
Speaker 1: not wipe the blood from his slaver, and some some
Speaker 1: interpretations this right in Keto is kind of a beast
Speaker 1: man himself, right, yes, I think so. Now I'm not
Speaker 1: an expert in this. I think in the actual epic
Speaker 1: of Gilgamesh, which is a later sort of built out
Speaker 1: version of the recurring motif, he is I don't know,
Speaker 1: wild man at least a beast man. Oh yeah, he's
Speaker 1: on the locusts and honey diet. But anyway, there are
Speaker 1: tons of different versions of this story from ancient Mesopotamian
Speaker 1: poetry and mythology, where Gilgamesh or Gilgamesh and in ky
Speaker 1: Do have to go kill this monster in the cedar forest,
Speaker 1: and in many versions of the story found in different
Speaker 1: ancient texts, Huawa or Humbaba is said to be surrounded
Speaker 1: by seven layers of something. Sometimes this something is interpreted
Speaker 1: as a more straightforwardly to a type of cloak or
Speaker 1: armor that protects him, So he's got seven layers of armor,
Speaker 1: seven cloaks. Other times it is interpreted as hum Baba's
Speaker 1: seven terrors, or even his seven auras that inflict a horror,
Speaker 1: a supernatural terror on his enemies. And in one Sumerian
Speaker 1: version of the early story gilgame and huah Wa, it
Speaker 1: says that when the warriors neared Huahwa, the monsters are
Speaker 1: a sped towards them like a spear. Oh wow, so
Speaker 1: they're like, it's like he's got seven shield tokens that
Speaker 1: they're not only protect him but can be used offensively
Speaker 1: as well. Wait, what are the shield tokens? You know,
Speaker 1: in various board games, you would have tokens for your shields.
Speaker 1: So he's like seven shields, so like you'd have to
Speaker 1: combat your way through all seven shields before you could
Speaker 1: actually hurt the creature itself. Yes, it's clear they have
Speaker 1: some kind of defensive effect. They also have some kind
Speaker 1: of offensive effect, and it's it's very ambiguous exactly what
Speaker 1: they are. There are a thing that can be taken
Speaker 1: on and off, and they protect him, and they are
Speaker 1: an emanation of supernatural power that is sometimes represented as
Speaker 1: a kind of light or glow. And in many versions
Speaker 1: of the story, what happens is Gilgamesh entices huah Wa
Speaker 1: to take off and hand over his seven terrors or
Speaker 1: his seven auras, one at a time by offering gifts
Speaker 1: and flattery and return. So Gilgamesh will come up to him,
Speaker 1: and he will go to HuaHua and say, no one
Speaker 1: knows where you live in the mountains. I want to
Speaker 1: be like you. I want to be one of your kinsmen.
Speaker 1: Here is a gift of lapis lazuli. Hand over your
Speaker 1: fifth aura. And so then HuaHua hands over his, you know,
Speaker 1: each of one of his seven auras in succession. At
Speaker 1: some point, Gilgamesh offers one of his sisters to huahwa Is,
Speaker 1: a concubine. At some point he offers him I think,
Speaker 1: uh some kind of special flower grain. But eventually, once
Speaker 1: all of the auras or terrors are removed, Gilgamesh can
Speaker 1: suddenly beat the monster up. Like in some versions that says,
Speaker 1: immediately Gilgamesh punches him in the face. And I was
Speaker 1: reading about there's one specific version of this story, uh
Speaker 1: that involves a great debate about whether to chase after
Speaker 1: the auras. It seems like the auras like fly off
Speaker 1: on their own. I was reading about this in the
Speaker 1: Epic of Gilgamesh, The Babylonian Epic Poem and other Texts
Speaker 1: in Acadian and Sumerian by Andrew George from Penguin in
Speaker 1: two thousand two. And this example is in what's known
Speaker 1: as the East Kali Tablet. It's a tablet that contains
Speaker 1: one version of the story supposedly dated to the eighteenth
Speaker 1: century b c. E. And uh So, in this version
Speaker 1: of the story, in ky Do and Gilgamesh, after huahwa
Speaker 1: Is is defeated, uh inky Do says to Gilgamesh, hey
Speaker 1: don't spare your foe, but Gilgamesh wants to go hunt
Speaker 1: down hua was auras, like they they've somehow gotten away
Speaker 1: uh And the text here describes them as radiant, numinous
Speaker 1: powers that Huahwa wears his protection. And Gilgamesh is like, no,
Speaker 1: we gotta go get them, and in ky Do suggests
Speaker 1: that they can easily do that later. Instead, we've got
Speaker 1: to stay here and kill Huahwa. And then after we
Speaker 1: kill HuaHua, we can go find the auras. And to
Speaker 1: quote from the tablet and translation, said in ky Do
Speaker 1: to him to kill Gamesh, smite Huahwa, the ogre, who
Speaker 1: your God's abhor Why, my friend, do you show him mercy?
