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Speaker 1: Hey you, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormack. And today

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Speaker 1: it's Saturday, so we're bringing you an episode from the vault.

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Speaker 1: This is the Invention of the Lock and Key, which

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Speaker 1: originally published January twelve. Is there anything to say about

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Speaker 1: this one, Rob, just that it's a good episode. I

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Speaker 1: remember this one being a lot of fun talking about

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Speaker 1: ancient lock and key technology. But in doing so, like

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Speaker 1: you're breaking down exactly what is a lock, what is

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Speaker 1: it supposed to do, and what are the like the

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Speaker 1: basic principles of its functionality. I think I recall something

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Speaker 1: about early keys looking like a big like bathing device

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Speaker 1: or backscratcher that a hippopotamus would use in a cartoon. Yep, okay,

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Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of My

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey what of stuff to Blow your Mind?

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and

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Speaker 1: today we're gonna be doing one of our invention episodes.

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Speaker 1: We're gonna be talking about locks and keys. I've got

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Speaker 1: a question at the beginning here, did you Rob ever

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Speaker 1: play with a like combination lock or any kind of

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Speaker 1: locks sort of in a fidgety, almost fidget spinner kind

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Speaker 1: of way when you're a kid, because I definitely did.

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Speaker 1: I had one that I would just lock and unlock

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Speaker 1: over and over again. Uh yeah, I remember that. I

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Speaker 1: feel like any house is going to have a drawer,

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Speaker 1: and in that drawer, well, hey, you're gonna have a

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Speaker 1: bunch of keys that you have no idea where they go.

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Speaker 1: They've completely lost their locks. But then you may well

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Speaker 1: also have a spare key lock or a spare combination lock,

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Speaker 1: and those are instantly fascinating because yeah, you're getting too

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Speaker 1: to turn a little wheels and arrange numbers on them,

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Speaker 1: or it's the kind of the dial and you're you're

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Speaker 1: you're going back back and forth on it. You know,

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Speaker 1: they're they're they're fascinating bits of security technology. They're the

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Speaker 1: one I played with I remember was a combination lock,

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Speaker 1: but it had a little uh I think it had

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Speaker 1: a little catch, like it had a button that was

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Speaker 1: pleasing because it would make the you know, the bar

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Speaker 1: release and in the hand. Okay, so I guess we

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Speaker 1: we should talk about the lock itself. And when we

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Speaker 1: talk about anything in our Invention episodes, we like to

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Speaker 1: start by talking about what came before. Yeah, so this

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Speaker 1: is this is interesting to think about and and to

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Speaker 1: read about. One of the first places I turned to

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Speaker 1: was the book The seventy Grade Inventions of the Ancient

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Speaker 1: World will stand by. Yeah, I keep coming back to

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Speaker 1: because it's just a great book. Brian and Fagan just

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Speaker 1: a name that's that's difficult to avoid if you're looking

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Speaker 1: into ancient technology technology the ancient world. And he wrote

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Speaker 1: a lot right up in this book on ancient security technology.

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Speaker 1: And he wrote it with William H. Manning, whose expertise

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Speaker 1: I believe is primarily in in Roman innovations in Roman gadgets. Um.

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Speaker 1: But you know that they point out that passive security

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Speaker 1: technology in the ancient world first took the form of

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Speaker 1: city walls. But city walls address outside threats, not threats

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Speaker 1: within the city itself. So it becomes essential to raise

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Speaker 1: still other walls, other gates, and so some of the

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Speaker 1: earliest bits of security technology in this fashion would have been,

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Speaker 1: of course high walls, more of them guards, human guards

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Speaker 1: if you could afford them, or of course be them

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Speaker 1: the meat tech for security. But then one of the

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Speaker 1: big developments here the barred door, the mighty wooden bar,

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Speaker 1: the greatest invention of all time, This inanimate carbon rod.

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Speaker 1: Pretty much that's the same principle. Um. Yeah, So we'll

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Speaker 1: get back to the bar in just a bit, because

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Speaker 1: the wooden bar is fabulous. But it goes without saying.

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Speaker 1: But before we can have locks and keys or even

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Speaker 1: the barred door, we need doors themselves. And Fagan and

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Speaker 1: Manning right that the doors made to turn on if

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Speaker 1: it's set into the threshold developed long before the true hinge,

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Speaker 1: and this could be accomplished and was accomplished in cases

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Speaker 1: entirely with stone. Uh. And it allowed for the door

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Speaker 1: to be opened and to close. Now, a true hinge

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Speaker 1: was an Iron Age advancement that allowed the same thing

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Speaker 1: at a bar slotted into bolt holes on the inside,

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Speaker 1: and you have a really effective means of locking a

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Speaker 1: door again from the inside. And this is an approach

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Speaker 1: that is still used to this day all over the world. Right, So,

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Speaker 1: I mean that's gonna be extremely effective security. You've got

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Speaker 1: a bar that crosses from the door to the thresholds,

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Speaker 1: so the door cannot really be open unless you essentially

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Speaker 1: have to destroy the house and the door to get in. U.

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Speaker 1: But but I see a major flaw to that, what

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Speaker 1: if you want to leave the house and have nobody home,

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Speaker 1: but still have nobody get in there while you're gone,

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Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, the bar is great if you're inside,

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Speaker 1: but then you but you can imagine the wheels turning

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Speaker 1: early on. Um that to use a technological metaphor, like,

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Speaker 1: how do how do I make my door be barred

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Speaker 1: if I am not home? And you could you could

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Speaker 1: leave somebody inside it, But then you're getting into the

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Speaker 1: guard situation. Right, I need to spare human to do

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Speaker 1: this for me? Right? Why you even have a bar?

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Speaker 1: Then you can just have a guard and leave your

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Speaker 1: door open. Yeah, so this is gonna lead to the

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Speaker 1: development of most of the inventions we're gonna end up

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Speaker 1: talking about in this in this episode. Um. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: the bar was was highly effective, widespread. We see lots

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Speaker 1: of examples, for instance in Roman POMPEII. Um, but this

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Speaker 1: is interesting. They also write that an additional level of

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Speaker 1: security was afforded in the ancient world via wax technology.

