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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. This is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb. Today is Saturday, so we have another rerun

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Speaker 1: for you here today. This is an episode that originally

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Speaker 1: published 8-7-2025. It is Cats of Cyprus. In this episode,

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Speaker 1: we discuss the oldest known evidence of domesticated cats on

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Speaker 1: the Isle of Cyprus, as well as tales of St.

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Speaker 1: Nicholas of the Cats, also associated with the island. All right,

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Speaker 1: let's do it.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 1: And we're continuing Cat Week here on Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: Your Mind. If you are not aware, it is Cat Week,

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Speaker 1: a celebration of cats in our own weird stuff to

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Speaker 1: blow your mind, and eventually Weird House Cinema Manor. In

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Speaker 1: this episode, we're going to be talking about, to a

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Speaker 1: large extent, the domestication of cats. And when we think

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Speaker 1: about the oldest human civilizations to value the domestic cat,

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of us tend to, in many ways,

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Speaker 1: rightfully think about the ancient Egyptians. After all, the ancient

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Speaker 1: Egyptians held the cat in high esteem, living with them,

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Speaker 1: depicting them in their art, casting gods in their likeness.

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Speaker 1: and of course, sometimes mummifying their remains. So you'd be

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Speaker 1: quite excused, I think, if you came into this episode

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Speaker 1: assuming that ancient Egypt provided us with the earliest evidence

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Speaker 1: of domesticated cats. And in fact, up until, I mean,

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Speaker 1: reasonably recently, like the early 2000s, but certainly recent enough

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Speaker 1: that it occurred on the the other end of a

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Speaker 1: lot of our schooling, this was exactly what was assumed

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Speaker 1: based on evidence from something like 3,600 years ago concerning

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Speaker 1: the domestication of the Near Eastern and Egyptian populations of

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Speaker 1: the African wildcat. But then in the early 2000s, as

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Speaker 1: we'll be discussing, new archaeological findings pointed researchers to a

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Speaker 1: new possible location for the oldest known evidence of domesticated cats,

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Speaker 1: and that is on the Isle of Cyprus. For those

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Speaker 1: of you who trying to pull up the map in

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Speaker 1: your own head, or perhaps, you know, opening another window

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Speaker 1: on whatever device you're at, maybe I'll save you a

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Speaker 1: trip and a little brain power. The Mediterranean island of

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Speaker 1: Cyprus is the third largest Mediterranean island after Sicily and Sardinia.

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Speaker 1: And it was first settled by hunter-gatherers approximately 13,000 years ago.

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Speaker 1: And it's been uniquely situated over the millennia to experience

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Speaker 1: cultural exchange with Europe, Africa, and Asia, shaping the Cypriot culture.

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Speaker 1: And so, as we'll discuss, it's possible that evidence of

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Speaker 1: domesticated cats does indeed go back some 9,500 years. And,

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Speaker 1: of course, then some, maybe, to ancient humans in Cyprus.

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Speaker 3: That's right.

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Speaker 4: But before we get to the archaeological evidence for cats

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Speaker 4: as human companions on the island of Cyprus, I thought

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Speaker 4: we should briefly look at the question, how did cats

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Speaker 4: become domesticated? Where does the cat come from? So my

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Speaker 4: main source here is a paper by Otoni et al.,

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Speaker 4: Claudio Otoni and co-authors, published in the journal Nature, Ecology,

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Speaker 4: and Evolution in 2017, and it's called The Paleogenetics of

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Speaker 4: Cat Dispersal in the Ancient World. The top line here,

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Speaker 4: is the discovery, and this wasn't always known, because there

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Speaker 4: are a number of different wildcat subvarieties you find around

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Speaker 4: the world. There's a European wildcat, there is a Central

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Speaker 4: Asian wildcat, different wildcats you find all over the place.

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Speaker 4: And so it was not always known where the domesticated

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Speaker 4: cat came from. But now researchers can say with a

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Speaker 4: pretty high degree of confidence that all domesticated cats were

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Speaker 4: are thought to descend from an original population of wild

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Speaker 4: cats native to North Africa and Southwest Asia known as

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Speaker 4: Felis sylvestris libica or the African wild cat. So the

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Speaker 4: cats that are domestic cats around the world originally come

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Speaker 4: from the subgroup of the African wild cats. And there

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Speaker 4: appear to have been two waves of domestication. So the

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Speaker 4: authors of this paper, Atoni et al., they studied cat

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Speaker 4: DNA collected from all around the globe. And they determined

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Speaker 4: through genetic analysis that cat domestication started first in the

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Speaker 4: Fertile Crescent. That's the earliest time in the Neolithic period.

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Speaker 4: That's the last part of the Stone Age. And then

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Speaker 4: it accelerated in Egypt in the first millennium BCE.

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Speaker 1: So we can still basically look at our household cats

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Speaker 1: and think of them as being descendants of the goddess Bastet.

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Speaker 3: Right, or bast.

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Speaker 1: So there's a lot of Egyptian heritage to the domestic

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Speaker 1: cat species.

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Speaker 4: It does seem like ancient Egyptian civilization does contribute hugely

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Speaker 4: to the domestic cats of today, but ancient Egypt was

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Speaker 4: not the first time cats were domesticated. That seems to

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Speaker 4: be in the Fertile Crescent a little bit earlier in

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Speaker 4: the Neolithic period.

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Speaker 1: But maybe the last time they would be domesticated, because

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Speaker 1: it seems like we're done. It seems like we're at

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Speaker 1: a good level with the current domestication of the common

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Speaker 1: house cat.

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Speaker 3: I think they're here to stay.

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Speaker 4: But speaking of the idea that a domestication attempt of

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Speaker 4: an animal could not stick around, I was reading about

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Speaker 4: an interesting variation in a paper by an author that

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Speaker 4: we'll come back to several times in this episode. A

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Speaker 4: paper by Jean-Denis Vignier and a bunch of co-authors from

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Speaker 4: PLOS One in 2016 called Earliest Domestic Cats in China

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Speaker 4: Identified as Leopard Cat. So in this paper, the authors

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Speaker 4: agree that all domestic cats today are descended from the

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Speaker 4: African wildcat. So it's not a dispute about like the

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Speaker 4: leopard cat being a part of the genetic heritage of,

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Speaker 4: you know, any cat that you would find in a

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Speaker 4: house today. Instead, this paper documents archaeological remains from China

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Speaker 4: dating from between 5500 to 4900 years before present. showing

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Speaker 4: what appear to be domesticated cats buried in human contexts,

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Speaker 4: so found in human storage areas or dwellings. And analysis

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Speaker 4: of the bones of these animals shows that these are

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Speaker 4: not African wildcats, but rather from a historically short-lived attempt

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Speaker 4: to domesticate the Asian leopard cat, now an extant wild animal.

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Speaker 1: Wow, that is fascinating. Yeah, I mean, you think about

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Speaker 1: We tend to think about the domestication success stories. And

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Speaker 1: with the cat, I think we're still figuring out how

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Speaker 1: successful that was. I know I had my own household

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Speaker 1: cat just pee all over the place this morning. So

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Speaker 1: it definitely gave me some time for a few sidebars

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Speaker 1: as I was finishing the research for this episode. It's like,

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Speaker 1: have we... Have we reached a good point with this domestication?

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure. But clearly there are cases where there's

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Speaker 1: even less of a match and where not enough lines

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Speaker 1: up in short enough time for the domestication to really

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Speaker 1: take hold.

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Speaker 3: Well, yeah.

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Speaker 4: I mean, I guess you're sort of asking this question now,

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Speaker 4: but yeah, it raises the question, like, what counts as domesticated? Like,

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Speaker 4: how sticky does the relationship have to be between the

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Speaker 4: humans and these animals for it to really be domesticated? Because, yeah,

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Speaker 4: in the case of these semi-domesticated or proto-domesticated leopard cats,

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Speaker 4: the practice appears to have died out. There's not like

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Speaker 4: a widespread, you know, population of domesticated leopard cat descendants.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I imagine there are a number of different elements

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Speaker 1: like the cultural attachment, religious significance. And then just, is

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Speaker 1: it useful? Like, are they serving a purpose in the

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Speaker 1: household or on, you know, or on the land surrounding

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Speaker 1: the household? Are they killing the enemies of man and

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Speaker 1: so forth?

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Speaker 4: I have to wonder, I don't have direct evidence of this,

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Speaker 4: but I have to wonder if the spread of the

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Speaker 4: domesticated African wildcat descendant could have possibly replaced, you know,

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Speaker 4: previous attempts to domesticate cats or cat-like animals.

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Speaker 1: That's a good point. Yeah, because if you're kind of

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Speaker 1: like putting in a lot of work to try and

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Speaker 1: domesticate these leopards and then someone shows up with something

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Speaker 1: maybe a little more closely aligned to what we think

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Speaker 1: of as a modern house cat, yeah, you might be

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Speaker 1: inclined to think, well, heck, let's just go with this.

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Speaker 1: This model seems to work.

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Speaker 4: So how did domestic cats come to cover the entire globe?

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Speaker 4: Since the African wildcat is native to North Africa and

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Speaker 4: the Middle East, how did it spread all over the world?

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Speaker 4: Atoni et al. determined by looking at DNA from cat remains,

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Speaker 4: especially in major ancient port cities. that domestic cats spread

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Speaker 4: around the world on ships. It had to have been

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Speaker 4: by sea travel that they made it from place to

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Speaker 4: place and eventually basically to the whole world. And they argued,

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Speaker 4: I think this makes a lot of sense, that they

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Speaker 4: were probably kept aboard ships to kill rats and mice

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Speaker 4: that would otherwise get into food stashes during transport. And

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Speaker 4: this will be a theme, actually. You know, it's funny

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Speaker 4: how A lot of people listening probably today do not

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Speaker 4: think of the cat as a functional or working animal.

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Speaker 3: It's a companion animal.

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Speaker 4: You have a cat to be friends with it, to

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Speaker 4: feel nice when you're petting it and taking care of it,

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Speaker 4: to feel good just you know, getting that reciprocal relationship

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Speaker 4: of companionship and mutual enjoyment with another creature. But for

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Speaker 4: much of history, the cat had a job to do.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely. And, you know, I don't know, I still think

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Speaker 1: about this. I think of my cat primarily as a

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Speaker 1: companion animal. But You know, there are times where, you know,

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Speaker 1: I live near some railroad tracks. There's always, there are

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Speaker 1: rodents out there. And so it does cross my mind

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Speaker 1: from time to time that she is also kind of

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Speaker 1: like the last line of defense. That if rodents enter

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Speaker 1: the house, it's her job to take care of it.