Speaker 1: Said Gilgamesh to him. Two in ky Do, Now, my friend,
Speaker 1: we must impose our victory. The auras slip away in
Speaker 1: the thicket. The auras slip away, their radiance grows dim,
Speaker 1: said in key Do to him, to Gilgamesh, my friend,
Speaker 1: catch a bird, and where go it's chicks. Let us
Speaker 1: look for the aura's later as the chicks run here
Speaker 1: and there in the thicket. Yeah, I love that. I
Speaker 1: mean it almost takes on a comical um uh air
Speaker 1: for sure, but it also reminds me just thinking about
Speaker 1: I mean, I love the idea of thinking about these
Speaker 1: is sort of is haunted auras that surround him in
Speaker 1: energy fields, etcetera. But of course I'm I'm going back
Speaker 1: to our episode. I think it was the Horned helm
Speaker 1: episode that we talked about the invention of a little
Speaker 1: bit about the inventions of armor and helmets, and we
Speaker 1: talked about how the cloak uh itself is an important
Speaker 1: piece of armor in many older traditions, you know, it
Speaker 1: was a basic way to protect your body and combat um.
Speaker 1: And so perhaps these are just like many different living,
Speaker 1: animate cloaks that he wore uh. And isn't it interesting
Speaker 1: that even today we have imagined beings with animate cloaks
Speaker 1: like I know, for example, I think Uh, I think
Speaker 1: Dr Strange has a living cloak that has a mind
Speaker 1: of its own. And I want to say that Spawn
Speaker 1: does as well. I'm not an expert on spawn, but
Speaker 1: I think there's something about his cloak being alive as well.
Speaker 1: Oh that's great, yes, Spawn. His Spawn's got a cape
Speaker 1: or something. It's like a big in the movie. It's
Speaker 1: this giant c g I cape that does magic stuff.
Speaker 1: But so here, I guess the idea is that this
Speaker 1: monster had the seven whatever these are the auras, the terrors,
Speaker 1: the seven sort of defensive, magical, glowing, full body halo
Speaker 1: type things, and that he can take them off and
Speaker 1: put them back on, and when he takes them off
Speaker 1: after he's defeated, they'll scatter all over the place, and
Speaker 1: you have to go catch them if you want to.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you want to, I guess domesticate
Speaker 1: his halos and put them to your own uses. So
Speaker 1: I was reading further about this concept of these ancient
Speaker 1: Mesopotamian auras or halo type things in a book called
Speaker 1: God's Demons and Symbols by Jeremy Black and Anthony Green
Speaker 1: from the University of Texas Press in nine and uh
Speaker 1: and so that they're also talking about the story of
Speaker 1: Huaha or Humbabah, and they translate the word for the
Speaker 1: seven layers as terrifying radiance, and they they relate this
Speaker 1: to a broader entry. They've got on a couple of
Speaker 1: concepts from ancient Mesopotamian religion called milam and nie uh.