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Speaker 1: You would seal a storeroom or container which would not

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Speaker 1: serve as a real physical barrier, but it would serve

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Speaker 1: as an instant sign that it had been opened. Ah.

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Speaker 1: This is like in the James Bond movie when he

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Speaker 1: he's about to leave his hotel room and he plucks

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Speaker 1: the hair from his head what's it with his tongue

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Speaker 1: and then spreads it across the gap in his closet doors.

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Speaker 1: So will know when he comes back if someone has

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Speaker 1: gone through his closet while he was gone, because the

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Speaker 1: hair will will have been dislodged. I remember. Um, this

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Speaker 1: is often used in in thrillers. I believe in factors

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Speaker 1: into Stephen King's misery as well. Um, she leaves I

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Speaker 1: think I think that's right. Yeah, she leaves traps all

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Speaker 1: over the house to see if he's actually getting out

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Speaker 1: of bed and leaving the room where she's keeping him,

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Speaker 1: and she discovers that he's left the room, but she

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Speaker 1: also thinks he's he's made it to rooms that he

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Speaker 1: actually hasn't ventured too just because of the fallibility of

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Speaker 1: the safeguards. The hair is not fool proof. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: the wax seal, you know, pretty pretty good. I think

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Speaker 1: you know. Uh. And and also it's something where someone's

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Speaker 1: going to break into it that you could perhaps observe

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Speaker 1: them doing it as well. Um, So we apparently see

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Speaker 1: lots of examples of this in remains from the Near

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Speaker 1: East and the Eastern Mediterranean. UH. The Tomb of Tuton,

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Speaker 1: common in the Valley of Kings, was a rare surviving

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Speaker 1: ample of this sort of of seal, dating back to

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Speaker 1: the second millennium BC. Uh and the authors add that

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Speaker 1: the practice carried over to Greek and Roman UH in

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Speaker 1: the Greek and Roman period, with signat rings used to

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Speaker 1: mark the wax. And of course this survives survived well

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Speaker 1: beyond those days as a means of sealing envelopes and

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Speaker 1: packages and whatnot. Um and Unultimately, I guess products of

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Speaker 1: all kinds, of all kinds to this day. You know,

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Speaker 1: when you go into the your grocery store and you

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Speaker 1: buy some sort of food product, or you buy you

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Speaker 1: a bottle of thailand all, then what are you encountering

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Speaker 1: accounting some sort of a seal. Right, that's a good point.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the signet ring not only shows you that

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Speaker 1: it is it is closed and has not been opened,

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Speaker 1: but it shows you who closed it. Right. So maybe

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Speaker 1: you could imagine a letter being tampered with or a

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Speaker 1: door being opened, and then somebody else puts, you know,

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Speaker 1: new wax on it or gives them a new envelope

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Speaker 1: with new wax, and you know, and then you could

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Speaker 1: be fooled, except they probably won't have the ring to

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Speaker 1: stamp the exact design you're looking for. Yeah, so already,

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Speaker 1: you know, we're getting into ideas of of like ownership

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Speaker 1: regarding the seal, our ownership regarding the lock, even if

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Speaker 1: it's not a true lock, a true physical barrier, but

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Speaker 1: something symbolic. And I guess that still carries on into

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Speaker 1: a lot of things that are in in our world

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Speaker 1: that are you know, only there's only some marginal level

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Speaker 1: of security there, technological or not. But it creates a

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Speaker 1: line in the sand. You know, are you willing to

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Speaker 1: cross this line? Yeah, that's a good point. I mean

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Speaker 1: I would imagine like the door on a mailbox. You know,

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Speaker 1: somebody else can easily open your mailbox and get the

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Speaker 1: mail out and mess with it or steal it or whatever,

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Speaker 1: but there there's sort of the door is a marker.

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Speaker 1: That's like, if you open the door on somebody else's mailbox,

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Speaker 1: you are clearly doing something wrong at this point, unless you're,

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Speaker 1: don't know, putting something in to give to them. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but I get creeped out

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Speaker 1: of I'm gonna walk through the neighborhood and somebody's mailboxes open,

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Speaker 1: it has mail in it. I'm I'm I'm like, oh

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Speaker 1: my goodness, this is not right. I've got a shout it.

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Speaker 1: Um And at the same time, I'm afraid that they'll

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Speaker 1: look out the window and see me shutting it and

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Speaker 1: think that I'm snooping in their mailbox. Right, Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I know that exact feeling. Actually. Um So, I was

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Speaker 1: thinking about locks, and sort of in line with what

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Speaker 1: we've been talking about already, locks to me seem to

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Speaker 1: exist on a continuum of an ever shrinking circle of

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Speaker 1: easy access to spaces. Um So, of course, you know,

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Speaker 1: you you've got early technologies like walls and structures and containers,

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Speaker 1: artificial containers, artificial buildings, and these have to have doors

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Speaker 1: or gaps so that you can put things in and out,

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Speaker 1: or so that you can come and go from a building.

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Speaker 1: So obviously, an improvement over just a wall or a

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Speaker 1: container with a with an easey with a gap in

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Speaker 1: it is a solid door with a latch like we've

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Speaker 1: been talking about now. By latch, I'm interpreting this in

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Speaker 1: the broad sense, meaning everything from the kind of spring

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Speaker 1: bowl that you would find, you know, op that you

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Speaker 1: operate with your door knob on the front door of

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Speaker 1: your house. So this is a spring tension latch that's

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Speaker 1: got an angled edge on one side, and it allows

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Speaker 1: the door to slide gently from the open position to

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Speaker 1: the closed position, but not vice versa. And there are

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Speaker 1: all kinds of latches, you know, the hook bar that

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Speaker 1: you see on a screen door that holds it closed.

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Speaker 1: A latch is just any mechanism for holding a door

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Speaker 1: closed until you perform some operation to allow it to open.

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Speaker 1: And in a way, I think it makes sense to

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Speaker 1: think of a latch as a narrowing of the circle

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Speaker 1: of who or what can access the space behind a door,

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Speaker 1: because once a door has a latch, basically any human

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Speaker 1: can open and close the door because they've got problem

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Speaker 1: solving skills and dexterous fingers. But the door cannot be

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Speaker 1: opened by weather or by wild animals. So a gust

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Speaker 1: of wind isn't going to blow it open because the

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Speaker 1: latch is holding it closed, or a coyote can't push

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Speaker 1: through it because it's not gonna be able to figure

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Speaker 1: out how to work the latch. So the the access

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Speaker 1: circle to the interior space has shrunk. Okay, I like this,

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Speaker 1: So yeah, you get it to the point where, okay,

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Speaker 1: now only humans can open this door because of the latch.

