WEBVTT - From the Vault: How does travel engage the senses? 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.920 Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:11.920 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and this episode 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:15.880 is from the Vault. It originally aired on July seven. 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:20.000 This is an episode about travel, that's right, this one. 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:22.480 I believe this is a MASA sponsored episode, and it's 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:25.520 just about how does travel engage the senses, which which 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:27.840 I thought that made for a pretty fun discussion. Oh 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:30.840 and it's thematically appropriate because because Seth is on the 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:32.760 road this week, so I hope his senses are being 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:35.839 fully engaged. Well, now I don't know about fully. I 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:38.200 hope because he's traveling with Pats, So I hope it's 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:41.400 it's like a comfortable level of sense engagement. That's what 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:48.159 I'm wishing for him. Pleasure and pain indivisible. Welcome to 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:50.680 Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My Heart Radio. 0:00:57.560 --> 0:00:59.360 Hey you, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:02.600 name is Robert and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:05.840 gonna be talking about travel. This is an interesting subject 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:07.920 to think about right now because of the context of 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:10.720 the ongoing pandemic. You know, at least here in the 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:13.920 United States in early July. Of course, the risk from 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:17.640 coronavirus is still clear, it's very profound, and so this 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:21.440 has put some obvious limitations on people's designs for summer travel, 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:24.120 like whether it's actually worth the risk at all to 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:26.679 travel right now, and if you do travel, how to 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:30.080 mitigate those risks. Of course, if you are traveling this summer, 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:33.920 you should consult your local health guidelines. It'll probably include 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:36.840 advice like avoiding crowds, all the stuff you're familiar with 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:39.520 by now, keeping your distance from people outside your household, 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:42.480 wearing a mask. If you're in public, you might need 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:45.319 to quarantine before or afterwards, depending on where you are, 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:49.520 and so forth. But in addition to these practical considerations, 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:52.240 it's the time of year that a lot of people 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:55.400 would traditionally be thinking about summer vacation season. You know, 0:01:55.680 --> 0:01:57.880 they'd be thinking about how this is when they would 0:01:57.880 --> 0:01:59.480 be trying to get out of the house and go 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:03.240 somewhere and see something new, and that underlying urge might 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:06.200 still be there even as we grapple with all the 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:08.919 risks and important precautions that you would need to take 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:11.320 if you were actually going to travel right now. And 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:14.960 this has gotten me thinking about what travel means to 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:17.280 us and why it is that our brains keep trying 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:22.120 to compel us to visit far off places known and unknown. Yeah, 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:24.280 and to your point, though, it is a weird time 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:27.359 to think about travel. I was in a like a 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:31.360 zoom call with some friends last week, and one of 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:33.639 one of them said, well, you know, I don't know 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:36.080 if I can do next week because I need to travel. Actually, no, 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:38.080 I'm not traveling. I'm just going. I'm getting in the 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:40.280 car and going from one place to another. And we're 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:42.720 all a little that's travel. That sounds a lot like travel, 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:46.600 but but we mean different things by travel and um, 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:48.560 and we're gonna we're gonna get into that a bit 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:51.359 here in this episode, because Yeah, human travel is really 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:54.360 fascinating when you think about it. The act of simply 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:59.560 traversing distances, or say, traversing vast distances, is far from 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:02.400 a distinctly human thing. Uh. Consider like some of the 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:05.960 more outstanding cases like the Eastern gray whale, for example, 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:10.160 which regularly journeys close to fourteen thousand miles from Russian 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:13.560 waters to Mexico and then back again. Yeah, great white 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:17.560 sharks or another example that swim just these unimaginable distances. 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:20.840 I was just reading some reports from fourteen about a 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:23.560 great white shark named Lydia that was tagged with a 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:27.400 tracking device off the coast of Florida in March, and 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:30.800 then about a year later she had traveled something like 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:34.359 twenty thousand miles across the Atlantic, you know, crossing over 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:37.920 the Mid Atlantic Ridge and was heading towards basically around 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:43.280 the UK. Yeah. Another example that frequently comes up monarch butterflies. 