Speaker 1: These are both Sumerian words. Melam's a caddy and equivalent
Speaker 1: is milamu, and melom refers to a specific type of
Speaker 1: divine power, while Nie seems to refer to the effect
Speaker 1: that melom has upon humans. So if you are walking
Speaker 1: through the cedar forest and you hear a rustling in
Speaker 1: the bushes, and then Huawa pops out and you witness
Speaker 1: his melom, you will probably be stricken with knee. And no,
Speaker 1: I do not know if there is any connection to
Speaker 1: the monty python thing, but I can't wonder. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: Black and Greenwright quote the exact connotation of melam is
Speaker 1: difficult to grasp. It is a brilliant, visible glamour which
Speaker 1: is exuded by God's heroes, sometimes by kings, and also
Speaker 1: by temples of great holiness, and by God's symbols and emblems.
Speaker 1: While it is in some ways a phenomenon of light,
Speaker 1: melam is at the same time terrifying, awe inspiring. Knee
Speaker 1: can be experienced as a physical creeping of the flesh.
Speaker 1: And they say that both Sumerian and a Cadian are
Speaker 1: rich in words to describe this phenomenon and its effects. So,
Speaker 1: in keeping with the story we were looking at a
Speaker 1: minute ago, they say that gods are sometimes said to
Speaker 1: where their melom like a garment or like a crown.
Speaker 1: And they say that like a garment or a crown,
Speaker 1: the mellom can be taken off, you can shed it,
Speaker 1: and if you kill a god, it's melom will vanish
Speaker 1: or run away. They also stressed that while the melom
Speaker 1: is apparently always supernatural, it is not inherently good. Both
Speaker 1: revered gods and monstrous demons where the melom alike, it
Speaker 1: seems to be a visual representation of overwhelming supernatural power.
Speaker 1: That is, that is imagined as some kind of emanation
Speaker 1: of light or glow fascinating so holy or unholy aura. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this is one of those things that I just
Speaker 1: feel like, oh, I wish I could know, like where
Speaker 1: does this concept come from? Like does this have some
Speaker 1: kind of basis in the natural world or is this
Speaker 1: pure imagination or does it have some basis in I
Speaker 1: don't know, quirks of human psychology. I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: we'll get more into sort of natural phenomenon in psychology
Speaker 1: in the second episode. But but man, yeah, this this
Speaker 1: this gets the years going. Like I said earlier, Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean I love that even you know, with I
Speaker 1: guess the mystery even makes the these tales resonate even
Speaker 1: even more so, Like if it were. If it were
Speaker 1: more clear that we were just talking about a bunch
Speaker 1: of cloaks, you know, or just basic cloak metaphors, then uh,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be as magical. Now, well, from here, let's
Speaker 1: let's travel over to ancient Egypt, because we mentioned earlier
Speaker 1: the idea of sun disks and um. There are several
Speaker 1: directions to go in when considering the sun disc in
Speaker 1: ancient Egypt, but the one that probably comes to mind
Speaker 1: most readily, of course, is the state worship of the
Speaker 1: sun disc often under Menno tap the fourth. This was
Speaker 1: a basic basically, he he was he decreed that, okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna put the pan be on more or less aside,
Speaker 1: We're gonna we're gonna instead of focusing on on the
Speaker 1: pantheon or are certain individuals in the pantheon of gods,
Speaker 1: we're just going to worship this glorious sun disc often
Speaker 1: and um, we could do a whole episode on this
Speaker 1: because it's such a fascinating story. But basically, this was
Speaker 1: an unpopular move that was reversed after his death. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's tough to introduce a new god and
Speaker 1: a new twist on religion. And expect everyone else to
Speaker 1: just stay with that change. Yeah. Now, I know there
Speaker 1: are some people who claim here that that Amenhotep is
Speaker 1: in some ways like the inventor of monotheism. I think
Speaker 1: that might be a little bit oversimplifying the issue. It
Speaker 1: seems from what I recall, I haven't studied this deeply
Speaker 1: in a while, but it seems like from what I recall,
Speaker 1: the the attend sun Disc that he was revering was
Speaker 1: sort of like already a figure in Egyptian religion, but
Speaker 1: now he said like, well, this is now just the
Speaker 1: only god that we're going to worship, and the other
Speaker 1: ones are all subordinate to that god. Yeah, yeah, this
Speaker 1: is this is this is basically my understanding as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's if you're saying that he converted the Egyptians
Speaker 1: to monotheism, that's yeah, that's that's exaggerating a bit. But
Speaker 1: certainly the sun Disc in general pops up in various
Speaker 1: places throughout Egyptian iconography and oftentimes looks similar to what
Speaker 1: we might think of as a halo today. So just
Speaker 1: to run through a few key examples that I think
Speaker 1: illustrate this, Well, first of all, there's there's not the
Speaker 1: sky goddess who's sometimes rendered as a giant nude woman
Speaker 1: arched above the earth. Um. You can look up images
Speaker 1: of this. It's where you know, it's like she has
Speaker 1: she's kind of in uh cat cow, I guess yoga wise, uh,
Speaker 1: but she is the vaulted sky. But I don't, I
Speaker 1: don't know that yoga pose. Tell me, Oh, it's you know,
Speaker 1: you're on all fours and you're kind of like you're
Speaker 1: either like a cat or you like a cow. Okay,
Speaker 1: you should try it. It's great for the spine. But
Speaker 1: but yeah, she's kind of in that position, and her
Speaker 1: arched body is the cosmos. Like you you're looking up
Speaker 1: at her belly when you're looking up at the stars.