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Speaker 1: But then with our next step, you you you close

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Speaker 1: that circle even tider and you say only humans with

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Speaker 1: the right sort of stick can open this door exactly

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Speaker 1: because another key invention to keep in mind again, I

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Speaker 1: use key here, uh because it's so such a part

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Speaker 1: of our our language, in our way of thinking about things.

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Speaker 1: But uh, an innovation to keep in mind here is

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Speaker 1: is not only the latch, but the latch lifter, a

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Speaker 1: curved rod that could be inserted through a slit in

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Speaker 1: the door and then manipulated in such a way as

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Speaker 1: to lift that interior latch, either by practice because this

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Speaker 1: is your door and you know exactly how to stick

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Speaker 1: the latch lifter through and lifted, or of course by

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Speaker 1: trial and error, because you're a crafty thief who possesses

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Speaker 1: their own latch lifter and knows that if you mess

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Speaker 1: around with it long enough, you'll manage just fine. And

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Speaker 1: so we see examples of this in ancient Greece in

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Speaker 1: ancient China from roughly the same time period. The first

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Speaker 1: millennium BC. Oh like the latch lifter, the credit card

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Speaker 1: in the door trick. Basically yeah, yeah, I mean yeah,

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Speaker 1: and um and and again I guess you could. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I like the idea of thinking about this tightening circum circle.

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Speaker 1: Only people with sticks with the right stick can can

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Speaker 1: open this door. And if you're messing around with a

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Speaker 1: door that is not yours, you have to be willing

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Speaker 1: to cross that line and be that weirdo who is

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Speaker 1: suspiciously fishing around in somebody's latch lifter slot. All right, well,

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Speaker 1: what if you want to narrow it even further? So

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Speaker 1: you want to keep out the weather, You want to

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Speaker 1: keep out wild animals that you want to keep out

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Speaker 1: humans who would come around and operate the latch, who

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Speaker 1: you know, who would you know, reach behind the door

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Speaker 1: and operated, or or who would just be brazen enough

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Speaker 1: to operate an outward facing latch. So you want to

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Speaker 1: keep out some humans too. Obviously, this is where the

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Speaker 1: lock comes in. It narrows the circle of access even

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Speaker 1: further to only humans who can operate the lock. And

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Speaker 1: the main things here would be that either they have

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Speaker 1: something in their possession that allows them to operate the law,

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Speaker 1: which is a key, or they have knowledge of an

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Speaker 1: obscure algorithm like a combination or a mechanical trick to

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Speaker 1: open the door. Now, presumably only the people who are

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Speaker 1: supposed to have access to the space will be able

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Speaker 1: to operate the lock once you have gotten to this level.

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Speaker 1: But of course, as we know, there there's sort of

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Speaker 1: a lock picking spirit within the within the mind. That's

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Speaker 1: always a part of humanity. And I think I would

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Speaker 1: have to bet that there have been professional or or

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Speaker 1: at least hoppyist lock pickers as long as there have

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Speaker 1: been locks. Yes, I believe so. Um, you know, and

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Speaker 1: before we did this episode, I was thinking a lot

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Speaker 1: about about hory Leuis Borges and uh, and about labyrinths

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Speaker 1: and uh, you know the Minotaur of course, and um,

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Speaker 1: I momentarily looked around to see if he had a

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Speaker 1: poem where he talked about keys and locks. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: of course he can't help but bring them up, because

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Speaker 1: there's such a part of our language. But I didn't

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Speaker 1: run across or or or remind myself of anything in

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Speaker 1: which he really dwells on it. Well, doesn't he say?

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Speaker 1: Several times in the House of Asterion, like he he

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Speaker 1: forcefully says in the voice of Asterion, the minotaur who's

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Speaker 1: speaking the speaker in the story says several times that

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Speaker 1: there are no locks in his house. Yeah, And I

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Speaker 1: think this is what's really interesting. You can think of

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Speaker 1: the labyrinth as the is the lock in large, and

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Speaker 1: the lock and key mechanism is kind of the labyrinth

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Speaker 1: and small, because think about the ways that you solve

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Speaker 1: the labyrinth. You have to use Uh, you have to

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Speaker 1: have special knowledge, or you have to have, you know,

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Speaker 1: exceptional problem solving abilities, or you have to have good tools.

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Speaker 1: You know that the thread that you leave through the

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Speaker 1: labyrinth as you wind your way through, and much the

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Speaker 1: same can be said for the lock. That's a good comparison. Uh.

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Speaker 1: You know, I was thinking about all different kinds of

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Speaker 1: ways that the lock fits into bigger pictures like this,

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Speaker 1: and and in one way that I started thinking about

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Speaker 1: it was that the lock is a physical emblem the

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Speaker 1: historical development of social distrust. And I think this is

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Speaker 1: probably a problem that arises only once you reach a

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Speaker 1: point in history where there are large settlements in which

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Speaker 1: the inhabitants don't all know each other well, Like if

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Speaker 1: you are part of a small band of people living

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Speaker 1: a mobile foraging existence. You're hunting and gathering. First of all,

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Speaker 1: you quite possibly don't have any boxes or buildings to

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Speaker 1: lock in the first place. But even if you did,

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Speaker 1: there's gonna be little opportunity for illicit access to spaces

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Speaker 1: by unknown persons because I don't know. It just seems

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Speaker 1: like that that there's a situation a more constant total

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Speaker 1: vigilance of each other and knowing everybody. But once humans

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Speaker 1: are living a settled existence in one place, gaining wealth

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Speaker 1: based on agriculture, and forming conglomerations of humans containing persons

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Speaker 1: of unknown trustworthiness, you can imagine a desire for something

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Speaker 1: like a locking mechanism just being a natural consequence of

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Speaker 1: that that increase in social complexity. And this also makes

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Speaker 1: me think about locks in the context of one particular

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Speaker 1: hypothesis about the origins of certain types of religion and

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Speaker 1: by this time referring to what you might call the

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Speaker 1: Big God's hypothesis. We actually talked about this in our

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Speaker 1: episodes on the question of whether Santa Claus counts as

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Speaker 1: a god. I think we recently republished those as we

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Speaker 1: did episodes. Yeah, we did. We did a two parter

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Speaker 1: and we we repackaged it as a single massive episode.