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Speaker 1: And if not, I will satirize her with poetry so hard. Well,

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Speaker 1: you better be careful you don't summon the king of cats. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we're not going to drag him into this. I'm going

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Speaker 1: to just target Mochi, my cat, with that.

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Speaker 3: Oh, right.

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Speaker 4: I forgot what Sean Chan did. Did he not satirize

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Speaker 4: cats hard enough to invite the king of cats just

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Speaker 4: to protect them? Did he actually have to satirize the

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Speaker 4: king of cats himself?

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Speaker 1: He went straight to the king of cats. Cats are

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Speaker 1: under his jurisdiction, and cats have failed me in not

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Speaker 1: eating the mice that ate this egg that I was

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Speaker 1: going to eat.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. Okay. He went straight to the top. Run

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Speaker 3: in his mouth about the boss. That's a bad idea.

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Speaker 4: Oh, but this all brings us back to the connection

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Speaker 4: between cats and the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean.

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Speaker 4: Because as you were alluding to earlier, Rob, it seems

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Speaker 4: that our earliest archaeological evidence of cat-human companionship may be

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Speaker 4: in an ancient Stone Age grave on the island of Cyprus.

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Speaker 3: That's right.

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Speaker 1: And so we're going to We're going to skip over

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Speaker 1: Egyptian cats here and mostly focus on Cyprus. But I

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Speaker 1: do want to note that we could easily come back

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Speaker 1: in another episode, maybe next Cat Week, maybe sooner, and

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Speaker 1: discuss the ancient Egyptians and their cats. But again, this

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Speaker 1: was an important find. This really changed the way we

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Speaker 1: understood humanity's relationships. with domesticated or nearly domesticated felines. And again,

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Speaker 1: this is the work of French scientist Jean-Denis Vignier of

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Speaker 1: the French National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, along

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Speaker 1: with his co-authors. The big initial paper was Early Taming

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Speaker 1: of the Cat in Cyprus, published in 2004 in the

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Speaker 1: journal Science. And it essentially set the clock back, I believe,

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Speaker 1: like a good 5,000 years on what we've understood about

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Speaker 1: humanity's relationship with the domesticated cat. So this is essentially

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Speaker 1: how it went down. And Joe, we were both looking

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Speaker 1: at the same sources here, so jump in if you

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Speaker 1: want to expand on anything that I'm mentioning here. But essentially,

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Speaker 1: the researchers discovered a mostly complete skeleton. And I want

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Speaker 1: to add the caveat that it seems to have been

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Speaker 1: buried in complete form. It's just parts of the skeleton

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Speaker 1: were damaged at some point or another.

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Speaker 4: And the fact that it's in complete form is important

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Speaker 4: for reasons we'll get into in a minute.

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Speaker 1: Exactly, yes. So, mostly complete skeleton of an eight-month-old cat

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Speaker 1: next to the 9,500-year-old grave of a human being. And

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Speaker 1: this grave was located in the Chalurukambas archaeological site. This

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Speaker 1: is a pre-pottery Neolithic bee site. I'm to understand this

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Speaker 1: was a settlement occupied from the end of the 9th

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Speaker 1: till the end of the 8th millennium BCE. And this

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Speaker 1: is in southern Cyprus, a site that had been first

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Speaker 1: excavated just a decade earlier. And this would have been

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Speaker 1: one of the Neolithic people that had traveled from the mainland,

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Speaker 1: bringing knowledge. crops and livestock to Cyprus. Not individually, one

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Speaker 1: of the people. I mean, more broadly, like the people,

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Speaker 1: the strain of humanity that came to the island. Right.

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Speaker 4: So sometime previous, in the previous few thousand years, there

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Speaker 4: had been settlers from the mainland, originally occupants of somewhere

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Speaker 4: in the Fertile Crescent, who were Stone Age humans that

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Speaker 4: got in boats and made their way to the island.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. So This particular human that was buried, again,

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Speaker 1: alongside this cat, was apparently about 30 when they died.

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Speaker 1: And they were buried with various items, which is always

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Speaker 1: interesting to see what kind of items they were buried with,

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Speaker 1: or at least the ones we know about because they've

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Speaker 1: survived in one.

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Speaker 3: Form or another.

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Speaker 1: And it consisted of a marine shell, a stone pendant,

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Speaker 1: a flint scraper, two small polished axes, and I think

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Speaker 1: one of those was damaged, a pumice stone, a fragment

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Speaker 1: of ochre, a large flint-piercing tool, and then several flint blades.

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Speaker 1: So a lot of, you know, utilitarian tools on their body.

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Speaker 1: They'd probably been buried in a bag, placed in a

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Speaker 1: circular pit that also contained various additional shells and stones.

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Speaker 1: The cat's grave was oval-shaped and about 15 centimeters deep.

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Speaker 1: The body was seemingly, again, complete at burial, though parts

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Speaker 1: of it were destroyed, I believe, by plowing, because it

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Speaker 1: was like the uppermost bones that had been damaged here.

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Speaker 1: And the cat was laid out on its side, head

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Speaker 1: to the west and back to the south. That happens

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Speaker 1: to be the exact same positioning as the human buried

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Speaker 1: beside it. The cause of death for the feline could

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Speaker 1: not be determined, but evidence suggested that it had not

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Speaker 1: been cut, had not been burned. Its body had not

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Speaker 1: been opened up. Gender of the cat was unknown due

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Speaker 1: to missing or destroyed pelvic bone pieces.

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Speaker 4: So we don't know if the cat died of natural

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Speaker 4: causes or was killed, but the evidence of its death

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Speaker 4: was not clear.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 1: It's entirely possible that it could have been killed as

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Speaker 1: a sacrifice and buried alongside the human. But there's no

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Speaker 1: evidence that that happened. There's no evidence that that didn't happen. And,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's not like either possibility really alters the

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Speaker 1: argument for this animal being important to the person it's

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Speaker 1: buried with. I mean, either way. It has a privileged

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Speaker 1: position alongside the human or vice versa. The human has

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Speaker 1: a privileged position alongside the cat. Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Well, and the the really important thing here being that

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Speaker 4: it's clear to the archaeologists that this cat was intentionally

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Speaker 4: buried on purpose. This is it's not a situation where like, oh,

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Speaker 4: a cat was running around and it just happened to

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Speaker 4: die near the grave and they're mistaking it for me.

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Speaker 4: And there were several reasons for thinking. that this is

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Speaker 4: an intentional burial alongside the human, not just the proximity,

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Speaker 4: it is right beside the other grave, but also you

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Speaker 4: mentioned the fact that the cat's skeleton was articulated, meaning

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Speaker 4: like the joints were still connected and intact, basically.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And Meunier also points out that the mere fact that

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Speaker 1: it was buried like this, articulated, almost entirely intact, if

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Speaker 1: not entirely intact, means it was likely a tame species.

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Speaker 1: Because when wild animals were rarely buried during this time,

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Speaker 1: the skeletons were generally rather incomplete. So just everything about

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Speaker 1: the way this creature has been buried and the way

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Speaker 1: it's positioned and so forth, it seems to indicate that

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Speaker 1: this animal was likely domesticated to some degree. And we

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Speaker 1: should also note that these findings, Vignier backs up by

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Speaker 1: pointing to various other cat remains found, at least in

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Speaker 1: pieces elsewhere on the island. And, uh, and also the idea,

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Speaker 1: he mentions the idea that cats had special status, um,

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Speaker 1: among these individuals was also, is also backed up by

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Speaker 1: the discovery of figurines in neighboring regions from this time,

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Speaker 1: as well as a one that was found at the

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Speaker 1: same archeological site in Cyprus though, from a slightly earlier time.

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Speaker 1: So everything seems in place here to suggest, yeah, a

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Speaker 1: tame cat, a cat that is, that is considered close

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Speaker 1: to humans for one reason or another. We'll get into

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Speaker 1: more about, you know, some of those reasons. and also

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Speaker 1: by a culture that values the cat enough to create

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Speaker 1: its likeness. Again, maybe for religious purposes, maybe for some

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Speaker 1: other purpose, but they certainly held the cat in high esteem.

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Speaker 4: Now, another thing that would be interesting to know is,

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Speaker 4: do we know what kind of cat this was?

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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah. So, Vignier contends that the, quote, the post-cranial

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Speaker 1: and cranial measurements fall in the upper half of the

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Speaker 1: range variation of size of the Western Asian Felis sylvestris libica.

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Speaker 1: So this does seem to be the African wildcat. And

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Speaker 1: I'm only just now realizing that the cartoon cat Sylvester

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Speaker 1: gets its name probably from this.

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Speaker 4: Well, I think the name Sylvester means like from the

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Speaker 4: forest or of the woods, though I assume that's what

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Speaker 4: it means in the context of this cat's name as well.

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Speaker 1: The cartoon cat?

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Speaker 4: Well, the real species and the cartoon I don't know

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Speaker 4: about the cartoon cat. That probably just, yeah, maybe that

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Speaker 4: comes from this.

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Speaker 1: But anyway, this does seem to be the African wild cat. Uh,

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Speaker 1: so the ancestor of the domestic cat, um, though this

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Speaker 1: would of course have been the earlier domestication wave, not the,

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Speaker 1: the one that really took hold. Uh, and this specimen

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Speaker 1: was apparently bigger than a modern domestic cat, uh, had

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Speaker 1: longer limbs. Um, but it is definitely, uh, uh, an

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Speaker 1: African wild cat. Uh, points out that there's no evidence

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Speaker 1: of a native field species of cat on Cyprus. So

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Speaker 1: they would have had to have been introduced by these

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Speaker 1: Neolithic settlers. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And I'll have more on that in just a minute.

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Speaker 1: So this updated timeline would put the domestication just 3,000

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Speaker 1: years after the likely domestication point of the dog and

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Speaker 1: alongside the human domestication of the sheep, mastery of wheat

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Speaker 1: as well. So I think settlers of Catan fans out

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Speaker 1: there will recognize that this is just one stone short

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Speaker 1: of getting to buy a development car. So this is

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Speaker 1: a big deal when it comes to the advancement of

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Speaker 1: your civilization.