Speaker 1: But sometimes she's seen as she's represented as a giant
Speaker 1: cow with star markings and a sun disc positioned between
Speaker 1: the cow's horns. Again, she's associated with the sky she
Speaker 1: uh uh and this also signify according to Geraldine Pinch
Speaker 1: in Egyptian mythology, this signifies her as the sky god
Speaker 1: lifting up the sun god ray Or or Hurrah, and
Speaker 1: she mentions that this quote becomes the insignia of several goddesses,
Speaker 1: so ray or Raw the Sun God himself is depicted
Speaker 1: in various ways as well, including a sun disc with
Speaker 1: a scarebon it or in it. But you also see
Speaker 1: him depicted, as you know, in his hybrid form with
Speaker 1: the sun disc above his head or on top of
Speaker 1: his head. Now to be clear, you see this with
Speaker 1: other deities and characters in the Egyptian pantheon as well.
Speaker 1: The symbol of their role or entity is simply stacked
Speaker 1: atop their head like a hat, like they made like
Speaker 1: a scorpion is up on your head to signify, uh,
Speaker 1: you know that you're scorpion like qualities, etcetera. Um. So again,
Speaker 1: think about the necessity of delivering information through symbols. There
Speaker 1: are only so many ways to present the idea of
Speaker 1: man plus son equal Sun God, right, and it's just
Speaker 1: here's a man, or here's a hybrid of a man,
Speaker 1: and then here's the sun and they are the Sun God.
Speaker 1: When you were talking about the goddess Newt with the
Speaker 1: representation as the cow with the sun disc above the head,
Speaker 1: I was trying to think, is this the same as
Speaker 1: the imagery I've already seen or is there another ancient
Speaker 1: Egyptian deity or figure often depicted as a bo vine
Speaker 1: with a with a halo or sun disc over its head.
Speaker 1: And I think the thing I was thinking about was
Speaker 1: the oppicue bull, which is I think somewhat different. So
Speaker 1: there's another one. Apparently ancient Egyptian religion has multiple bulls
Speaker 1: with halos, I mean, in the loose sense of halo,
Speaker 1: a bull with the sun disc between its horn. Well, um,
Speaker 1: that I actually have the answer to that, and that
Speaker 1: is because APIs Uh is the offspring of the said
Speaker 1: to be the offspring of another Egyptian goddess, and that
Speaker 1: is hath Or, and she's the golden goddess of childbirth um.