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Speaker 1: It came on December. Well, I'll try to do the

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Speaker 1: much shorter version of explaining the hypothesis here, So it

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Speaker 1: goes something like this. UM. A couple of common features

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Speaker 1: of the major gods that people believe in today. One

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Speaker 1: is that they are moralizing God's meaning, they care whether

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Speaker 1: you do right or wrong, and they treat you accordingly,

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Speaker 1: so bad people get punished, good people get rewarded. And

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Speaker 1: they are omniscient, or at least to some extent, they

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Speaker 1: can see what you're doing when you're alone. And it's

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Speaker 1: natural for people today to assume that all gods throughout

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Speaker 1: history would have had these same features, but that's just

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Speaker 1: evidently untrue. Historically, lots of God's have been more limited

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Speaker 1: in their knowledge, uh, and they have been totally or

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Speaker 1: mostly unconcerned with the moral behavior of the people who

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Speaker 1: worship them. You know, if you look at the Roman gods,

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Speaker 1: there there are a few exceptions here and there where

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Speaker 1: they take moral stands, but from for the most part,

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Speaker 1: the Roman gods really don't care if you're a nice

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Speaker 1: person or not. They only care about whether you're praying

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Speaker 1: to them and performing rituals for them. Now, I think

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Speaker 1: it's important to emphasize that this does not mean that

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Speaker 1: people who believe in gods of this kind were immoral people.

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Speaker 1: It just means that they got their sense of morality

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Speaker 1: from places other than the gods. They might get it

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Speaker 1: from philosophy or common sense, or have you know, folk

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Speaker 1: tales or stories within their culture that convey a sense

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Speaker 1: of morality. There's just not this idea that the gods

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Speaker 1: are interested in your moral behavior and will will you know,

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Speaker 1: react to you accordingly. Now, to a lot of scholars

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Speaker 1: of religion, it looks pretty strongly like there was a

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Speaker 1: major shift across history. So through time there's been this

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Speaker 1: shift from mostly these a moral religions with God's not

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Speaker 1: very concerned about moral behavior, to moralizing religions. And the

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Speaker 1: question is why did this happen? Uh? A popular hypothesis

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Speaker 1: goes like this, I mainly know of it associated with

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Speaker 1: a book by the Canadian psychologist Dr Erain norn Zion

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Speaker 1: Uh and it's a book called Big Gods, How Religion

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Speaker 1: Transformed Cooperation and Conflict. And so the hypothesis is that

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Speaker 1: these big gods, these powerful, omniscient, moralizing gods, arose at

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Speaker 1: certain points in history. UH. To allow increasing social complexity

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Speaker 1: and UH, and the natural surplus of social distrust that

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Speaker 1: comes along with social complexity. So in the ancient world,

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Speaker 1: as settlements got bigger with larger populations, you'd be surrounded

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Speaker 1: by more and more strangers, and there'd be more and

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Speaker 1: more trade between strangers across longer distances. There was just

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Speaker 1: more freedom in that context to cheat and steal and

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Speaker 1: get away with treating each other bad. And this led

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Speaker 1: to social unease and distrust, which made it difficult to

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Speaker 1: engage in the kinds of trade and social cooperation that

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Speaker 1: make big civilizations possible. And so this hypothesis says that

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Speaker 1: big moralizing gods would fill that gap. They would allow

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Speaker 1: societies to grow big and get more complex, and they

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Speaker 1: would make complex civilization possible by ensuring that people were

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Speaker 1: basically all believe there was an all knowing, supernatural police

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Speaker 1: force who would punish all wrongdoing even if nobody saw

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Speaker 1: you do it, and would reward people for honesty and

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Speaker 1: pro social behavior. Uh. It's an interesting hypothesis. I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure if I'm convinced by it, but you know, it's

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Speaker 1: definitely worth considering. And the question is, are are there

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Speaker 1: any ways to look for confirmation of this. One way

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Speaker 1: I've seen people trying to test this hypothesis is just

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Speaker 1: looking at existing societies today and saying, you know, are

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Speaker 1: there any measurable pro social benefits to believing in moralizing

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Speaker 1: gods versus not. One of those studies, though, that looked

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Speaker 1: into this, took a historical survey approach, and we talked

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Speaker 1: about this one in the Santa God episode. Basically, it

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Speaker 1: just tried to do a historical so survey and say, hey,

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Speaker 1: as society has become bigger, with larger populations and more trade,

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Speaker 1: do these booms in social complexity correspond with historical evidence

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Speaker 1: for the emergence of big gods? And this one study

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Speaker 1: that was by white House at All in twenty nineteen

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Speaker 1: and the journal Nature UH found that the answer was

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Speaker 1: sort of not perfectly. Basically, what they found is that

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Speaker 1: there was a chronological historical correlation between big moralizing gods

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Speaker 1: being the dominant religions and increases in social complexity and

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Speaker 1: a region as would have been predicted by the hypothesis,

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Speaker 1: but it was chronologically inverted. So they say, quote, our

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Speaker 1: statistical analysis showed that beliefs in supernatural punishment tend to

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Speaker 1: appear on when societies make the transition from simple to complex,

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Speaker 1: around the time when the overall population exceeds about a

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Speaker 1: million individuals. Um So there is this chronological historical association.