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:45.920 They take a five thousand, five hundred mile journey from 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:50.160 central Mexico and California up into North America. It kind 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:52.160 of goes in different phases, but eventually they're you know, 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:54.360 they're getting up as far north as the Great Lakes. 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:57.240 And then in the the avian world, we have a 0:03:57.320 --> 0:04:00.320 number of amazing examples, but the most extreme aim is 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:02.680 that of the Arctic Turn, which flies a record forty 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:05.960 four thousand miles. So these are just a few examples 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:09.880 of some amazing journeys undertaken by individuals or groups. But 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:12.880 then there's also the steady tide of migration that enables 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:16.000 organisms to spread out across the planet. In humans are 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:19.080 of course a prime example of this, with our earliest 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:23.080 waves of archaic human migration beginning what an estimated two 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:26.039 million years ago, and in waves, we proceeded over the 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:28.800 course of our history to spread across the planet, finding 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:33.480 a foothold in all but the most inhospitable of environments. Yeah. 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:36.200 And there's something interesting to think about when comparing human 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:40.480 travel to other long traveling organisms, which is that humans 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:44.920 travel mostly on land. Like obviously we travel by air 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:46.680 and c. Two. But when you think about most of 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:50.080 human history, a lot of the traveling is on land. 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:52.560 And if you look at just a list of like 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:55.359 the farthest traveling organisms, you will see a lot of 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:59.680 magnificent beasts that travel either by water or by air. 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:02.839 And these are very different methods of travel, right. These 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:05.679 are both methods that allow you to do unique things 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:10.279 like drift along in currents of the fluid, whether that's 0:05:10.320 --> 0:05:13.360 air or water, that move naturally through the larger media. 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:15.880 You can't really do the same thing on land, right, 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:18.520 unless you're like riding a mud slide down a mountain, 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:22.120 which is not safe and not recommended. Uh. And and 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:25.560 so that makes that makes land travel kind of different 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:28.000 than the other ones. Uh. And of course there are 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:29.880 other animals that do this. There are there are some 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:33.000 epic walkers on earth, like the blue willed to beast 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:36.440 in Africa, or the caribou in North America, the ladder 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:41.440 which sometimes migrates something like forty kilometers annually. Yeah, it's incredible. 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:44.800 I guess you could say that that flying and uh 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:47.800 and traveling by boat for the passenger. Anyway, it is 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:52.120 kind of like you're taking walking and via the use 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:56.159 of vehicles, applying it to the air the sea. That's right. Yeah, 0:05:56.320 --> 0:05:59.719 but but yeah, for the most part, we are we 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:03.160 are walkers. We have to have these these fabulous vehicles 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:05.920 that allow us to do anything more. I do enjoy 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:08.880 those thought experiments of like running, how fast are you going? 0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:11.680 If you're running forward in a plane cabin that's already 0:06:11.680 --> 0:06:16.640 flying too fast because you should sit down. Um. Now. 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:19.560 Of so, human societies, of course, they've spread out across 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:22.159 the world, but of course they continue to move around 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:25.280 for the same reasons did animal species do. For resources, 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:29.240 for mating, for shelter. Hunter gatherer societies especially had to 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:32.760 follow the natural abb and flow of available resources where 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:36.200 food could be found growing, where the prey animals traveled, 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:38.080 and therefore, you know, you'd have to follow them and 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:42.560 hunt them and there were also associated sites that offered shelter, water, 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:45.240 or say in some cases something like hot spring, something 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:48.599 that was you know, a desirable resource to have on hand. 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:52.360 And it wasn't until the agricultural revolution that humans really 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:54.479 were able to put themselves more in a position to 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:58.040 set down roots. But still many groups remain nomadic by 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:01.200 necessity Shepherd's you know, for sure, but also you know, 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:03.839 think of fisher people who still have to get in 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:07.240 their fantastic vehicles of old and travel to where the 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:11.080 fish can be found, and with surplus stocks of agriculture. 