Speaker 1: And she's often depicted as a beautiful woman with a
Speaker 1: red solar disc positioned above her head between a pair
Speaker 1: of cow horns, and she's associated with raw and ray
Speaker 1: as well. I think it's kind of complex and like
Speaker 1: it varies, like sometimes she's more like the offspring and
Speaker 1: other times she's more like a consort um, etcetera. Or
Speaker 1: it seemed a little ambiguous when I was reading about it,
Speaker 1: but but yeah, so the the appis bowl is the
Speaker 1: offspring of hath Or. Hath Or is tied to the
Speaker 1: sun god, so it's it's like the sun disc is
Speaker 1: there to show that they are aligned or descended from him. Now,
Speaker 1: if the scholars that you were looking at earlier, if
Speaker 1: their theory about the history of the halo iconography that
Speaker 1: led to Christian religion is true, even the it would
Speaker 1: sort of make sense to look at the oppice bowl
Speaker 1: or any of these gods you've been talking about with
Speaker 1: a sun disc over their head and say, ah, that
Speaker 1: inspired the the Christian halo symbol. It seems like at
Speaker 1: least they were arguing that's not the case, which if
Speaker 1: they're correct about that, that would just make it seem
Speaker 1: like almost a case of cultural convergent evolution, right, something
Speaker 1: that just so naturally comes to mind that multiple different
Speaker 1: cultures have produced very similar imagery. Yeah. Now, I mean,
Speaker 1: part of it could be I just haven't come across
Speaker 1: and read an argument to the contrary, But yeah, it
Speaker 1: seems like it's just a situation of different people's playing
Speaker 1: with some of the same symbols and doing the obvious
Speaker 1: things with those symbols. Because while it might seem like
Speaker 1: this would be a great connection, Like it seems like
Speaker 1: you could put Um hath Or on your conspiracy board
Speaker 1: and then put Um the archangel Michael on your on
Speaker 1: your conspiracy board and just draw a line between the two.
Speaker 1: It does not seem as if there's actually a line
Speaker 1: to be drawn there, you know, in the actual spread
Speaker 1: of embolism, and you know, artistic motifs. It might actually
Speaker 1: go back more to Humbaba or HuaHua, right, but the
Speaker 1: or just generally the Mesopotamian concept. But I've got another one,
Speaker 1: another one from the pre Christian ancient world with some
Speaker 1: interesting uh similarities to halo iconography. And this would be
Speaker 1: the Achaian halo. Could you believe that there is something
Speaker 1: like a halo in the Iliad? This this got me
Speaker 1: by surprise as well. Yeah, yeah, I guess a lot
Speaker 1: of people have read this and not necessarily noticed the similarities. Again,
Speaker 1: you know, they're always gonna be some differences, but the
Speaker 1: similarities are interesting. Um. So, there's one passage in book
Speaker 1: eighteen of the Iliad that that strikes me as very
Speaker 1: very pretty darn halo ish. So it comes in book
Speaker 1: eighteen of the Iliad. The context is that the great
Speaker 1: Achaean warrior Achilles, he learns that his beloved companion Patroclus
Speaker 1: has been killed in battle by the Ojan hero hector,
Speaker 1: and the exact relationship between Achilles and patric LUs has
Speaker 1: been the subject of enormous debate over the centuries. At
Speaker 1: the very least, they are supposed to be the closest
Speaker 1: of friends, you know, they're brothers in arms, their confidants.
Speaker 1: Some scholars also believe there's an implication that their lovers
Speaker 1: that's not stated explicitly, but some really think it's sort
Speaker 1: of there subtly in the text. Whatever the exact nature
Speaker 1: of their relationship, they care very deeply for one another,
Speaker 1: and Patroclus is killed in battle, and when Achilles learns
Speaker 1: that Patroclus has died, he almost literally goes insane with grief,
Speaker 1: and then that grief turns into rage and a thirst
Speaker 1: for vengeance. And the Trojans and the Achaeans are in
Speaker 1: the middle of fighting to claim Patroclus's body from the battlefield.
Speaker 1: So the goddess Athena intervenes and she pours her godpower
Speaker 1: into Achilles so that he can be comes so frightening
Speaker 1: that the Trojans will flee in terror, and Patroclus's body
Speaker 1: can be brought back behind the Achaean lines. And the
Speaker 1: way this is visually depicted is very interesting. So I
Speaker 1: want to read from actually from the recent translation of
Speaker 1: the Iliad by Caroline Alexander, which is very good. Rachel
Speaker 1: and I started reading this. We we haven't made it
Speaker 1: all the way through yet, but we we started reading
Speaker 1: this and I really like it. So if you're looking
Speaker 1: to read the Iliad for the first time or the fiftieth,
Speaker 1: I recommend this one. Um. But the passage here goes
Speaker 1: like this. Achilles, beloved of Zeus, arose and Athena cast
Speaker 1: the tasseled aegis about his mighty shoulders, she shining among goddesses.