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Speaker 1: But it seems like on average, the religious changes tend

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Speaker 1: to come about after the formation of big complex societies, uh,

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Speaker 1: not before them to enable them to exist in the

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Speaker 1: first place, which is still very interesting to me. But

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Speaker 1: to bring it back to locks, it seems like, if

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Speaker 1: there is anything to this big God's hypothesis, it seems

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00:21:33,320 --> 00:21:37,159
Speaker 1: like an almost perfect kind of mental or spiritual complement

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Speaker 1: to the technological innovation of locking mechanisms. Right that there's

401
00:21:41,920 --> 00:21:46,720
Speaker 1: there's this this increase in distrust that comes with being

402
00:21:46,760 --> 00:21:50,280
Speaker 1: surrounded by strangers and having all this social complexity that's

403
00:21:50,440 --> 00:21:53,679
Speaker 1: you know, psychologically threatening to you and you know represented

404
00:21:53,720 --> 00:21:57,120
Speaker 1: in your mind as a constant threat and vulnerability, and

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00:21:57,359 --> 00:22:01,560
Speaker 1: the the implementation of these measures to soothe that and

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00:22:01,600 --> 00:22:04,879
Speaker 1: allow you to engage in a complex society and cooperate

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00:22:04,960 --> 00:22:07,040
Speaker 1: and trade and do all that kind of stuff without

408
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Speaker 1: being overwhelmed with this this kind of paranoia. The big

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Speaker 1: Gods could be one part of that, Locks could be another. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I know, I think that that makes that makes perfect sense,

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Speaker 1: you know, and you you do see it reflected and

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Speaker 1: I don't I don't know how much of it will

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Speaker 1: go into in this in this this is a look

414
00:22:23,119 --> 00:22:25,840
Speaker 1: at it locks and keys, but you see it reflected

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Speaker 1: in the designs sometimes on locks, and certainly in in

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Speaker 1: the creation of walls and other security structures. You know,

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00:22:32,920 --> 00:22:38,240
Speaker 1: you imbue them with various um uh elements that have

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00:22:38,520 --> 00:22:42,679
Speaker 1: that that invoke the supernatural in the defense of whatever

419
00:22:42,800 --> 00:22:45,320
Speaker 1: is on the other side. Oh yeah, I mean another

420
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Speaker 1: way you could think about it is um would like

421
00:22:48,040 --> 00:22:51,560
Speaker 1: a curse with like a curse potentially represent another side

422
00:22:51,600 --> 00:22:54,119
Speaker 1: of the locking mechanism. Yeah, I think so. I mean

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Speaker 1: the curse is kind of a natural extension of the

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Speaker 1: wax seal with the signet ring ring put punched into it.

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00:23:01,400 --> 00:23:05,240
Speaker 1: You know, it's uh, it's it's saying thou shalt not pass.

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Speaker 1: And here is why you know, this is what will happen,

427
00:23:07,440 --> 00:23:10,720
Speaker 1: you know, using whatever tool you can to convince somebody

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Speaker 1: that crossing this line will have consequences. We actually talked

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Speaker 1: about this when I think it was a couple of

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Speaker 1: years ago. We did an episode in October about curses

431
00:23:20,200 --> 00:23:23,399
Speaker 1: and one of the interesting things about historical evidence for

432
00:23:23,480 --> 00:23:26,480
Speaker 1: curses is that it seems like they were often invoked

433
00:23:26,520 --> 00:23:28,840
Speaker 1: not just because like you were mad at somebody, but

434
00:23:28,960 --> 00:23:31,399
Speaker 1: you would go pay a priest to issue a curse

435
00:23:32,080 --> 00:23:36,320
Speaker 1: specifically to like retrieve a stolen item or to pay

436
00:23:36,400 --> 00:23:45,720
Speaker 1: back somebody who had like committed a crime against you.

437
00:23:46,600 --> 00:23:49,520
Speaker 1: All right, well, let's let's move on to some of

438
00:23:49,560 --> 00:23:53,040
Speaker 1: the first locks here. Um, you know, getting beyond sort

439
00:23:53,040 --> 00:23:55,320
Speaker 1: of protolocks and getting into things that are more and

440
00:23:55,359 --> 00:23:59,440
Speaker 1: more identifiable as a lock. So latches and latch lifters

441
00:23:59,480 --> 00:24:04,280
Speaker 1: were used route antiquity, but additional security measures were obviously necessary.

442
00:24:04,320 --> 00:24:07,800
Speaker 1: So wooden tumblers or pegs were placed above the bolt,

443
00:24:08,200 --> 00:24:11,000
Speaker 1: and they which dropped into holes when closed, and you

444
00:24:11,040 --> 00:24:13,840
Speaker 1: had to lift these tumblers to free the bolt. So

445
00:24:13,880 --> 00:24:18,600
Speaker 1: you needed a simple pronged key called a lift key,

446
00:24:18,680 --> 00:24:21,240
Speaker 1: which was inserted through a hole in the door. And

447
00:24:21,280 --> 00:24:23,080
Speaker 1: so this is where we entered the world of the

448
00:24:23,119 --> 00:24:27,240
Speaker 1: tumbler lock. Yes. Uh, so we don't actually know who

449
00:24:27,280 --> 00:24:29,800
Speaker 1: invented the first lock and key, there is no record

450
00:24:29,840 --> 00:24:32,720
Speaker 1: of that, but the evidence does stretch back at least

451
00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:37,679
Speaker 1: towards pretty early in the first millennium BC, and the

452
00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:41,520
Speaker 1: earliest known locks and keys attested in the archaeological record

453
00:24:41,600 --> 00:24:45,359
Speaker 1: and in descriptions and depictions from the ancient world were

454
00:24:45,359 --> 00:24:48,959
Speaker 1: mostly not metal. Interestingly, they were you mentioned would They

455
00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:54,480
Speaker 1: were generally these wooden, large sort of club sized keys. Yeah,

456
00:24:54,560 --> 00:24:57,960
Speaker 1: again coming from the the the the legacy of using

457
00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:01,480
Speaker 1: some sort of special stick to put through a hole

458
00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:04,439
Speaker 1: and manipulate what's on the other side. Yeah. So the

459
00:25:04,520 --> 00:25:08,399
Speaker 1: archaeological evidence uh dates back thousands of years and it

460
00:25:08,480 --> 00:25:11,080
Speaker 1: attests to the use of these wooden keys in Egypt

461
00:25:11,080 --> 00:25:15,439
Speaker 1: and Mesopotamia, I think basically all throughout the Eastern Mediterranean region.

462
00:25:16,040 --> 00:25:18,640
Speaker 1: Um one of the earliest physical examples I can find.

463
00:25:18,680 --> 00:25:22,520
Speaker 1: I think this is still the earliest known physical example. Uh.