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Speaker 4: But does it help you with the longest road?

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Speaker 2: Nope.

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Speaker 1: You're going to need, what, bricks and wood for that.

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Speaker 4: Now, just a note about the timeline of dog domestication,

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Speaker 4: because I think reading about the timeline of dog domestication

345
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Speaker 4: can be confusing sometimes because While the earliest undisputed archaeological

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Speaker 4: evidence of a dog buried with humans comes from the

347
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Speaker 4: 15th millennium before present, so that's from a site in

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Speaker 4: modern Germany, genetic evidence shows that modern domestic dogs began

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Speaker 4: to diverge from their wolf ancestors something like 20,000 to

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Speaker 4: 40,000 years ago. I think there are some different figures

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Speaker 4: on that, but that's a commonly cited range. So genetic

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Speaker 4: evidence shows the process beginning much earlier, but the genetic

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Speaker 4: evidence doesn't tell us exactly how domesticated those proto-dogs or

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Speaker 4: divergent wolves were in terms of behavior and living arrangements.

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Speaker 4: So for example, it could be that for thousands of years,

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Speaker 4: these proto-dogs were only partially domesticated, not necessarily treated as companions,

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Speaker 4: but genetically and behaviorally adapted to increased.

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Speaker 3: Interaction with human populations.

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Speaker 4: One example of this would be following humans around and

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Speaker 4: scavenging their camps. So yeah, the truth is we don't

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Speaker 4: know exactly when people started treating dogs like pets or

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Speaker 4: like working animals, but the first clear archaeological evidence for

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Speaker 4: that kind of relationship comes from the 15th millennium B.C.

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Speaker 4: And again, like with the cat example, that's from an

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Speaker 4: example of humans being buried along with their dog. I

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Speaker 4: think it's from a couple being buried with their dog.

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Speaker 1: It's also confusing because sometimes we use BP in measuring

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Speaker 1: this because we're saying before Pluto, before Pluto, the Disney

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Speaker 1: cartoon dog. So it's essentially the same, but it's off by.

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Speaker 3: A few decades.

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Speaker 4: So apart from the proximity to a human grave, One

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Speaker 4: clue that the cat skeleton found at Shiluro Kambos might

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Speaker 4: have been a domesticated cat begins with the observation that,

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Speaker 4: as you said a minute ago, Rob, the African wildcat

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Speaker 4: was not native to Cyprus before the arrival of humans.

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Speaker 3: That's worth stressing.

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Speaker 4: There were no wildcats on Cyprus at all. And we

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Speaker 4: know that pretty conclusively from the fossil record.

379
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Speaker 3: No cats. In fact.

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Speaker 4: The fossil record indicates that before humans, there were very

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Speaker 4: few terrestrial mammals at all on Cyprus. This is probably

382
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Speaker 4: because even during glacial maximum periods, when the sea levels

383
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Speaker 4: were at their lowest, Cyprus was never connected to the mainland.

384
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Speaker 4: So the only pre-human terrestrial mammals on Cyprus appear to

385
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Speaker 4: have been the following. One was The dwarf hippopotamus, this

386
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Speaker 4: seems to have gone extinct when humans arrived, which was

387
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Speaker 4: about 12,500 years before present. So they were very likely

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Speaker 4: hunted or otherwise driven extinct by humans. The dwarf elephant

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Speaker 4: also disappeared when we showed up. The Cypriot genet, which

390
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Speaker 4: is a small carnivore, sort of a cat-like, weasel-like creature,

391
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Speaker 4: a little.

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Speaker 3: Bit raccoony maybe. It's got a long tail.

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Speaker 4: May have survived a few thousand years after humans arrived,

394
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Speaker 4: but it is now extinct. And then finally, the Cypriot mouse,

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Speaker 4: which is the only native land mammal from.

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Speaker 3: Cyprus that still exists today.

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Speaker 1: And, you know, that's quite a compliment for the Cypriot

398
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Speaker 1: mouse to have survived, given what is about to follow.

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Speaker 4: Well, mice are hardy, but yeah, when humans show up

400
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Speaker 4: on an island, we do a lot of damage, especially

401
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Speaker 4: us and the things we bring with us.

402
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Speaker 1: Oh, do you think humans are the reason that the

403
00:23:38,119 --> 00:23:43,209
Speaker 1: hippopotamus and the elephant disappeared? It's just a coincidence, I assume, right?

404
00:23:43,270 --> 00:23:46,250
Speaker 4: So since cats were not native to the island and

405
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Speaker 4: thus not acquired locally, we know that ancient humans, and

406
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Speaker 4: these would have been Stone Age farmers originally from the

407
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Speaker 4: Fertile Crescent, must have crossed the sea with cats in

408
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Speaker 4: their boats. And given the size of the boats that

409
00:24:01,240 --> 00:24:04,260
Speaker 4: would have been used, and given the fact that you

410
00:24:04,720 --> 00:24:09,480
Speaker 4: need multiple breeding pairs to establish a stable island population,

411
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Speaker 4: it's just not very plausible that we could be dealing

412
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Speaker 4: with the case of cat stowaways that establish themselves on

413
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Speaker 4: an island. That's not, I don't know, it's not impossible,

414
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Speaker 4: but it seems very unlikely.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 1: Especially because, you know, to be clear, over the course

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Speaker 1: of time, unlikely introductions do occur. We see that, especially

418
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Speaker 1: when you go beyond the span of human civilizations and

419
00:24:37,359 --> 00:24:40,609
Speaker 1: you look at just like, you know, more like geologic time.

420
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Speaker 3: But this is not millions of years, right? This is

421
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Speaker 3: not millions of years.

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Speaker 1: This is within the range of human domain. And it

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Speaker 1: suspiciously involves an animal that humans took a liking to.

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Speaker 3: Yes.

425
00:24:52,600 --> 00:24:52,780
Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: So it seems much more likely that humans brought cats

427
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Speaker 4: to Cyprus across the sea on purpose.

428
00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:03,730
Speaker 3: But why? Well, one clue is that cats.

429
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Speaker 4: Were not the only non-native animal species introduced by humans.

430
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Speaker 4: So here I want to reference another paper, again, where

431
00:25:12,910 --> 00:25:15,689
Speaker 4: Jean Denis Vignier is the first author. This one is

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Speaker 4: called Historical Dynamics of the Human-Environment Interactions in Cyprus During

433
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Speaker 4: the 12th to 10th Millennium Before or Present, the Last

434
00:25:23,800 --> 00:25:29,139
Speaker 4: 30 Years of Contributions of the Amathus Area. This was

435
00:25:29,180 --> 00:25:32,639
Speaker 4: published in the Journal of Archaeological Science Reports in the

436
00:25:32,660 --> 00:25:33,560
Speaker 4: year 2023, once again.

437
00:25:33,380 --> 00:25:33,919
Speaker 3: By Vignet et al.

438
00:25:36,510 --> 00:25:38,389
Speaker 4: So in this paper, the authors are actually looking at

439
00:25:38,410 --> 00:25:40,830
Speaker 4: a lot of different stuff. They're tracking what we know

440
00:25:40,890 --> 00:25:45,970
Speaker 4: about how the physical environment of Cyprus changed before, during,

441
00:25:46,050 --> 00:25:51,020
Speaker 4: and after its early colonization by humans. And they look at, quote,

442
00:26:03,430 --> 00:26:07,200
Speaker 4: birth and evolution of the commensal fauna, e.g. mice, cats,

443
00:26:07,380 --> 00:26:13,340
Speaker 4: and crows. And commensal fauna means things living alongside. Commensalism

444
00:26:13,420 --> 00:26:17,659
Speaker 4: in biology is typically, it's a type of symbiotic relationship

445
00:26:18,070 --> 00:26:20,670
Speaker 4: in which one organism gets a benefit and the other

446
00:26:20,750 --> 00:26:23,930
Speaker 4: is not really affected one way or another. And then

447
00:26:24,210 --> 00:26:27,950
Speaker 4: the list goes on. Local domestication of wild boar and goats,

448
00:26:28,570 --> 00:26:33,159
Speaker 4: adaptation and intensification of cultivation and breeding to the local environments.

449
00:26:34,100 --> 00:26:36,830
Speaker 4: So to zoom in specifically on the introduction of new

450
00:26:36,980 --> 00:26:41,650
Speaker 4: animal species, the authors write that the first introduction we

451
00:26:41,690 --> 00:26:45,690
Speaker 4: have evidence of is actually the wild boar, which was

452
00:26:45,750 --> 00:26:51,480
Speaker 4: established on the island during the Epipaleolithic, probably as hunting stock.

453
00:26:52,119 --> 00:26:56,920
Speaker 4: So the boar remains found on Cyprus show insular dwarfism,

454
00:26:57,020 --> 00:27:01,400
Speaker 4: meaning that they're about 15% smaller than the mainland variety.

455
00:27:01,970 --> 00:27:05,130
Speaker 4: And they were often wounded with arrowheads. So this would

456
00:27:05,170 --> 00:27:10,430
Speaker 4: be an interesting early case of intentional animal management or

457
00:27:10,510 --> 00:27:15,639
Speaker 4: game management. Bringing a live stock of a wild species

458
00:27:15,760 --> 00:27:19,200
Speaker 4: to an island to release so that it can establish

459
00:27:19,260 --> 00:27:22,520
Speaker 4: itself there and so you can hunt it on the island.

460
00:27:23,420 --> 00:27:25,820
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. This is fascinating to think about because I

461
00:27:25,840 --> 00:27:29,180
Speaker 1: know for my own part, I often think about this

462
00:27:29,260 --> 00:27:30,700
Speaker 1: more when I'm thinking about.

463
00:27:32,770 --> 00:27:36,909
Speaker 1: Europeans, you know, setting off during the Age of Discovery

464
00:27:37,030 --> 00:27:43,910
Speaker 1: and as well as the expansion, you know, of Polynesia

465
00:27:43,930 --> 00:27:48,909
Speaker 1: and Micronesia and so forth, seafaring folks coming to an

466
00:27:48,990 --> 00:27:52,030
Speaker 1: island and realizing, hey, nice island here, but there's nothing

467
00:27:52,070 --> 00:27:54,130
Speaker 1: to eat here. I better leave some pigs. I better

468
00:27:54,170 --> 00:27:56,450
Speaker 1: leave some goats. And then I can come back and

469
00:27:56,470 --> 00:27:59,689
Speaker 1: this island will be my larder. But, you know, clearly

470
00:27:59,730 --> 00:28:01,650
Speaker 1: this has been in the human playbook for a very

471
00:28:01,690 --> 00:28:02,170
Speaker 1: long time.