Speaker 1: Encircled round his head a cloud of gold, and from
Speaker 1: it blazed bright, shining fire. And as when smoke rising
Speaker 1: from a city reaches the clear high air from a
Speaker 1: distant land, which enemy men fight round, and they the
Speaker 1: whole day long are pitted in hateful warfare around their
Speaker 1: city walls. But with the sun's setting, the beacon fires
Speaker 1: blaze torch upon torch, and flaring upward, the glare becomes
Speaker 1: visible to those who live around, in the hope that
Speaker 1: they might come with ships as allies against destruction. So
Speaker 1: from achilles head the radiance reached the clear high air,
Speaker 1: and going away from the wall. He stood at the ditch,
Speaker 1: nor did he mix with the Achaeans, for he observed
Speaker 1: his mother's knowing command, and standing there he shouted, and
Speaker 1: from the distance Pallace Athena cried out to unspeakable was
Speaker 1: the uproar he incided in the Trojans, as when a
Speaker 1: clarion voice is heard, when chries the trumpet of life,
Speaker 1: destroying enemies who surround a city. Such then was the
Speaker 1: clarion voice of Eacities. And when they heard the brazen
Speaker 1: voice of Eacities, the spirit and each man was thrown
Speaker 1: in turmoil. The horses, with their fine man wheeled their
Speaker 1: chariots back, for in their hearts they forebode distress to come.
Speaker 1: And the charioteers were struck from their senses when they
Speaker 1: saw the weariless, terrible fire above the head of Pelias's
Speaker 1: great hearted son blazing. And this the gleaming eyed goddess
Speaker 1: Athena caused to blaze. That's wonderful. I mean, that's the
Speaker 1: that's the spotlight of the gods right there, that's the
Speaker 1: light of Athena shining through Achilles, through achilles brain and
Speaker 1: through his rage. Yeah, it's it's it's amazing. So there's
Speaker 1: some things in common with the melam or milamu. Uh,
Speaker 1: some things in common with what could later be seen
Speaker 1: in Christian halo's. You could say that the radiance here
Speaker 1: is a phenomenon of light. It's described as blazing like fire,
Speaker 1: like a beacon of light. Uh. It surrounds the head.
Speaker 1: It is a godpower. It's conferred supernaturally, and it strikes
Speaker 1: terror in the heart of those who behold it. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I I absolutely you love that. And of course this,
Speaker 1: this especially is one of those examples that you can
Speaker 1: easily tie into ideas concerning the bicameral mind. You know,
Speaker 1: the idea that, especially in this moment, that Achilles is
Speaker 1: you know, completely overcome by this. Uh, this this inspired rage. Um.
Speaker 1: But but it's but one interesting thing here is you
Speaker 1: would never, no matter how you're looking at Achilles here,
Speaker 1: you probably would not make the argument that Achilles is
Speaker 1: in an enlightened state, that he has no he is
Speaker 1: experiencing enlightenment. Um. And yet that is another way that
Speaker 1: you see halo or halo like um symbols used in
Speaker 1: other artistic traditions, particularly in Buddhist traditions. Oh yeah, because
Speaker 1: there's a whole class of of halo or aureole type
Speaker 1: glows that can be found throughout Hindu and Buddhist art. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and in Tibetan art, for example, You're a form of
Speaker 1: a halo is often used to signify enlightenment and or divinity.
Speaker 1: You'll see it on the Buddha himself, but also on
Speaker 1: important monks. And I was reading a description of a
Speaker 1: twelfth century Buddha from Kurt Batterans Tibet in India Buddhist
Speaker 1: Traditions and Transformations, two thousand fourteen. From the mat quote,
Speaker 1: he this is just his description of this particular work. Quote.