464
00:25:22,880 --> 00:25:25,240
Speaker 1: This Uh, there's a description of this that comes from

465
00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:29,720
Speaker 1: a very old archaeological survey. It's a book by Joseph

466
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:32,119
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how to pronounce this. A Bonnamy or

467
00:25:32,240 --> 00:25:36,000
Speaker 1: Bonomi b o n O m I Joseph Bonomi the

468
00:25:36,080 --> 00:25:40,640
Speaker 1: Younger who did a lot of illustrations of archaeological surveys

469
00:25:40,680 --> 00:25:44,040
Speaker 1: from Egypt and other parts of the ancient Eastern Mediterranean,

470
00:25:44,560 --> 00:25:47,800
Speaker 1: and he's writing in a book that includes descriptions of

471
00:25:47,840 --> 00:25:51,200
Speaker 1: the Assyrian Palace at Corsabad, which is in present day

472
00:25:51,240 --> 00:25:54,880
Speaker 1: northern Iraq, kind of close to the city of Mosul. Now,

473
00:25:55,359 --> 00:25:58,120
Speaker 1: this this appeared in a book that that Bonamy wrote

474
00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:02,159
Speaker 1: with Paul Emile Bota called Nineveh and its Palaces The

475
00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:06,000
Speaker 1: Discoveries of Bota and Lyard, Applied to the Elucidation of

476
00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:11,440
Speaker 1: Holy writ published in eighteen fifty two. So this book describes, discusses,

477
00:26:11,480 --> 00:26:15,800
Speaker 1: and illustrates factual findings from the excavation of ancient Assyrian sites,

478
00:26:16,320 --> 00:26:19,040
Speaker 1: and it's you know, these sites would have been I'm

479
00:26:19,040 --> 00:26:21,359
Speaker 1: sure marvelous to see for the first time, full of

480
00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:25,960
Speaker 1: these magnificent, frightening statues, winged bulls with human heads, the

481
00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:29,959
Speaker 1: Lama su Um. But the book also, in a kind

482
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:32,960
Speaker 1: of funny bit of framing, it tries to relate these

483
00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:38,639
Speaker 1: real factual findings historically to the contents of the Bible. Now,

484
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:41,520
Speaker 1: I'm sure that gets weird in some places, but actually

485
00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:43,840
Speaker 1: in this one passage it turns into a kind of

486
00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:47,840
Speaker 1: interesting literary comparison. Uh So, the part where he's talking

487
00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:51,320
Speaker 1: about the Palace of course Abad, they're describing the ruins

488
00:26:51,320 --> 00:26:54,280
Speaker 1: of this complex unearthed at this site, and they go

489
00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:56,879
Speaker 1: into a section about a particular chamber that they're calling

490
00:26:56,920 --> 00:27:00,000
Speaker 1: passage passage chamber X or I guess that would be

491
00:27:00,119 --> 00:27:03,440
Speaker 1: the Roman numeral ten passage chamber ten. And they write

492
00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:06,919
Speaker 1: the following. The doorway we have now passed seems to

493
00:27:06,960 --> 00:27:11,160
Speaker 1: form the entrance to a passage chamber, communicating between two courts,

494
00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:14,920
Speaker 1: the clear dimensions, not including the bulls at each end,

495
00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:18,360
Speaker 1: being forty six ft long by nearly ten feet wide.

496
00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:21,240
Speaker 1: At the end of the chamber, just behind the first

497
00:27:21,359 --> 00:27:25,800
Speaker 1: bulls was formerly a strong gate of one leaf, which

498
00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:29,359
Speaker 1: was fastened by a huge wooden lock like those still

499
00:27:29,520 --> 00:27:32,200
Speaker 1: used in the East, of which the key is as

500
00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:35,760
Speaker 1: much as a man can conveniently carry and buy a bar,

501
00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:39,040
Speaker 1: which moved into a square hole in the wall. It

502
00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:41,960
Speaker 1: is to a key of this description that the prophet

503
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:44,600
Speaker 1: alludes and he's talking about the prophet Isaiah and the

504
00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:48,159
Speaker 1: Hebrew Bible. Uh. And the quote from Isaiah is and

505
00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:50,880
Speaker 1: the key of the house of David will I lay

506
00:27:50,960 --> 00:27:55,439
Speaker 1: upon his shoulder. Uh. So this is interesting because that

507
00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:57,080
Speaker 1: that might be one of those phrases where if you're

508
00:27:57,119 --> 00:27:59,080
Speaker 1: reading the Bible, that just kind of passes over you

509
00:27:59,160 --> 00:28:01,240
Speaker 1: like okay, you know, like he's just saying he's going

510
00:28:01,280 --> 00:28:03,680
Speaker 1: to give him the key. But that's actually a literal

511
00:28:03,760 --> 00:28:06,159
Speaker 1: description of what keys of the time would have been like.

512
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:08,720
Speaker 1: You might carry it over your shoulder because it's like

513
00:28:08,760 --> 00:28:13,040
Speaker 1: a bat, it's like a large object. Um. These keys

514
00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:15,520
Speaker 1: would have been wooden boards over a foot in length,

515
00:28:15,560 --> 00:28:18,480
Speaker 1: maybe as long as two feet, so something like thirty

516
00:28:18,520 --> 00:28:22,439
Speaker 1: five to sixty centimeters, with an arrangement of pegs on

517
00:28:22,480 --> 00:28:25,359
Speaker 1: the business end, sort of like the bristles of a brush.

518
00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:27,240
Speaker 1: I was trying to think what would be the best

519
00:28:27,280 --> 00:28:29,960
Speaker 1: item to compare this too in size and shape, and

520
00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:31,960
Speaker 1: I think the closest thing I could imagine was a

521
00:28:32,040 --> 00:28:34,480
Speaker 1: long grill brush. You know you ever used one of

522
00:28:34,520 --> 00:28:36,800
Speaker 1: those to put off a grill. Yeah, So sort of

523
00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:39,880
Speaker 1: imagine a grill brush, but made of wood with a

524
00:28:39,920 --> 00:28:44,480
Speaker 1: specific configuration of wooden or metal pegs instead of bristles.