472
00:28:02,630 --> 00:28:02,890
Speaker 3: Right.

473
00:28:02,910 --> 00:28:05,270
Speaker 4: I mean, this is like thousands of years before I

474
00:28:05,330 --> 00:28:06,750
Speaker 4: imagined there was such a practice.

475
00:28:06,770 --> 00:28:07,450
Speaker 1: Yeah.

476
00:28:07,650 --> 00:28:10,669
Speaker 4: So seeding, yes, seeding an island with a new game

477
00:28:10,730 --> 00:28:14,389
Speaker 4: species that can be hunted for generations to come. But

478
00:28:14,410 --> 00:28:17,230
Speaker 4: then well after the introduction of the boar during the

479
00:28:17,630 --> 00:28:20,929
Speaker 4: 11th millennium before present, we get other mammals appearing. And

480
00:28:20,950 --> 00:28:25,300
Speaker 4: this includes domestic dogs brought from the Levant, the Western

481
00:28:25,359 --> 00:28:29,879
Speaker 4: European house mouse. And cats, this would be the African wildcat,

482
00:28:29,940 --> 00:28:33,560
Speaker 4: as we've been talking about. Now to clarify, there is

483
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:38,350
Speaker 4: no evidence that the wildcats brought along were initially treated

484
00:28:38,570 --> 00:28:43,010
Speaker 4: as companions or had any special significance to humans. That

485
00:28:43,070 --> 00:28:45,650
Speaker 4: evidence would start to appear more than a thousand years

486
00:28:45,730 --> 00:28:50,880
Speaker 4: later with that human-cat co-burial. So why were cats brought?

487
00:28:51,580 --> 00:28:54,500
Speaker 4: The authors here argue that it was likely that African

488
00:28:54,540 --> 00:28:59,650
Speaker 4: wildcats were brought to Cyprus in as an already semi-domesticated

489
00:28:59,750 --> 00:29:04,470
Speaker 4: commensal species that were valued for pest control. Because if

490
00:29:04,530 --> 00:29:08,280
Speaker 4: you are a farming society and you take foods, you

491
00:29:08,300 --> 00:29:11,600
Speaker 4: take grain or other food somewhere with you, it is

492
00:29:11,680 --> 00:29:14,959
Speaker 4: pretty much a guarantee that rodents are sneaking along for

493
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:17,860
Speaker 4: the ride or that there are already rodents where you're going.

494
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:20,940
Speaker 4: And either way, they're going to get into your food.

495
00:29:21,160 --> 00:29:25,780
Speaker 4: Rodent attacks on human food caches are just a perennial

496
00:29:25,820 --> 00:29:28,510
Speaker 4: problem for human cultures going back as far as we

497
00:29:28,530 --> 00:29:33,370
Speaker 4: have evidence. So if these cute, moody, little carnivorous critters,

498
00:29:33,410 --> 00:29:36,730
Speaker 4: these cats, already like to hang out around your villages

499
00:29:36,890 --> 00:29:40,260
Speaker 4: and kill the mice, it is definitely worth bringing some

500
00:29:40,300 --> 00:29:42,620
Speaker 4: of them along with you when you move to a

501
00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 4: new place across the sea. So these early cats were

502
00:29:46,480 --> 00:29:50,960
Speaker 4: probably intentionally brought to Cyprus for the purpose of pest control.

503
00:29:50,980 --> 00:29:55,130
Speaker 4: And then after this, well, around the same time, maybe

504
00:29:55,150 --> 00:29:56,890
Speaker 4: a few hundred years later, we start to see some

505
00:29:56,930 --> 00:30:00,090
Speaker 4: other things, goats and cattle being Goats seem to have

506
00:30:00,110 --> 00:30:03,630
Speaker 4: been treated not as domestic animals initially, but as wild

507
00:30:03,670 --> 00:30:06,070
Speaker 4: game stocks. So kind of like the boars like hunted

508
00:30:06,170 --> 00:30:09,530
Speaker 4: for some time, uh, wild on the Island before they

509
00:30:09,550 --> 00:30:13,420
Speaker 4: were either domesticated or re domesticated on the Island. They may,

510
00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:15,960
Speaker 4: they may have been domesticated earlier on the mainland and

511
00:30:15,980 --> 00:30:19,100
Speaker 4: then released wild on the Island. Um, but eventually they

512
00:30:19,140 --> 00:30:22,440
Speaker 4: get re domesticated or domesticated for the first time. Then

513
00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:25,990
Speaker 4: after this, we start to see more introductions. You get, um,

514
00:30:27,060 --> 00:30:30,440
Speaker 4: Fallow deer, again, brought and established as a wild population

515
00:30:30,500 --> 00:30:34,740
Speaker 4: and then hunted domestic sheep. And then, curiously, I thought

516
00:30:34,760 --> 00:30:37,080
Speaker 4: this was so interesting, foxes.

517
00:30:37,440 --> 00:30:38,740
Speaker 3: Foxes. Foxes.

518
00:30:38,980 --> 00:30:41,720
Speaker 4: Not native to the island of Cyprus. They were not

519
00:30:41,780 --> 00:30:44,240
Speaker 4: there on their own. They had to have been brought

520
00:30:44,600 --> 00:30:49,060
Speaker 4: by humans. It is hard to imagine foxes could establish

521
00:30:49,100 --> 00:30:53,100
Speaker 4: themselves by accident, like just stowing away in boats, right?

522
00:30:53,420 --> 00:30:54,850
Speaker 3: Again, you need... You need.

523
00:30:54,730 --> 00:30:58,470
Speaker 4: Multiple breeding pairs to have a stable population there. How

524
00:30:58,510 --> 00:31:03,170
Speaker 4: would you get enough foxes to the island? It's harder

525
00:31:03,210 --> 00:31:05,510
Speaker 4: for foxes to steal away than it is for mice,

526
00:31:05,590 --> 00:31:05,950
Speaker 4: I think.

527
00:31:06,850 --> 00:31:09,450
Speaker 1: And why bring them? Like, I don't know, this seems

528
00:31:09,610 --> 00:31:14,410
Speaker 1: along the lines of, say, intentionally introducing raccoons to the side.

529
00:31:14,430 --> 00:31:15,810
Speaker 3: To get into your trash cans.

530
00:31:15,930 --> 00:31:18,750
Speaker 1: Yeah, like, I mean, and I imagine folks living with

531
00:31:18,790 --> 00:31:22,110
Speaker 1: urban foxes probably see that as a more direct comparison. Yeah,

532
00:31:22,150 --> 00:31:23,970
Speaker 1: but like, why bring the foxes?

533
00:31:25,160 --> 00:31:27,590
Speaker 4: The authors say we don't know. We don't know why

534
00:31:27,630 --> 00:31:30,650
Speaker 4: they brought the foxes. Maybe this is just a guess.

535
00:31:30,690 --> 00:31:32,610
Speaker 4: So there's not a reason to think this. You're just

536
00:31:32,670 --> 00:31:35,850
Speaker 4: having to guess. Maybe foxes had some kind of cultural

537
00:31:35,930 --> 00:31:40,690
Speaker 4: or religious significance to the settlers, possibly. The physical evidence

538
00:31:40,770 --> 00:31:44,970
Speaker 4: indicates that foxes were not hunted and they were tolerated

539
00:31:45,100 --> 00:31:49,500
Speaker 4: as commensals in the early Cypriot villages. The authors say, quote,

540
00:31:49,700 --> 00:31:53,260
Speaker 4: this also strengthens the idea that early Neolithic people were

541
00:31:53,340 --> 00:31:57,230
Speaker 4: experimenting with with a lot of different systems of relationships

542
00:31:57,270 --> 00:32:00,969
Speaker 4: with animals. So just try it out.

543
00:32:01,170 --> 00:32:01,580
Speaker 3: Why not?

544
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:05,380
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, if you think about the idea of

545
00:32:05,460 --> 00:32:08,660
Speaker 1: bringing cats with you, and these cats are not necessarily

546
00:32:08,720 --> 00:32:11,800
Speaker 1: your friends, they just live in the same area, and

547
00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:15,370
Speaker 1: they eat something, they kill something that is useful to

548
00:32:15,410 --> 00:32:16,830
Speaker 1: you that they're killing them.

549
00:32:17,150 --> 00:32:18,209
Speaker 3: Enemy of my enemy, yeah.

550
00:32:18,230 --> 00:32:20,469
Speaker 1: Yeah, so maybe something similar with foxes. They're like, we

551
00:32:20,510 --> 00:32:24,420
Speaker 1: have seen the foxes eat mice or something that we

552
00:32:24,440 --> 00:32:27,740
Speaker 1: don't want around. They seem to have a meaningful purpose,

553
00:32:27,780 --> 00:32:28,740
Speaker 1: so let's just bring them along.

554
00:32:29,140 --> 00:32:32,680
Speaker 4: Yeah, I wonder, yeah, could foxes have possibly been thought

555
00:32:32,700 --> 00:32:35,220
Speaker 4: of as pest control? I don't know how plausible that is.

556
00:32:36,070 --> 00:32:38,450
Speaker 4: Somebody who has more experience with foxes, please write in

557
00:32:38,470 --> 00:32:41,690
Speaker 4: about that. Is that plausible that they were a complementary

558
00:32:41,770 --> 00:32:45,930
Speaker 4: pest control system, possibly? Once again, I want to make clear,

559
00:32:45,970 --> 00:32:47,190
Speaker 4: the authors don't say that.

560
00:32:47,470 --> 00:32:47,930
Speaker 3: We don't know.