Speaker 1: He sits on a lotus, conveying ideas of purity and
Speaker 1: perhaps suggesting his radiance in a cosmic realm, and his
Speaker 1: head is encircled by a flaming halo. So b Aren't
Speaker 1: also describes a Buddhas statue that, in its original form
Speaker 1: seems to have possessed a halo that was surrounded by branches,
Speaker 1: in reference to the Bodhi tree under which the Buddha
Speaker 1: first attained enlightenment. Yeah, and I feel like I'm not certain,
Speaker 1: but I feel like I've seen depictions of the Buddha
Speaker 1: surrounded by fire. Yeah. We see this kind of flaming
Speaker 1: nimbus in Chinese and also in Islamic traditions as well. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's also a really neat when in Japanese traditions that's
Speaker 1: referred to as the carea flame. Carea is essentially like
Speaker 1: a Japanese garuda, you know, the sub bird like magical
Speaker 1: holy creature. Um. But the carra flame here is often
Speaker 1: represented as a kind of traditional halo behind the head,
Speaker 1: this kind of hoop design, but with portions, at least
Speaker 1: portions of it on fire. Um, and I included an
Speaker 1: image of you here, image of it here for you,
Speaker 1: Joe um described as the carua inco. Yeah, it's almost
Speaker 1: like it's like a hoop with a bonfire at each
Speaker 1: of the cardinal directions on it. Now, if we broaden
Speaker 1: our definition from halo to also things that are more
Speaker 1: like you know, the ariolas and even uh mandola, which
Speaker 1: is a kind of halo that emanates from or behind
Speaker 1: the entire body, you know, kind of kind of in
Speaker 1: keeping with those those various auras of of the monster
Speaker 1: we described earlier, of whom baba there. There are plenty
Speaker 1: more examples as well. We certainly see this in Christian traditions,
Speaker 1: but it's also widespread throughout the iconography of India, particularly
Speaker 1: Buddhist images and in Hinduism. Statues are often depicted with
Speaker 1: a uh prahamandela placed above the statue and particularly the
Speaker 1: head to indicate hallowed status, and these are often very ornate,
Speaker 1: with animals and decorative designs in them uh sometimes you know,
Speaker 1: they're often crafted of shining metal with red paint, and
Speaker 1: they're signifying the object or being here as as something
Speaker 1: that should be venerated now and looking at images of
Speaker 1: the problem Mandala, one thing I really like about the
Speaker 1: especially compared to a lot of the Christian iconography of
Speaker 1: the halo, which is often very smooth, it's just kind
Speaker 1: of a radiance or it's a smooth looking almost gold
Speaker 1: metal type disc. The problem Mandala is very textured. It's
Speaker 1: very busy, there's a lot of stuff happening in it.
Speaker 1: You you almost get more of the sense of the
Speaker 1: complexity and the almost like uh, I don't know, like
Speaker 1: teeming ant like radiance of the lexity of the real world. Now,
Speaker 1: another very I think a pretty famous rendition of the
Speaker 1: prohab Mandala that a lot of you've probably seen is
Speaker 1: when you see statues of the dance of Shiva, there's
Speaker 1: kind of this uh, this flaming hoop that is around
Speaker 1: Shiva uh, and it is um. It's it's less it's
Speaker 1: less intricate as this, like it's not a big solid thing.
Speaker 1: It is more of a hoop. But that's probably one
Speaker 1: that a lot of you've seen before. And I believe
Speaker 1: this is typically referred to as a as anaraja. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like a big hoop halo surrounding the entire body with
Speaker 1: the flames all around. It's almost like, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: um coming back in the other sense. So we've talked
Speaker 1: about the way that objects in the natural world like
Speaker 1: the sun, might cause you to want to frame an
Speaker 1: image of a god as something that's emanating light or
Speaker 1: has its head surrounded by a glowing or gleaming disk.
