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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and

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Speaker 1: this is the Artifact, a short form series from Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind, focusing in on particular objects, ideas,

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Speaker 1: and moments in time. As we discussed in our recent

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Speaker 1: episodes on brain and head theft, many ancient peoples found

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Speaker 1: supernatural significance in the human head. Myths and legends told

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Speaker 1: of heads that still retained life and could perhaps be

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Speaker 1: used as instruments of communication with realms beyond one. Such

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Speaker 1: people were the ancient Celts, an early Indo European people

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Speaker 1: who spread over much of Europe between the second millennium

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Speaker 1: BC and the first century BC. Their ideas concerning the

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Speaker 1: human head were long interpreted as a quote cult of

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Speaker 1: the head, and tales of Celtic head hunting were long

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Speaker 1: noted by historians, but, as Ian Armatt points out in

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Speaker 1: the book Head Hunting and the Body and Iron Age Europe,

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Speaker 1: modern archaeologists have pushed back against this interpretation. Still, the

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Speaker 1: Celts may have valued the head as the seat of

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Speaker 1: human emotion and power. Many a stone head can be

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Speaker 1: found in the British Isles, heads that show little sign

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Speaker 1: of having ever been attached to a stone body, though

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Speaker 1: some are thought to have been made from mounting on

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Speaker 1: wooden poles. As historian Dr Brian Lacy told BBC News,

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Speaker 1: in the ancient Celts carved and preserved heads in various ways,

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Speaker 1: and many have been unearthed, though many more imitation heads

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Speaker 1: from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries also exist. According to Lacey,

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Speaker 1: true Celtic stone heads are rare and Ireland has probably

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Speaker 1: produced no more than a hundred of them, but one head,

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Speaker 1: the so called Corlic Head, found in County Covon, stands

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Speaker 1: out as a masterpiece. This Iron Age stone artifact is

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Speaker 1: especially notable because it has not one face but three,

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Speaker 1: seemingly related to the sacred properties of the number three

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Speaker 1: in Celtic cosmology, visible in the triskelion and other Celtic motifs.

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Speaker 1: Is it the head of a god, a watcher, a monster,

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Speaker 1: a protector. Is it meant to represent something about the

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Speaker 1: human soul? It remains a mystery. The Corlak Head, along

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Speaker 1: with other stone heads, is currently in the National Museum

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Speaker 1: of Ireland in Dublin. Here, it's six eyes continue to

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Speaker 1: stare out across the centuries tune into additional installments of

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Speaker 1: the artifact each week, hosted by either Joe or myself.

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Speaker 1: As always, you can email us at contact at stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your

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Speaker 1: Mind is a production of I Heart Radio. For more

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Speaker 1: podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.