561
00:32:47,950 --> 00:32:50,430
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it seems to me, anyway, that it, like,

562
00:32:50,780 --> 00:32:53,940
Speaker 1: The discovery that any of these introductions could backfire on

563
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:58,370
Speaker 1: us is a pretty recent revelation for human beings. So

564
00:32:59,690 --> 00:33:04,270
Speaker 1: maybe I'm wrong. Maybe earlier civilizations did realize that they

565
00:33:04,310 --> 00:33:07,990
Speaker 1: could blow it, introducing animals intentionally for one purpose, and

566
00:33:08,030 --> 00:33:12,600
Speaker 1: then it just doesn't work out. But either way, they

567
00:33:12,630 --> 00:33:14,480
Speaker 1: had to have some reason to bring them there. And

568
00:33:15,020 --> 00:33:17,000
Speaker 1: it's fascinating to try and guess what that could have been.

569
00:33:17,360 --> 00:33:18,740
Speaker 1: They just like the look of them, maybe.

570
00:33:18,760 --> 00:33:19,000
Speaker 3: Yeah.

571
00:33:20,280 --> 00:33:23,340
Speaker 4: Well, I would not dismiss the idea of people simply

572
00:33:23,460 --> 00:33:26,460
Speaker 4: liking the look of cats in the gradual evolution of

573
00:33:26,500 --> 00:33:29,120
Speaker 4: the cat from a working animal, you know, a commensal

574
00:33:29,180 --> 00:33:33,540
Speaker 4: tolerated because of their pest control capabilities into becoming a

575
00:33:33,580 --> 00:33:35,740
Speaker 4: companion animal that you would want to have sit in

576
00:33:35,760 --> 00:33:39,290
Speaker 4: your lap and pet and feed and have buried alongside you.

577
00:33:39,810 --> 00:33:42,470
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. And I imagine another thing you could factor

578
00:33:42,550 --> 00:33:45,990
Speaker 1: in is, as always, how cute do the pups look?

579
00:33:46,010 --> 00:33:47,790
Speaker 1: How cute do the kittens look?

580
00:33:47,830 --> 00:33:48,370
Speaker 3: And so forth.

581
00:33:48,860 --> 00:33:51,120
Speaker 1: I mean, that has been a major factor with dogs

582
00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:55,010
Speaker 1: and cats and various other animals. If they kind of

583
00:33:55,050 --> 00:33:58,710
Speaker 1: look like human babies, if they get that cute response

584
00:33:58,810 --> 00:34:02,750
Speaker 1: out of us, then that has a benefit to us,

585
00:34:02,910 --> 00:34:06,410
Speaker 1: but it also really benefits the animal that we're inevitably

586
00:34:06,450 --> 00:34:07,310
Speaker 1: trying to domesticate.

587
00:34:07,330 --> 00:34:08,150
Speaker 3: That's true.

588
00:34:08,530 --> 00:34:12,130
Speaker 1: Baby foxes are quite cute, I imagine. I'm not summoning

589
00:34:12,170 --> 00:34:14,549
Speaker 1: an image to my mind right off the bat, but

590
00:34:14,570 --> 00:34:16,430
Speaker 1: I'm just going to assume they're very cute to look at.

591
00:34:17,390 --> 00:34:18,719
Speaker 1: So maybe that's part of it.

592
00:34:19,560 --> 00:34:23,680
Speaker 4: But how this relationship evolved on Stone Age Cyprus, we

593
00:34:23,700 --> 00:34:24,060
Speaker 4: don't know.

594
00:34:24,340 --> 00:34:25,340
Speaker 3: We can only speculate.

595
00:34:35,630 --> 00:34:38,630
Speaker 4: But, Rob, you had some other stuff on Cats in

596
00:34:38,670 --> 00:34:40,469
Speaker 4: Cyprus from more recent history, right?

597
00:34:41,070 --> 00:34:41,930
Speaker 3: That's right.

598
00:34:42,670 --> 00:34:45,680
Speaker 1: There are are still domesticated cats on the Isle of Cyprus,

599
00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:47,919
Speaker 1: which should not come as a surprise to anyone because

600
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:49,739
Speaker 1: domesticated cats are everywhere now.

601
00:34:51,200 --> 00:34:52,260
Speaker 3: They're hard to shake loose.

602
00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:55,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Again, they're here to stay. I think this

603
00:34:55,180 --> 00:35:00,230
Speaker 1: is the last domestication of the African wildcat. And there's

604
00:35:00,270 --> 00:35:03,750
Speaker 1: apparently no known connection between all the cats you'll find

605
00:35:04,170 --> 00:35:08,950
Speaker 1: there on Cyprus today and the so-called ancient Cypriot wildcat

606
00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:13,719
Speaker 1: this initial wave of domestication that we see in the

607
00:35:13,780 --> 00:35:19,240
Speaker 1: archaeological record there. But the Cypress cat is a designated

608
00:35:19,350 --> 00:35:22,430
Speaker 1: domestic cat breed found on the island. Again, just a

609
00:35:22,710 --> 00:35:26,570
Speaker 1: breed of domestic cat, sometimes called the St. Helen cat

610
00:35:26,890 --> 00:35:29,990
Speaker 1: and sometimes called the St. Nicholas cat.

611
00:35:30,570 --> 00:35:32,800
Speaker 4: So if you hear those two things, they're the same animal.

612
00:35:33,280 --> 00:35:33,500
Speaker 2: Yes.

613
00:35:34,380 --> 00:35:37,440
Speaker 1: But I want to walk through the saintly connections here.

614
00:35:38,219 --> 00:35:42,070
Speaker 1: And in this, we're going to be dealing more with

615
00:35:42,200 --> 00:35:47,630
Speaker 1: a lot of legends and some fact, but certainly less science.

616
00:35:48,170 --> 00:35:52,610
Speaker 1: So let's discuss this St. Helen connection first. This refers

617
00:35:52,690 --> 00:35:56,550
Speaker 1: to Helena of Constantinople, who would have lived 246 or

618
00:35:56,550 --> 00:35:58,649
Speaker 1: 248 through 330 CE, mother of Constantine I. And she does, again,

619
00:35:58,710 --> 00:36:09,689
Speaker 1: an actual historic person here. who does, it does seem

620
00:36:09,730 --> 00:36:12,270
Speaker 1: like she may have spent some time in Cyprus, as

621
00:36:12,310 --> 00:36:16,009
Speaker 1: it was under her patronage. And the legend here is

622
00:36:16,090 --> 00:36:20,570
Speaker 1: that she imported hundreds of cats from Egypt or Persia

623
00:36:20,630 --> 00:36:23,319
Speaker 1: or Palestine. The exacts on this seem to vary. I've

624
00:36:23,340 --> 00:36:27,880
Speaker 1: seen various sources that point to different places. But somewhere

625
00:36:27,900 --> 00:36:31,719
Speaker 1: that had cats, she, according to this legend, shipped them in,

626
00:36:32,320 --> 00:36:34,899
Speaker 1: like a thousand or so. And this would have been

627
00:36:34,920 --> 00:36:38,439
Speaker 1: in the 4th century CE. And the purpose of was

628
00:36:38,540 --> 00:36:42,900
Speaker 1: to rid the monastery there, which she founded, of snakes.

629
00:36:44,500 --> 00:36:47,540
Speaker 4: There are a lot of legends about the travels and

630
00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:49,459
Speaker 4: pilgrimages of St.

631
00:36:49,500 --> 00:36:49,800
Speaker 3: Helen.

632
00:36:49,840 --> 00:36:51,900
Speaker 4: I know it said also that didn't she make a

633
00:36:51,940 --> 00:36:53,700
Speaker 4: journey to find the true cross?

634
00:36:54,219 --> 00:36:56,340
Speaker 3: Well, there was a lot of that going on. Yes.

635
00:36:57,360 --> 00:36:59,240
Speaker 3: She was at least one of the people who found

636
00:36:59,280 --> 00:37:00,299
Speaker 3: the true cross. Yeah.

637
00:37:00,340 --> 00:37:03,489
Speaker 1: So take all of these legends with at least a

638
00:37:03,510 --> 00:37:06,350
Speaker 1: grain of salt, you know, especially when we're dealing with

639
00:37:06,390 --> 00:37:09,180
Speaker 1: saints from this era, like This is where you can

640
00:37:09,239 --> 00:37:11,540
Speaker 1: potentially run into the problem of, like, this person has,

641
00:37:11,840 --> 00:37:14,739
Speaker 1: there are too many relics out there. There are more

642
00:37:14,820 --> 00:37:18,220
Speaker 1: relics than she had bones. Not specifically in this case,

643
00:37:18,260 --> 00:37:20,850
Speaker 1: but that sort of thing can sometimes occur. There's a

644
00:37:20,890 --> 00:37:24,730
Speaker 1: lot of legends that build up around these individuals, even

645
00:37:24,770 --> 00:37:27,290
Speaker 1: though at the core we're dealing with an actual human

646
00:37:27,330 --> 00:37:32,670
Speaker 1: being who existed. So, snakes. Yes, Cyprus is home to

647
00:37:32,750 --> 00:37:37,390
Speaker 1: numerous snake species, venomous and non-venomous. There's one that's actually

648
00:37:37,430 --> 00:37:40,450
Speaker 1: called the cat snake. And there's a there's one called

649
00:37:40,489 --> 00:37:44,040
Speaker 1: the Cyprus whip snake. And this one is endemic to Cyprus.

650
00:37:44,900 --> 00:37:47,920
Speaker 1: But this is the legend that the the monastery had

651
00:37:47,940 --> 00:37:51,509
Speaker 1: a snake problem. And so St. Helena brings in a

652
00:37:51,530 --> 00:37:55,489
Speaker 1: bunch of cats or has cats brought in, according to

653
00:37:55,510 --> 00:37:56,110
Speaker 1: the slate.

654
00:37:57,310 --> 00:37:59,600
Speaker 4: I was just picturing her trying to bring them all herself.

655
00:37:59,860 --> 00:38:00,580
Speaker 3: Oh, God, yes.

656
00:38:00,820 --> 00:38:03,800
Speaker 1: I mean, trying to bring one would be a task.

657
00:38:04,120 --> 00:38:05,980
Speaker 1: I don't even want to imagine the effort. It's like

658
00:38:06,080 --> 00:38:09,339
Speaker 1: load up the ship with a thousand cats. That's going

659
00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:11,200
Speaker 1: to be a pretty gross ship by the time you

660
00:38:11,219 --> 00:38:14,489
Speaker 1: get over. But according to the Slade article, the Holy

661
00:38:14,530 --> 00:38:17,570
Speaker 1: Monastery of St. Nicholas of the Cats solved a snake

662
00:38:17,610 --> 00:38:22,049
Speaker 1: problem with felines. This is by Eric Grundhauser. I also

663
00:38:22,090 --> 00:38:25,719
Speaker 1: looked at the website of the author, Charlotte Riggle, charloteriggle.com.