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:14.760 With the rise of cities, we also see the traveling conqueror, 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:18.880 the the occupation of cities and advances in sailing technology 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:22.040 that enabled people to expand even further. But what about 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:27.360 traveling for reasons not directly associated with food, shelter and reproduction. 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:31.760 This leads us to a particularly human aspect of travel. 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:35.600 Uh that that ultimately brings us to our modern idea 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:39.080 of travel and especially things like vacation travel. But it 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:45.040 has its roots in religious travel, sacred travel, and pilgrimage. Interesting. 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:49.880 I was reading um paper by Lett's uh kilber Um 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:53.160 and this was a titled Paradigms of travel from medieval 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:56.960 pilgrimage to the postmodern virtual tour polished in two thousand 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:00.560 six Tours and Religion and Spiritual Journeys UH, and the 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:04.160 author points out that religiously motivated or sacred travel to 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:07.680 sacred sites might well be the oldest and most prevalent 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:10.880 type of travel and human history, and may have factored 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:15.080 into the beginnings of the world's oldest religions. Religious travel 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:18.920 is the oldest form of what is sometimes referred to 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:22.520 as non economic travel, and we see evidence of this 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:26.640 going back even to Neolithic times. I was reading about 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:31.160 this in UH Intercultural Pilgrimage Identity and the Actual Age 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:34.319 in the Ancient Near East by Joy mccorriston, published in 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:38.240 Excavating Pilgrimage from seventeen and the author points out that 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:42.480 we see examples of temporary gathering UH sacrifice and feast 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:45.960 that are quote commemorated in a memorial or monument with 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:50.720 subsequent revisits, and these day back to Neolithic times. Likewise, 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:53.360 in Africa we see evidence from eight thousand years ago 0:08:53.360 --> 0:08:57.439 of cattle sacrifice in quote mortuary linked feasting that they 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:02.480 commemorated with stone monuments. Religious pilgrimage is an interesting thing 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:05.080 to consider, and there are multiple models for thinking about 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:08.320 the cultural role of pilgrimage and how it first emerges 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:11.400 in history or I guess in prehistory, given the examples 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:15.079 you just cited. One interesting idea that I came across 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:19.320 was in the works of the influential anthropologists Victor and 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:23.720 Edith Turner in their nineteen seventy eight book Image and 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:28.040 Pilgrimage and Christian Culture that was from Columbia University Press. 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:31.240 And in this book they observe a lot of things 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:35.400 about Christian pilgrimage site so they do like observation of 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:40.080 the behaviors of pilgrims, uh it sites from Mexico to 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:45.000 Ireland to France, and they end up characterizing these religious 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:50.480 pilgrimages as what they call a lemonoid phenomenon. Now, this 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:52.480 was interesting to me, but it also gets kind of 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:54.680 complex and took me a while to understand, and I 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:57.520 think I've got it figured out. So here are the basics. 0:09:58.559 --> 0:10:01.520 Uh So, First of all, the idea of limonoid phenomenon 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:05.640 plays on the original idea of a liminal experience, which 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:09.080 is a term that was coined by a folklorist named 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:12.520 Arnold van gennep Uh And the word liminal here comes 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:17.160 from the word for threshold. So a liminal experience is 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:21.400 part of an initiation or a right of passage, in 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:27.200 which a person temporarily steps outside of normal social structures 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:31.720 to undergo or signal a change, and then rejoins the 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:35.679 social structure on the other side of the experience having changed. 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:39.040 So there's who you are before the change that's preliminal, 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:42.439 and then there's who you are after the change that's postliminal, 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:46.200 and then in between there's this suspended middle state, the 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:49.400 liminal stage. And this might be in a practical example, 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:53.800 say the time that a person physically separates themselves from 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:57.240 the rest of their tribe to do rituals for some 0:10:57.360 --> 0:10:59.880 part of a right of passage. And in the con 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:03.440 text that they studied, the Turners argue that this middle 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:08.240 liminal status is reinforced by the fact that people join 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:11.760 in what they call a community toss. It's this sense 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:16.320 of community with other pilgrims that comes with a freeing 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:20.439 sense of equality and a shedding of previously existing social 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:24.520 structures and differences. Though I have noted that several critics 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:28.840 disagree with the Turner's characterization here citing examples of well 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:31.720 you know that there are times when regular power structures 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:35.760 are still expressed among in between pilgrims to religious sites. 