525
00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:48,440
Speaker 1: And uh. In principle, these ancient locks, just like you

526
00:28:48,440 --> 00:28:51,120
Speaker 1: were saying, would have worked much like the pin and

527
00:28:51,200 --> 00:28:53,960
Speaker 1: tumbler locks that are still used today, though the pin

528
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:57,600
Speaker 1: and tumbler locks of today are usually more complex by

529
00:28:57,600 --> 00:29:00,560
Speaker 1: the addition of springs, which will get into later. It Uh,

530
00:29:01,080 --> 00:29:03,200
Speaker 1: they had the same basic principle, which is that the

531
00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:05,920
Speaker 1: movement of a bolt that holds the door in place

532
00:29:07,080 --> 00:29:10,960
Speaker 1: is prevented by a number of loose pins that are

533
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:14,640
Speaker 1: lodged in tubes. And the pins uh sit between the

534
00:29:14,680 --> 00:29:17,320
Speaker 1: tumbler and some kind of surface base like the wall

535
00:29:17,520 --> 00:29:22,520
Speaker 1: or you know, the threshold, and it prevents the bolt

536
00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:25,280
Speaker 1: from moving. And the what the key does is you

537
00:29:25,320 --> 00:29:28,040
Speaker 1: stick it in and then the pegs line up perfectly

538
00:29:28,120 --> 00:29:31,080
Speaker 1: with the tubes, so when you insert it into the keyhole,

539
00:29:31,120 --> 00:29:33,520
Speaker 1: the pegs will fit into the tubes and lift the

540
00:29:33,560 --> 00:29:36,040
Speaker 1: loose pins out of the way so that the bolt

541
00:29:36,080 --> 00:29:38,960
Speaker 1: can slide freely, freely in the door can be opened.

542
00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:41,560
Speaker 1: And it seems like these were probably used throughout the

543
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:45,320
Speaker 1: ancient throughout ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and basically all of the

544
00:29:45,320 --> 00:29:48,200
Speaker 1: eastern Mediterranean. You know, another thing I like about the

545
00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:50,719
Speaker 1: description um of which the key is as much as

546
00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:53,120
Speaker 1: a man can conveniently carry, is it reminds me of

547
00:29:53,520 --> 00:29:55,560
Speaker 1: when you when you have to ask the gas the

548
00:29:55,640 --> 00:29:58,240
Speaker 1: station attendant for the key to the restroom, and sometimes

549
00:29:58,240 --> 00:30:03,200
Speaker 1: it's something yeah, yeah, that's great because they don't want

550
00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:05,239
Speaker 1: to by walking off with it. Man. That is one

551
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:08,000
Speaker 1: of those memories where I feel like that I have

552
00:30:08,120 --> 00:30:10,240
Speaker 1: encountered that in my life, but I've also seen it

553
00:30:10,240 --> 00:30:12,200
Speaker 1: in movies, And now I don't know if it was

554
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:15,000
Speaker 1: real or if I've only seen it in movies and

555
00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:17,760
Speaker 1: I've never actually it was real. Yeah, it was real.

556
00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:20,760
Speaker 1: I I know that. I can't, you know, specifically call

557
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:24,120
Speaker 1: up the story. But let's say I'm I'm nine percent

558
00:30:24,240 --> 00:30:26,600
Speaker 1: sure that I've I've actually encountered it in real life

559
00:30:26,600 --> 00:30:29,160
Speaker 1: and not just a movie. Yeah, I'm about the same place.

560
00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:34,440
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm okay. Um. Alright, So we're dealing with the

561
00:30:34,720 --> 00:30:37,480
Speaker 1: age of the tumbler lock. Now. Uh. These were in

562
00:30:37,640 --> 00:30:39,760
Speaker 1: use in the Greek and Roman world, as well as

563
00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:43,480
Speaker 1: in China before the end of the first millennium BC. Again,

564
00:30:43,520 --> 00:30:45,280
Speaker 1: the majority of these were made out of wood, but

565
00:30:45,400 --> 00:30:49,280
Speaker 1: more advanced models made with metal uh and um and

566
00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:53,040
Speaker 1: metal bolts and keys appear throughout the Roman world very

567
00:30:53,120 --> 00:30:55,880
Speaker 1: late in the first millennium BC, and this was probably

568
00:30:55,880 --> 00:30:58,719
Speaker 1: a materials issue, as iron was becoming more available and

569
00:30:58,760 --> 00:31:02,240
Speaker 1: thus could be used in technologies like this more often. Now,

570
00:31:02,280 --> 00:31:06,200
Speaker 1: one funny thing that people might be wondering about is like,

571
00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:10,240
Speaker 1: why why the long key? Uh, you know, why why

572
00:31:10,320 --> 00:31:12,400
Speaker 1: was it so big? Why wasn't it just like I

573
00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:15,880
Speaker 1: don't know, six inches long or whatever. Uh, I'm not

574
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:18,120
Speaker 1: sure that this is a good explanation, but the best

575
00:31:18,120 --> 00:31:21,120
Speaker 1: explanation I've come across for that seems to be that

576
00:31:21,280 --> 00:31:24,040
Speaker 1: it was a security device. Also that it was long

577
00:31:24,120 --> 00:31:26,040
Speaker 1: because if you had to reach like a two foot

578
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:29,959
Speaker 1: stick down into a thing to uh to lift the pegs.

579
00:31:30,360 --> 00:31:33,360
Speaker 1: That made it harder for lock pickers too. I don't know,

580
00:31:33,440 --> 00:31:36,400
Speaker 1: manipulate it with an illicit or dummy object, because if

581
00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:38,800
Speaker 1: it's just like a little six inch cavity, you could

582
00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:41,560
Speaker 1: probably like start poking little sticks in there and trying

583
00:31:41,560 --> 00:31:43,600
Speaker 1: to figure out how to get through. But if there

584
00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 1: is a long key hole, it's going to be harder

585
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:48,960
Speaker 1: for you to get the leverage you need to screw

586
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:51,479
Speaker 1: around with it. Yeah, I think that was that was

587
00:31:51,520 --> 00:31:53,680
Speaker 1: that was part of it. I mean also, you know,

588
00:31:53,680 --> 00:31:55,760
Speaker 1: you can only miniaturize the parts and something like this

589
00:31:55,840 --> 00:31:58,200
Speaker 1: so much the ancient world. And we'll get into some