664
00:38:26,700 --> 00:38:29,500
Speaker 1: She has some materials on this. And basically, legend has

665
00:38:29,560 --> 00:38:32,080
Speaker 1: it that Cyprus was in the midst of an epic

666
00:38:32,120 --> 00:38:35,020
Speaker 1: drought at the time. I've seen it, given an account

667
00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:38,760
Speaker 1: of like 37 years of drought. And it's just driving

668
00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:44,580
Speaker 1: the snakes indoors in search of water. And mainly, it's

669
00:38:44,640 --> 00:38:47,140
Speaker 1: running them into the monastery. So they're trying to do

670
00:38:47,180 --> 00:38:49,040
Speaker 1: the Lord's work in there, but there are just too

671
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:52,000
Speaker 1: many snakes. Somebody's got to do something about these snakes.

672
00:38:52,600 --> 00:38:55,299
Speaker 4: Sounds like the sub to a... I don't know, ancient

673
00:38:55,360 --> 00:38:58,279
Speaker 4: snakes on a plane prequel? Snakes in a monastery?

674
00:38:58,560 --> 00:39:02,780
Speaker 1: Essentially, the legend makes it sound like that level of infestation.

675
00:39:02,860 --> 00:39:05,700
Speaker 1: Like it's just completely out of control and it's driving

676
00:39:05,739 --> 00:39:08,450
Speaker 1: people off the island. Like people are leaving Cyprus because

677
00:39:08,469 --> 00:39:09,570
Speaker 1: there are just too many snakes.

678
00:39:09,950 --> 00:39:14,250
Speaker 3: Popping out of the holy water basin. Yeah. Dangling from

679
00:39:14,270 --> 00:39:14,770
Speaker 3: the ceiling.

680
00:39:15,610 --> 00:39:18,830
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this led me to... to wonder a little bit, like,

681
00:39:18,910 --> 00:39:22,330
Speaker 1: is this at all reasonable? Like, is this just purely legendary?

682
00:39:22,450 --> 00:39:26,090
Speaker 1: Is it possible that snakes would get this out of control?

683
00:39:26,110 --> 00:39:30,319
Speaker 1: I mean, one potentially, one way to think about this

684
00:39:30,400 --> 00:39:32,060
Speaker 1: is that we should mention that this is not the

685
00:39:32,180 --> 00:39:36,450
Speaker 1: only tidbit from the ancient world about snake infestations getting

686
00:39:36,489 --> 00:39:42,410
Speaker 1: out of control or particular problem snakes interfering with the

687
00:39:42,450 --> 00:39:46,560
Speaker 1: machinations of various rulers. There are various accounts of plagues

688
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:51,180
Speaker 1: of serpents, of course, descriptions of foreign lands and enemy

689
00:39:51,239 --> 00:39:55,400
Speaker 1: battlefields that are infested with snakes and other undesired creatures.

690
00:39:55,860 --> 00:39:57,700
Speaker 1: And of course, a lot of that you can think

691
00:39:57,739 --> 00:40:02,200
Speaker 1: about from various angles, like how do you want to

692
00:40:02,239 --> 00:40:04,880
Speaker 1: insult the land of foreigners? You can just say, oh,

693
00:40:04,930 --> 00:40:07,290
Speaker 1: it's just nothing but snakes and scorpions everywhere.

694
00:40:07,650 --> 00:40:08,750
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.

695
00:40:08,810 --> 00:40:12,790
Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot of these, they just sound like obvious exaggeration.

696
00:40:12,810 --> 00:40:17,170
Speaker 4: Though then again, I don't want to say it provides

697
00:40:17,300 --> 00:40:20,180
Speaker 4: any evidence that this particular story is true, but we

698
00:40:20,219 --> 00:40:23,740
Speaker 4: have talked on the show before about great gatherings of snakes,

699
00:40:23,780 --> 00:40:26,360
Speaker 4: like at the, uh, the Narcissus, uh, how do we

700
00:40:26,380 --> 00:40:29,700
Speaker 4: pronounce it? The Narcissa or Narcissus snake dens in Canada.

701
00:40:30,140 --> 00:40:30,379
Speaker 3: Yeah.

702
00:40:30,780 --> 00:40:32,819
Speaker 4: Once again, to be clear, I'm not saying like, oh,

703
00:40:32,860 --> 00:40:35,620
Speaker 4: that's what's happening here. And therefore the story is true,

704
00:40:35,739 --> 00:40:38,340
Speaker 4: but snakes can gather in massive numbers.

705
00:40:38,820 --> 00:40:40,899
Speaker 1: I mean, anyone who's ever been around snakes, you know

706
00:40:40,940 --> 00:40:45,480
Speaker 1: that yes, snakes do enter into human areas, right? And

707
00:40:45,640 --> 00:40:50,980
Speaker 1: when they do, given the place that snakes hold in

708
00:40:51,040 --> 00:40:54,740
Speaker 1: our minds, you know, the threat that snakes can pose

709
00:40:54,780 --> 00:40:58,910
Speaker 1: to us, the fact that we are often frightened by snakes,

710
00:40:59,230 --> 00:41:01,649
Speaker 1: and also all of the layers of meaning that we

711
00:41:01,969 --> 00:41:05,230
Speaker 1: attribute to snakes, all of this makes it meaningful when

712
00:41:05,250 --> 00:41:07,400
Speaker 1: a snake is where we don't think a snake should be.

713
00:41:07,680 --> 00:41:10,860
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. This is magic. This is a curse.

714
00:41:11,180 --> 00:41:11,339
Speaker 2: Yeah.

715
00:41:13,300 --> 00:41:17,339
Speaker 1: I was looking around for other examples. It honestly gets

716
00:41:17,380 --> 00:41:22,960
Speaker 1: a little confusing at times looking for even legendary histories

717
00:41:23,020 --> 00:41:27,719
Speaker 1: that are referring to snake infestations. One reason I found

718
00:41:27,780 --> 00:41:31,480
Speaker 1: is that there are certain works of Mormon apologetics out

719
00:41:31,520 --> 00:41:36,170
Speaker 1: there that talk about some of this. There is apparently

720
00:41:36,410 --> 00:41:39,070
Speaker 1: an incident in the Book of Mormon that involves a

721
00:41:39,110 --> 00:41:43,219
Speaker 1: serpent infestation, and so Some, at least some of these

722
00:41:43,260 --> 00:41:46,339
Speaker 1: works of apologetics, like attempt to back this up with

723
00:41:46,660 --> 00:41:50,260
Speaker 1: other examples from ancient history. As with any work of apologetics,

724
00:41:50,300 --> 00:41:51,500
Speaker 1: we often have to take that with a grain of

725
00:41:51,540 --> 00:41:54,839
Speaker 1: salt because obviously, you know, it's an attempt to back

726
00:41:54,900 --> 00:41:57,880
Speaker 1: up certain ideas with an interpretation of reality.

727
00:41:58,140 --> 00:41:58,319
Speaker 2: Yeah.

728
00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:01,500
Speaker 4: Religious apologetics being one of the most straightforward forms of

729
00:42:01,560 --> 00:42:02,540
Speaker 4: motivated reasoning.

730
00:42:02,760 --> 00:42:02,960
Speaker 2: Yeah.

731
00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:05,000
Speaker 3: But not without value as literature.

732
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:07,950
Speaker 4: I mean, it can still point you to these real examples,

733
00:42:08,050 --> 00:42:10,640
Speaker 4: but it doesn't necessarily prove that you know, the story

734
00:42:10,680 --> 00:42:12,050
Speaker 4: they're using it as evidence for.

735
00:42:12,530 --> 00:42:15,210
Speaker 1: Now, this one doesn't involve a bunch of snakes. It

736
00:42:15,270 --> 00:42:21,350
Speaker 1: just involves one giant snake. But it involves the adventures

737
00:42:21,390 --> 00:42:26,609
Speaker 1: of Roman General Marcus Attilius Regulus during the First Punic War.

738
00:42:27,969 --> 00:42:30,830
Speaker 1: His troops are said to have encountered a giant snake,

739
00:42:31,330 --> 00:42:33,390
Speaker 1: and it just became like a whole battle, like essentially

740
00:42:33,430 --> 00:42:34,170
Speaker 1: a kaiju battle.

741
00:42:35,489 --> 00:42:37,930
Speaker 3: Wait, where are you saying? On Cyprus?

742
00:42:37,950 --> 00:42:40,029
Speaker 1: No, no, this is elsewhere in the ancient world.

743
00:42:40,050 --> 00:42:40,810
Speaker 3: Oh, okay, sorry, sorry.

744
00:42:40,870 --> 00:42:44,750
Speaker 1: This was not on Cyprus, but just an example of

745
00:42:45,070 --> 00:42:47,980
Speaker 1: a snake showing up in another legend about, again, another

746
00:42:48,040 --> 00:42:52,120
Speaker 1: historic individual. Though in this case, it is not mentioned

747
00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:55,680
Speaker 1: in the primary histories. For instance, it's not in the

748
00:42:55,719 --> 00:42:59,530
Speaker 1: writings of Polybius about the Punic Wars. It's in sort

749
00:42:59,550 --> 00:43:01,850
Speaker 1: of secondary sources, and it's thought to just generally be

750
00:43:01,969 --> 00:43:04,430
Speaker 1: a legend, a tall tale about how great this guy was.

751
00:43:05,130 --> 00:43:05,330
Speaker 3: I see.

752
00:43:05,890 --> 00:43:10,850
Speaker 1: Now, elsewhere in legends and tall tales about holy places

753
00:43:10,910 --> 00:43:13,819
Speaker 1: infested by snakes, there are a couple of stories that

754
00:43:13,840 --> 00:43:15,520
Speaker 1: popped up. And I realize, yes, we're getting a little

755
00:43:15,719 --> 00:43:19,799
Speaker 1: far away from cats here. But these were too fascinating

756
00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:23,219
Speaker 1: to not cover on the show. So from the 7th

757
00:43:23,280 --> 00:43:26,680
Speaker 1: century CE, there is the story of St. Hilda's Abbey.