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:39.520 It may be that if this equalizing community power of 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:43.319 community toss during pilgrimage really exists, it might be more 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:46.400 common in some types of pilgrimage than others. And just 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:49.080 one example, there is a paper I found by a 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:52.480 scholar named Darlene Yushka, which does an amazing job of 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:55.040 making this critical point just in its title, which is 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:58.440 whose turn is it to cook? But to bring it 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:00.240 back to the idea of so so there are doing 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:03.720 that pilgrimage might be one of these liminal experiences, this 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:07.880 like in in the middle state of this change process, 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:12.360 except they call it not quite liminal. They say it's lemonoid. 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:16.600 And so lemonoid applies to experiences that are somewhat like 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:20.839 liminal experiences in structure, but they're more optional and they're 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:25.440 less explicitly transformative of your station in society, so they 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:29.880 might be seen as simply an internally transformative experience rather 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:33.160 than as a marker of an external change in status. 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:37.440 And in a lot of religious traditions, pilgrimage is honored 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:40.080 but not required, you know, so that would make it 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:43.520 more limonoid than liminal. And I was reading a review 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:46.680 of the Turner's work by the anthropologist Daniel are Gross, 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:49.000 and so he has kind of a mixed opinion. He 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:52.280 thinks the book is valuable, but that he also has 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:55.599 some criticisms of the idea of communitas being a universal 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:58.640 But he pulls an interesting quote from the Turner's book 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:03.280 describing the role of of the of the Christian pilgrimage, 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:08.199 which says, quote, in the paradigmatic Christian pilgrimage, the initiatory 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:11.920 quality of the process is given priority, though it is 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:16.959 initiation to and not through a threshold. So, if I 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:19.800 understand correctly, in their view, based on all of the 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:24.360 observations they've made of Christian pilgrimages, the symbolic message of 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:27.960 a Christian pilgrimage most often might be not you are 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:33.319 now changed, but welcome to the process of change. That's interesting, 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:35.440 and I think that's something we can we can continue 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:37.760 to take with us in this discussion and apply to 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:42.320 uh to to travel itself. The idea of travel as 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:45.480 as a process of change, which we probably don't think 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:48.800 about it as such, but I think whenever we engage 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:52.600 in meaningful travel, uh, it is a process of change. 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:56.840 We should arrive in a different place and end in 0:13:56.880 --> 0:13:59.720 at least a slightly transformed state of mind. Like even 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:02.199 if it's as simple as well, I have to drive 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:05.000 up to uh, you know, um to my parents house, 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:07.160 but I'm gonna listen to this audio book on the way, 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:09.079 or I'm gonna catch up on my podcast, Like I'm 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:13.760 somehow going to arrive there in an enhanced state. Yeah, 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:15.719 I think you're exactly right, And I think it makes 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:18.520 a lot of sense to think about that enhanced state 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:23.320 that travel triggers as essentially an openness to change or 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:26.520 a potential for change. So I think it's pretty safe 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:29.000 to say that, as far as non economic travel goes, 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:35.360 sacred journeys are ultimately that the predecessor to modern vacation travel. Now, 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:38.160 a particular line is often drawn to the link between 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:41.680 medieval pilgrimage and also some of the economics of medieval 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:45.880 pilgrimage with modern travel. You know, you see advances in 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:49.360 banking and so forth to take place during that time. Uh. 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:51.080 And of course it's also important to note that the 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:54.160 pilgrimage is still you know, very much a part of 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:57.800 modern travel traditions, not only in the overt case of 0:14:57.920 --> 0:15:00.480 you know, people going on an actual pill grimmage to 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:03.480 holy side, say, you know, to to Mecca on the hodge, 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:06.840 that sort of thing, but also holy sites are often 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:09.800 of significance to the modern traveler, even if they themselves 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:13.080 are not uh, you know, believers of that particular faith 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:15.800 or practitioners of that particular faith. Like if you you know, 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:20.240 if you go to a particular vacation destination and there 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:22.680 is an ancient temple, there's a good chance you're gonna 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:25.160 want to check it out into whatever degree is appropriate. 