Speaker 1: But it just occurred to me also, I mean, I
Speaker 1: wonder in what ways could you could you talk about
Speaker 1: just the practical necessities of framing the subjects of art
Speaker 1: as having an influence on on these various traditions of
Speaker 1: halos and orioles and and problem mondalas and things like that,
Speaker 1: because often these things do serve as a frame there
Speaker 1: like a visual focusing tool. Yeah, certainly they It tells
Speaker 1: you where to look at, what to focus on. I'm
Speaker 1: looking at a dance of Shiva within the not not
Speaker 1: a raja that uh, it's got a bunch of snakes. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it again. It's just so interesting to look at how
Speaker 1: even within a particular religion or um or you know,
Speaker 1: regional tradition, over time you'll see so many different takes
Speaker 1: on it. Like artists have just always had to, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of reinvent in this case the halo
Speaker 1: or something like a halo. You know, what can I
Speaker 1: do that that sets it apart, That makes it exciting again,
Speaker 1: that makes it uh, you know, convey the power, the majesty,
Speaker 1: the you know, the rage or whatever it is, the
Speaker 1: the the enlightenment, whatever you're trying to convey through the imagery.
Speaker 1: How to keep that present? That's well put um, which
Speaker 1: which leads me to Mortal Kombat. Um. There's a just
Speaker 1: in passing and we mentioned fictional characters earlier. There In
Speaker 1: the latest rendition, there is a goddess character named centre
Speaker 1: On and you get to change the way your characters look.
Speaker 1: And one of the things you can do is you
Speaker 1: change the various halo like things emanating around her head? Um,
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, it's it's actually quite interesting, like it's
Speaker 1: gonna be rocks, Is it gonna be jewels? Is it
Speaker 1: gonna be something you know, nature like stick like at all?
Speaker 1: But uh, you know, ultimately they managed to work a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of what we're talking about into
Speaker 1: that particular character design. Now, in any of those uh
Speaker 1: like w W E Build a Wrestler games, can you
Speaker 1: build a wrestler with the halo? I bet you could.
Speaker 1: I don't remember it specifically, but I bet there was
Speaker 1: some sort of hokey looking halo that you could put
Speaker 1: on a character. There's probably been somebody who's wrestled in
Speaker 1: a uh, you know, a goofy angel costume. Now I'm well,
Speaker 1: you know now that I say that, though, I bet
Speaker 1: there's a luchador that has a halo. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of luchadors that have uh you know, Catholic imagery
Speaker 1: tied up in their masks a halo, does he well,
Speaker 1: not Santo, but there are others, Like you know, there
Speaker 1: are other Catholic themed luchadors. And I bet there's one
Speaker 1: that I'm just not thinking of that maybe mystico or
Speaker 1: somebody has some sort of Halo iconography wrapped up in
Speaker 1: their design. That's homework for next time. Yeah, to come
Speaker 1: back and report. Yeah, so, Luca fans out there, let
Speaker 1: me know who I'm forgetting. Okay, Well, I think that's
Speaker 1: got to wrap it up for part one. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Well this has been fun and it it lays the
Speaker 1: groundwork for the next episode, where we'll I think will
Speaker 1: inevitably touch touch on some more you know, cultural examples
Speaker 1: and cultural ideas of halos. But we'll also get into
Speaker 1: some of the optics that we tease briefly in this episode,
Speaker 1: and of course, in the meantime, we'd love to hear
Speaker 1: from everybody. You know, what are your favorite examples of
Speaker 1: halo likenography from art history, from archaeological uh finds, etcetera.
Speaker 1: From fiction you know, or they're they're particularly particularly interesting
Speaker 1: renditions of of halo imagery that you like. I was
Speaker 1: always partial to uh um, what's his name, uh, Michael
Speaker 1: William Kaluda's angel drawings. He would do. He had some
Speaker 1: very bizarre looking angel drawings that he created with like
Speaker 1: flaming halos and halos of eyes and the like so,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's some other great examples out there, so
Speaker 1: send them our away in the meantime as well, if
Speaker 1: you would like to listen to other episodes of Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind, you can find the Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind feed wherever you get your podcasts. Uh
Speaker 1: there you will find core episodes science and culture on
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursdays. You'll find listener mails on Mondays, Wednesday,
Speaker 1: that's the that's the the day we bust out our
Speaker 1: short form artifact episodes. And Friday it's Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 1: That's right, you gotta catch the mall uh so huge.
Speaker 1: Thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 1: a topic for the future, just to say hello, you
Speaker 1: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production
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