758
00:43:27,340 --> 00:43:31,299
Speaker 1: This is in Yorkshire, in Britain. This is also the

759
00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:34,520
Speaker 1: area where Count Dracula moves to, in Bram Stoker's Dracula,

760
00:43:34,540 --> 00:43:34,840
Speaker 1: by the way.

761
00:43:35,600 --> 00:43:36,400
Speaker 3: Oh, interesting.

762
00:43:36,440 --> 00:43:38,259
Speaker 4: Did I forget about, in the novel, does he not

763
00:43:38,340 --> 00:43:41,060
Speaker 4: actually come directly to London? He goes somewhere up in

764
00:43:41,080 --> 00:43:41,500
Speaker 4: the north?

765
00:43:42,300 --> 00:43:46,880
Speaker 1: I believe so. Now, I haven't actually read Dracula in

766
00:43:46,900 --> 00:43:51,620
Speaker 1: a number of years. I've mostly been watching various cinematic

767
00:43:51,660 --> 00:43:54,240
Speaker 1: adaptations that drift pretty far from the source at times.

768
00:43:55,080 --> 00:43:56,739
Speaker 1: But there does seem to be a Dracula connection here,

769
00:43:56,760 --> 00:44:00,020
Speaker 1: very loosely, but I'm going to mention it. So the

770
00:44:00,100 --> 00:44:03,140
Speaker 1: idea here is that St. Hilda's Abbey was infested by

771
00:44:03,260 --> 00:44:07,299
Speaker 1: snakes until Hilda of Whitby, Turn them to stone with,

772
00:44:07,640 --> 00:44:11,600
Speaker 1: I guess, holy magic. And there's actually a science tie-in

773
00:44:11,620 --> 00:44:15,040
Speaker 1: to this legend, though, as it seems to be a

774
00:44:15,060 --> 00:44:18,880
Speaker 1: strong case for geomythology here. in order to explain the

775
00:44:18,920 --> 00:44:23,299
Speaker 1: presence of fossilized ammonites in the area. Now, you can

776
00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:26,560
Speaker 1: look up images of ammonites here if you're not instantly

777
00:44:26,640 --> 00:44:28,930
Speaker 1: recognizing them. But once you see them, you go like, oh, yes, that.

778
00:44:29,010 --> 00:44:32,410
Speaker 1: I've seen that fossil many times. You know, it essentially

779
00:44:32,450 --> 00:44:35,069
Speaker 1: has the look. It does look like something curled up.

780
00:44:35,170 --> 00:44:37,310
Speaker 1: It can easily be mistaken for a curled up serpent

781
00:44:37,350 --> 00:44:40,730
Speaker 1: or a curled up centipede or something that has been fossilized.

782
00:44:41,160 --> 00:44:43,750
Speaker 4: Yeah, ammonites were cephalopods that lived in the sea that

783
00:44:43,790 --> 00:44:48,530
Speaker 4: went extinct, the KPG extinction, along with the non-avian dinosaurs.

784
00:44:49,170 --> 00:44:52,390
Speaker 4: But yeah, the fossils will be basically a spiral shell

785
00:44:52,450 --> 00:44:55,509
Speaker 4: because they had a spiral shell shape, kind of like

786
00:44:55,590 --> 00:44:58,890
Speaker 4: nautiluses today. But from what I understand, they're more closely

787
00:44:58,950 --> 00:45:02,089
Speaker 4: related to some other species than the nautiluses, but look

788
00:45:02,150 --> 00:45:05,810
Speaker 4: superficially similar. And yeah, and you can still find lots

789
00:45:05,870 --> 00:45:09,990
Speaker 4: of fossils of these shells. I remember coming across... ammonite

790
00:45:10,050 --> 00:45:12,110
Speaker 4: fossils and reading about the discovery of a lot of

791
00:45:12,130 --> 00:45:15,360
Speaker 4: ammonite fossils on the Jurassic Coast in England when I

792
00:45:15,390 --> 00:45:15,779
Speaker 4: was there.

793
00:45:15,800 --> 00:45:16,660
Speaker 3: Yeah.

794
00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:19,780
Speaker 1: So you can imagine folks running across these and thinking,

795
00:45:19,820 --> 00:45:21,980
Speaker 1: these look like snakes that have been turned to stone.

796
00:45:22,880 --> 00:45:26,470
Speaker 1: And then to add an extra layer here, and kind

797
00:45:26,489 --> 00:45:29,690
Speaker 1: of getting back to apologetics to a certain extent, you

798
00:45:29,710 --> 00:45:34,790
Speaker 1: have examples where these ammonites have then been carved, a

799
00:45:34,850 --> 00:45:37,360
Speaker 1: little serpent's head. or something that's supposed to be a

800
00:45:37,390 --> 00:45:41,570
Speaker 1: serpent's head, has been carved at the very end of

801
00:45:42,310 --> 00:45:44,630
Speaker 1: the creature to make it look like it is a snake.

802
00:45:44,670 --> 00:45:47,250
Speaker 1: And you can look images up of this online as well.

803
00:45:47,930 --> 00:45:49,609
Speaker 1: The one I found here I shared with you, Joe,

804
00:45:49,670 --> 00:45:54,610
Speaker 1: looks so much like the sandworms from Beetlejuice. But except friendlier.

805
00:45:54,650 --> 00:45:59,330
Speaker 1: It doesn't have sharp teeth. It's going, hi, hello. Yeah,

806
00:45:59,350 --> 00:46:01,550
Speaker 1: he doesn't look as fearsome. He looks a little duck-like.

807
00:46:01,910 --> 00:46:02,910
Speaker 3: I'm just a little snake.

808
00:46:13,520 --> 00:46:15,719
Speaker 1: Now, there's another legend I ran across. This is the

809
00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:21,219
Speaker 1: legend of the monastery of Langovarda in Greece, located on

810
00:46:21,239 --> 00:46:25,270
Speaker 1: the island of Cephalonia, in which the snakes are said

811
00:46:25,310 --> 00:46:30,470
Speaker 1: to have actually defended the monastery against pirates in, I believe, 1705.

812
00:46:30,469 --> 00:46:32,489
Speaker 3: That's my kind of story. I like that.

813
00:46:33,660 --> 00:46:37,160
Speaker 4: I like a trap for intruders that involves animals, like

814
00:46:37,200 --> 00:46:39,529
Speaker 4: a pit, a moat with piranhas in it, a pit

815
00:46:39,550 --> 00:46:41,190
Speaker 4: full of snakes, something like that.

816
00:46:41,590 --> 00:46:42,049
Speaker 1: Crab pit?

817
00:46:42,410 --> 00:46:44,210
Speaker 3: Crab pit. That'd be really good.

818
00:46:45,010 --> 00:46:48,690
Speaker 1: Well, in this case, it was snakes protecting nuns that

819
00:46:48,730 --> 00:46:52,500
Speaker 1: were living there at the time. And then afterwards, these

820
00:46:52,980 --> 00:46:57,380
Speaker 1: snakes find Christ. They become holy snakes. Sometimes said to

821
00:46:57,420 --> 00:47:00,200
Speaker 1: have crosses on their heads. And then they show up.

822
00:47:00,610 --> 00:47:02,770
Speaker 1: At the monastery, it said in the days leading up

823
00:47:02,870 --> 00:47:05,610
Speaker 1: to August 15th, the Feast of the Dormition of the

824
00:47:05,670 --> 00:47:10,470
Speaker 1: Virgin Mary. So essentially right now, this place is sometimes

825
00:47:10,530 --> 00:47:14,390
Speaker 1: called the Monastery of the Virgin Mary of the Snakes.

826
00:47:15,830 --> 00:47:17,850
Speaker 1: You can look up pictures of these snakes, too. I

827
00:47:17,870 --> 00:47:20,430
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm not seeing the cross on their foreheads

828
00:47:20,489 --> 00:47:24,690
Speaker 1: so much. But, you know, this is more of an

829
00:47:24,750 --> 00:47:28,230
Speaker 1: article of faith rather than a matter of herpetology.

830
00:47:28,820 --> 00:47:31,069
Speaker 4: Okay, well, I have really enjoyed this snake hunt, but

831
00:47:31,130 --> 00:47:35,009
Speaker 4: does this inform our attempt to answer the question, is

832
00:47:35,050 --> 00:47:38,190
Speaker 4: there any historical truth to the idea of St. Helena

833
00:47:38,270 --> 00:47:42,690
Speaker 4: bringing a bunch of snakes to the monastery in Cyprus? Sorry,

834
00:47:42,790 --> 00:47:45,650
Speaker 4: not snakes, bringing cats to the monastery to get rid

835
00:47:45,670 --> 00:47:46,250
Speaker 4: of the snakes.

836
00:47:46,650 --> 00:47:49,450
Speaker 1: I don't know that it actually provides us with additional answers,

837
00:47:50,350 --> 00:47:52,299
Speaker 1: but I guess I'll just come back to it. When

838
00:47:52,320 --> 00:47:55,460
Speaker 1: you're dealing with snakes, a snake is just such a

839
00:47:55,860 --> 00:47:58,260
Speaker 1: loaded creature. We have so many thoughts about the snakes,

840
00:47:58,320 --> 00:48:00,969
Speaker 1: so many layers of meaning with the snake. And so

841
00:48:01,989 --> 00:48:05,690
Speaker 1: the legends just pile up. But yeah, there are other

842
00:48:05,730 --> 00:48:09,180
Speaker 1: accounts of snake infestations being a thing. And, you know,

843
00:48:09,440 --> 00:48:13,940
Speaker 1: we do see examples of, there are places in the

844
00:48:13,960 --> 00:48:15,859
Speaker 1: world where snakes do become a problem, especially when you're dealing,

845
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:18,779
Speaker 1: I mean, mainly when you're dealing with venomous snakes. Because

846
00:48:18,820 --> 00:48:22,810
Speaker 1: a non-venomous snake is essentially going to do as good,

847
00:48:22,850 --> 00:48:25,469
Speaker 1: if not more good, than having a cat around. I mean,

848
00:48:25,489 --> 00:48:28,270
Speaker 1: it's not as, maybe not as, to many people's eye,

849
00:48:28,350 --> 00:48:30,580
Speaker 1: not as as friendly.