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:27.600 This actually triggers something for me that I want to 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:31.120 come back to when we talk about Roman tourism. Yes, 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:34.680 Roman tourism, because because this is also key we again 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:37.920 we can we can look to examples of sacred travel, uh, 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:41.200 you know, far back in history. But in terms of 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:44.840 looking for examples of travel that more closely resemble modern 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:48.240 vacation travel, there are some interesting examples from the Greek 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:52.720 and Roman periods. Uh. For instance, in our episode uh 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:54.920 that we have this is from what a couple of 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:56.720 years ago, I think we did an episode on the 0:15:56.720 --> 0:16:02.080 singing Colossi of Memnon. We mentioned how the then fourteen 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:05.320 hundred year old pair of Egyptian statues were visited by 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:09.200 Roman travelers in the first century. See they you know, 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:12.680 they'd come to experience them, to to hear this unique 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:16.960 singing that they that that they produced. Uh. And then 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:20.200 they inscribed their names on the statue as well to 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:22.480 show that they had been there. So rude. I mean, 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:24.520 I guess they just must have had a different attitude 0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:29.000 towards the preservation of historical artifacts and monuments. But man, yeah, 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:34.160 graffiti on this like hundreds of years old monument. Yeah. 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:37.640 And it's worth noting that they did seem to equate 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:42.640 these statues with the Greek figure mem Non. Uh. But 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:45.800 the colossi were not really of any religious value to 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:48.120 the Roman travelers as far as we can tell. Uh. 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:51.320 And of course they were of Egyptian origin anyway. On 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:54.640 one hand, I think that is true. But also that 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:58.320 had me thinking about another tangent about the significance of 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:02.160 sites that we visit and how our orientation toward culture 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:06.880 and religion kind of uh mitigates whatever that that relationship 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:10.760 is uh, something that I think is possibly interesting about 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:14.640 understanding the pagan Roman mindset is that, well, at least 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:16.919 compared to us, at least here in the United States. 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:20.840 For a lot of US, our idea of religious significance 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:23.840 is primarily through either kind of a secular lens of 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:28.400 just sort of disinterested observation, or perhaps through an exclusive 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:33.480 monotheistic lens, so that when we visit sites or monuments 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:37.040 that were of religious significance to other cultures in history. 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:40.439 I think it's possible that we're more likely to just 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:43.960 think what that was somebody else's belief I don't believe that, 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:47.719 but this is interesting. But the pagan Romans were I 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:51.800 think somewhat more religiously omnivorous. Their world was full of 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:54.600 God's and I think too many of them it would 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:58.280 have been perfectly plausible to go somewhere and find out 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:01.399 about yet another God that you weren't aware of before. 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:04.199 Uh So I think it might have been possible for 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:07.359 a pagan Roman to wonder, you know, to to see 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:10.679 a statue made by the ancient Egyptians that had some 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:14.280 religious significance to them and wonder if something is going 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:18.000 on here that's worth investigating or knowing more about, at 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:20.520 least more than than many of us would would feel 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:22.680 that way. And if there's any truth to this, it 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:25.240 would make traveling to a foreign land with a great 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:28.480 history a different kind of experience I think like it 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:31.159 would be. You know, you might also discover things that 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:34.879 are actively relevant in the world. I know that the 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:37.560 Romans generally had a respect for antiquity when it came 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:40.600 to religious traditions. Uh, though, I'd be interested to hear 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:43.600 from listeners with expertise and ancient Roman culture and religion 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:45.800 to find out what they think about this. Now, this 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:49.600 is a great point, Yeah, that perhaps the Romans traveled more, um, 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:53.000 with kind of a spiritual mindset, you know, as opposed 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:57.640 to a religious one. Um. I you know, as as 