850
00:48:30,840 --> 00:48:31,320
Speaker 3: Cuddly.

851
00:48:31,680 --> 00:48:35,299
Speaker 1: Maybe not as cuddly, though. Listeners who keep snakes, you

852
00:48:35,360 --> 00:48:39,969
Speaker 1: will say, no, this particular snake is cuddly. And you

853
00:48:40,150 --> 00:48:42,009
Speaker 1: have a strong case to make there as well.

854
00:48:42,410 --> 00:48:45,210
Speaker 4: I want to hear from listeners who have cats and snakes.

855
00:48:45,310 --> 00:48:46,310
Speaker 4: Which one is cuddlier?

856
00:48:48,050 --> 00:48:48,969
Speaker 3: Well, wait a minute. Hold on.

857
00:48:49,489 --> 00:48:54,180
Speaker 4: There's a mystery here. So that explains why the cats

858
00:48:54,239 --> 00:48:57,899
Speaker 4: of Cyprus would be called St. Helen's cats or St.

859
00:48:57,940 --> 00:49:00,200
Speaker 3: Helena cats. But wasn't there another name for them? St.

860
00:49:00,260 --> 00:49:01,420
Speaker 3: Nicholas cats or something?

861
00:49:01,680 --> 00:49:05,400
Speaker 1: Right. And you might be thinking, well, this couldn't possibly

862
00:49:05,440 --> 00:49:09,300
Speaker 1: be Santa Claus, right? But you'd apparently be wrong, because

863
00:49:09,760 --> 00:49:11,969
Speaker 1: as far as I can tell, this is supposed to

864
00:49:12,030 --> 00:49:14,850
Speaker 1: be the St. Nicholas who then went on to Mira

865
00:49:15,450 --> 00:49:18,779
Speaker 1: and through the accumulation of legend and holiday tradition becomes

866
00:49:18,840 --> 00:49:23,140
Speaker 1: the figure of Santa Claus. According to the aforementioned sources,

867
00:49:23,239 --> 00:49:26,640
Speaker 1: as well as the Virginia Theological Seminary St. Nicholas Center,

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00:49:28,020 --> 00:49:32,529
Speaker 1: this was supposedly where the future St. Nicholas was at

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00:49:32,570 --> 00:49:36,780
Speaker 1: the time. He was there at this monastery, potentially ringing

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00:49:36,820 --> 00:49:39,250
Speaker 1: the bell for the cats to come and eat the snakes.

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00:49:39,489 --> 00:49:43,649
Speaker 3: Whoa. Yet another crazy St. Nicholas story.

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00:49:43,670 --> 00:49:47,210
Speaker 4: Do you know the one about how he resurrected the

873
00:49:47,290 --> 00:49:51,009
Speaker 4: three boys who had been chopped up and pickled and

874
00:49:51,050 --> 00:49:52,470
Speaker 4: cooked in a pot or something?

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00:49:52,550 --> 00:49:54,690
Speaker 1: Ooh, I'd forgotten about it. But yeah, I think that

876
00:49:54,890 --> 00:50:00,120
Speaker 1: does ring a bell. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the legends of St.

877
00:50:00,160 --> 00:50:03,080
Speaker 1: Nicholas get pretty fascinating.

878
00:50:03,530 --> 00:50:04,770
Speaker 3: Gets you in the Christmas spirit.

879
00:50:06,969 --> 00:50:11,270
Speaker 1: So the monastery here, the monastery of, the Holy Monastery

880
00:50:11,290 --> 00:50:14,910
Speaker 1: of St. Nicholas of the Cats is still around. It

881
00:50:14,969 --> 00:50:18,930
Speaker 1: became known for taking in stray cats. The local fishermen would,

882
00:50:19,250 --> 00:50:21,779
Speaker 1: for a while, reportedly donate their entire catch to the

883
00:50:21,820 --> 00:50:23,700
Speaker 1: cats on the feast day of St.

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00:50:23,739 --> 00:50:24,080
Speaker 3: Nicholas.

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00:50:24,940 --> 00:50:29,660
Speaker 1: And, you know, a lot has happened of over the

886
00:50:29,700 --> 00:50:32,960
Speaker 1: course of its existence, but apparently it's still around today

887
00:50:33,140 --> 00:50:37,470
Speaker 1: as an active monastery and an active cat sanctuary. You

888
00:50:37,510 --> 00:50:39,930
Speaker 1: see people visiting it and taking photos, and there indeed

889
00:50:39,969 --> 00:50:43,010
Speaker 1: are a lot of cats. Arguably, maybe too many cats,

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00:50:43,110 --> 00:50:45,489
Speaker 1: but this is a place where they're allowed to do

891
00:50:45,530 --> 00:50:45,930
Speaker 1: their thing.

892
00:50:46,350 --> 00:50:49,430
Speaker 3: Nonsense. It's beautiful. Cat heaven monastery.

893
00:50:50,070 --> 00:50:52,670
Speaker 1: So Cyprus. So if you are a cat fancier and

894
00:50:52,690 --> 00:50:56,790
Speaker 1: you're trying to plan your next cat-based vacation, maybe Cyprus

895
00:50:56,850 --> 00:50:57,610
Speaker 1: is your destination.

896
00:50:58,410 --> 00:51:00,610
Speaker 4: By the way, I looked up the Cypress cat breed.

897
00:51:00,670 --> 00:51:02,730
Speaker 4: In my opinion, certified cute.

898
00:51:04,270 --> 00:51:06,010
Speaker 1: Well, which cats are not cute, really?

899
00:51:06,610 --> 00:51:07,359
Speaker 3: I guess that's true.

900
00:51:07,860 --> 00:51:10,420
Speaker 1: I mean, I know we'll get some answers from some

901
00:51:10,440 --> 00:51:13,040
Speaker 1: of my listeners out there, but it's all subjective.

902
00:51:13,560 --> 00:51:16,759
Speaker 3: It's got fur. It's got big ears. What more could

903
00:51:16,780 --> 00:51:17,120
Speaker 3: you want?

904
00:51:18,140 --> 00:51:20,060
Speaker 4: Well, Rob, should we wrap this up before the King

905
00:51:20,080 --> 00:51:21,300
Speaker 4: of Cats comes a-knockin'?

906
00:51:21,800 --> 00:51:23,299
Speaker 1: Yes, I think we should. This will be the end

907
00:51:23,340 --> 00:51:25,540
Speaker 1: of our second core episode of Stuff to Blow Your

908
00:51:25,560 --> 00:51:28,469
Speaker 1: Mind here for Cat Week. But we have one more episode.

909
00:51:28,830 --> 00:51:32,279
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema tomorrow will also be cat based. And,

910
00:51:32,300 --> 00:51:35,719
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't expect it to be this way,

911
00:51:35,760 --> 00:51:37,719
Speaker 1: but I feel like the movie we're going to be

912
00:51:37,739 --> 00:51:40,700
Speaker 1: talking about really lines up with a lot of the

913
00:51:41,840 --> 00:51:45,370
Speaker 1: actual serious cat information we've been discussing in the core

914
00:51:45,410 --> 00:51:48,330
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. I think the

915
00:51:48,350 --> 00:51:49,229
Speaker 1: king of cats would approve.

916
00:51:49,250 --> 00:51:49,310
Speaker 2: OK.

917
00:51:50,739 --> 00:51:52,900
Speaker 1: So tune in for that if you're interested. It is

918
00:51:52,940 --> 00:51:55,520
Speaker 1: a title that has also been suggested over the years

919
00:51:55,920 --> 00:51:58,880
Speaker 1: by Weird House Cinema listeners. You are invited.

920
00:51:59,860 --> 00:52:01,879
Speaker 3: Tune in if you don't want your Hassan to rip

921
00:52:01,940 --> 00:52:04,680
Speaker 3: you to shreds. Exactly. All right.

922
00:52:04,700 --> 00:52:06,239
Speaker 1: Just a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

923
00:52:06,280 --> 00:52:09,009
Speaker 1: primarily a science and culture podcast with core episodes on

924
00:52:09,050 --> 00:52:11,569
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursdays. But on Fridays, we set aside most

925
00:52:11,610 --> 00:52:13,690
Speaker 1: serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on

926
00:52:13,730 --> 00:52:17,330
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema. If you want to follow us online

927
00:52:17,350 --> 00:52:20,480
Speaker 1: at We're on several of the main social media platforms.

928
00:52:20,520 --> 00:52:23,060
Speaker 1: Whichever one you use, look us up. You'll probably find

929
00:52:23,120 --> 00:52:26,180
Speaker 1: us there. You can follow Weird House Cinema on Letterboxd.

930
00:52:26,880 --> 00:52:31,770
Speaker 1: We are weirdhouse there. And on Instagram, our newer Instagram

931
00:52:31,810 --> 00:52:36,050
Speaker 1: account is sdbympodcast. We had an older one, had more followers.

932
00:52:36,070 --> 00:52:40,670
Speaker 1: It met a tragic end. But we have the newer one,

933
00:52:41,210 --> 00:52:44,379
Speaker 1: which we actually can log into. And so if you

934
00:52:44,840 --> 00:52:47,370
Speaker 1: do still use the Instagrams and you wish to follow us,

935
00:52:47,690 --> 00:52:49,410
Speaker 1: do so. It's another way you can keep up with

936
00:52:49,469 --> 00:52:52,230
Speaker 1: what sort of content we're covering and what kind of

937
00:52:52,270 --> 00:52:53,780
Speaker 1: content we're planning to cover in the future.

938
00:52:54,180 --> 00:52:57,920
Speaker 3: Huge thanks, as always, to our excellent audio producer, J.J. Posway.

939
00:52:58,320 --> 00:52:59,810
Speaker 4: If you would like to get in touch with us

940
00:52:59,870 --> 00:53:02,390
Speaker 4: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

941
00:53:02,450 --> 00:53:04,510
Speaker 4: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

942
00:53:04,570 --> 00:53:08,290
Speaker 4: you can email us at contact at stufftoblowyourmind.com.

943
00:53:16,580 --> 00:53:19,020
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio.

944
00:53:19,380 --> 00:53:22,719
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple

945
00:53:22,739 --> 00:53:25,080
Speaker 2: Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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00:53:31,489 --> 00:53:31,710
Speaker 4: Thank you.