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:00.760 a traveler who who does like to go to to 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:03.479 religious sides. I mean, I always think it is kind 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:07.280 of an a rewarding exercise to sort of engage in 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:10.840 that kind of spiritual mindset, you know, to try to 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:14.760 at least to the degree that is culturally appropriate, you know, 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:18.600 to to experience it. Uh, almost as if you were 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:21.320 a believer, you know what I'm saying. Um, Though, it's 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:23.399 gonna you know, obviously it's gonna vary depending on what 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:27.399 is what is culturally appropriate, what feels appropriate given given 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:30.480 the space. But but yeah, you go to some of 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:33.800 these these places and you're engaging with such such history 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:36.359 and like the and the level of belief is is 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:38.840 tangible because a lot of times you go to a 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:41.560 religious side and there are practitioners of the religion. They're 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:45.239 maintaining the grounds or the facilities in addition to visiting it, 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:48.520 and it it creates this this sacred air that you 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:51.560 can't help the breathe in. Yeah, I totally agree. Now, 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:54.919 another issue just whether or not it's appropriate and all that, 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:57.120 it's also just a question of what to what extent 0:19:57.200 --> 0:20:00.560 it's possible for you to like get into that alternate mindset. 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:03.720 I know it's easier for some people than others, but yeah, 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:06.600 I think that's a wonderful exercise. All right, On that note, 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:08.080 we're going to take a quick break, but when we 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:11.679 come back, we will discuss um the work of a 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:15.280 Greek author that's that is sometimes pointed to as the 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:24.000 world's first travel guide. Than all right, we're back, so yeah, 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:29.160 particular note here is a Greek geographer Bassanius, who lived 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:33.440 U one Tin through one a d c. And some 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:36.840 indeed point to to him as being the world's first 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:40.000 travel writer. He wrote a book in the second century 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:44.639 titled Hello dos Peregias, or The Description of Greece, and 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:49.359 it is essentially a travel guide. Um. I was reading 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:52.679 about this in an Atlas Obscura article titled the World's 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:55.280 first travel writer was a guy from Ancient Greece by 0:20:55.359 --> 0:21:00.440 Lauren Young, and she she chats with Maria Pretzler, professor 0:21:00.440 --> 0:21:03.359 of Ancient History at Swansea University in Wales and the 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:08.200 author um of a book about Passonias Passonias travel writing 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:12.159 in ancient Greece and uh, the author says that you know, 0:21:12.160 --> 0:21:15.560 there were smaller guides at the time, but Passonia's book 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:18.680 is the largest and the most comprehensive that survives to 0:21:18.760 --> 0:21:22.439 this day. And also it still works. It's still functions 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:25.560 as a travel guide. You know, obviously the world has changed, 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:28.240 but a lot of the places and even the landmarks 0:21:28.240 --> 0:21:31.719 are still there. Interesting now though. The full text can 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:35.040 be found online and I invite everyone to go check 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:38.080 it out because it's it's very recognizable and travel literature. 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:40.560 This is not an example where you're looking at ancient 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:43.080 writings and you're having to really, you know, squint a 0:21:43.119 --> 0:21:45.919 bit and you know, take a few leaps of faith 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:48.400 to identify it as as travel writing. No, you read 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:51.840 it and it reads more or less like modern travel guides. 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:55.399 In fact, I highly recommend when you read it, uh, 0:21:55.560 --> 0:21:57.320 and make sure that the voice that you hear in 0:21:57.359 --> 0:22:01.000 your head is tuned to your favorite TV travel guide, 0:22:01.000 --> 0:22:04.480 maybe Rick Steves or someone, because it's exactly the sort 0:22:04.520 --> 0:22:06.280 of thing Rick Steves would say, you know, would be 0:22:06.359 --> 0:22:08.919 like like Passonius is saying, Oh, well, you're gonna you're 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:11.120 gonna around this next corner and then you're gonna see 0:22:11.160 --> 0:22:13.639 the city of such and such, and out here you're 0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:15.840 gonna see the sea, and well there's a there's a 0:22:15.920 --> 0:22:19.720 particular legend about this, uh, about a military engagement that 0:22:19.800 --> 0:22:21.479 happened here. You know, this sort of thing. He's just 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:24.200 telling you how you travel from one place to the other. 0:22:24.240 --> 0:22:26.919 What you're gonna see there, What the historical significance or 0:22:27.080 --> 0:22:30.119 cultural significance of the place is. I want to know 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:34.080 the ancient Greco Roman world's equivalent of the person who 0:22:34.080 --> 0:22:37.960 like gives the one star Google reviews to all inspiring 0:22:38.040 --> 0:22:41.200 monuments from the ancient world, you know, like two stars 0:22:41.280 --> 0:22:44.720 for the Leshan Buddha. Well, I mean maybe I don't 0:22:44.760 --> 0:22:47.040 even think the Romans were doing that on the Colossi 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:50.520 were the uh like one star coloss I did not 0:22:50.640 --> 0:22:52.480 sing while I was here. That's sort of thing that 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:57.679