590
00:31:58,240 --> 00:32:00,400
Speaker 1: of the is how that factors into the story locks

591
00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:04,640
Speaker 1: in a bed and then also these locks were generally

592
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:09,040
Speaker 1: part of the door which has existed a larger size anyway. Um,

593
00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:11,720
Speaker 1: Because this is something to keep in mind, these tumbler locks,

594
00:32:12,120 --> 00:32:14,920
Speaker 1: they worked via gravity, so it had to be part

595
00:32:14,960 --> 00:32:17,600
Speaker 1: of the door. They couldn't. You couldn't have a smaller

596
00:32:17,680 --> 00:32:21,239
Speaker 1: lock that was on something like a like a like

597
00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:25,120
Speaker 1: a box, you know, anything. Yeah, anything we could be

598
00:32:25,120 --> 00:32:28,520
Speaker 1: picked up and manipulated in physical space because then you

599
00:32:28,520 --> 00:32:32,160
Speaker 1: could bypass the gravity. So if you're having trouble picturing

600
00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:34,720
Speaker 1: that again, remember it's the pins that prevent the bolt

601
00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:37,320
Speaker 1: from movings, the pins that hold it in place. And

602
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:40,760
Speaker 1: they're just these like little rods in tubes that sit

603
00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:43,720
Speaker 1: there blocking the movement of the bolt until you lift

604
00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:45,840
Speaker 1: them out of the way. So yeah, if you could

605
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:47,880
Speaker 1: just turn it upside down and they just fall into

606
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:52,120
Speaker 1: the tubes above, then you could open it automatically. But luckily,

607
00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:56,160
Speaker 1: in the world of invention, the demon COYLEI visited the

608
00:32:56,160 --> 00:32:59,600
Speaker 1: Earth and brought it with him the iron spring, uh,

609
00:32:59,600 --> 00:33:02,800
Speaker 1: and these are used to push the tumblers into the holes, um,

610
00:33:02,840 --> 00:33:05,840
Speaker 1: you know, in the bolt and hold them there. So

611
00:33:06,040 --> 00:33:08,320
Speaker 1: then you suddenly had a situation where, yeah, you could

612
00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:11,040
Speaker 1: take the lock mechanism and have it function on something

613
00:33:11,080 --> 00:33:13,760
Speaker 1: that could be picked up and physically manipulated, like a

614
00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:17,040
Speaker 1: chest or indeed, like a pad lock. And on top

615
00:33:17,080 --> 00:33:19,480
Speaker 1: of this, these innovations led to a situation where you

616
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:23,200
Speaker 1: could arrange the tumblers in a special pattern. So you

617
00:33:23,240 --> 00:33:26,000
Speaker 1: needed this required more than just a common lift key.

618
00:33:26,200 --> 00:33:29,480
Speaker 1: You needed a particular lift key that terminated in a

619
00:33:29,520 --> 00:33:33,560
Speaker 1: bit that replicated the pattern of the internal tumblers. I

620
00:33:33,560 --> 00:33:37,920
Speaker 1: imagine this would be a problem as locks become more common. Right, So,

621
00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:40,640
Speaker 1: if you're living in the ancient world and you've got

622
00:33:40,640 --> 00:33:43,000
Speaker 1: the only lock in town, because like you're the only

623
00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:45,920
Speaker 1: person rich enough to have, you know, to to afford

624
00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:49,760
Speaker 1: a locked enclosure, it probably matters less that the person

625
00:33:49,800 --> 00:33:51,640
Speaker 1: who made your lock only knows how to make a

626
00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:55,360
Speaker 1: lock one way and one key works for all of them. Yeah.

627
00:33:55,560 --> 00:33:58,240
Speaker 1: It's kind of like thinking about your your little clicker

628
00:33:58,320 --> 00:34:00,840
Speaker 1: for your car that unlocks it. Right. Um, you know

629
00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:03,320
Speaker 1: we've all had that moment where we have to sort

630
00:34:03,320 --> 00:34:06,800
Speaker 1: of a weird, strange epiphany. We're like, oh, yeah, they're

631
00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:10,040
Speaker 1: all different, because otherwise we could unlock everybody's car. You know,

632
00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:12,799
Speaker 1: it has to it functions like a key. But I

633
00:34:12,840 --> 00:34:15,479
Speaker 1: wonder are they all different enough? Like if you walk

634
00:34:15,520 --> 00:34:18,480
Speaker 1: around parking lots long enough just clicking it, are you

635
00:34:18,520 --> 00:34:21,640
Speaker 1: eventually gonna unlock somebody else's car, or they like really

636
00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:24,399
Speaker 1: really randomized. I don't know. The same could be said

637
00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:26,880
Speaker 1: about going around town sticking the same key into to

638
00:34:27,040 --> 00:34:29,640
Speaker 1: all the different locks. Right, that's a good question. I

639
00:34:29,680 --> 00:34:31,360
Speaker 1: wish we'd look this up before we came in. I

640
00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:35,120
Speaker 1: don't know how how unique is the standard dor key? Like,

641
00:34:35,160 --> 00:34:39,120
Speaker 1: if you stick your door key in five hundred doors,

642
00:34:39,280 --> 00:34:41,600
Speaker 1: are you are you statistically going to be able to

643
00:34:41,640 --> 00:34:43,719
Speaker 1: open some of those? Or is that not enough? Would

644
00:34:43,719 --> 00:34:46,400
Speaker 1: you have to stick it in fifty doors. I know

645
00:34:46,520 --> 00:34:48,719
Speaker 1: we have some some locksmith's out there that listen to

646
00:34:48,760 --> 00:34:52,560
Speaker 1: the show. It has to be true. Therefore, I think

647
00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:55,160
Speaker 1: we'll hear from some folks maybe answer some of these questions,

648
00:34:55,520 --> 00:34:57,840
Speaker 1: and it gives a little inside or inside in the

649
00:34:57,840 --> 00:35:02,480
Speaker 1: world of locks and keys. Yeah. Um, Now, in terms

650
00:35:02,480 --> 00:35:07,160
Speaker 1: of this development of these these these these special keys, um,

651
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:10,719
Speaker 1: these are really interesting. I was reading about it there

652
00:35:10,719 --> 00:35:13,920
Speaker 1: and Fagin and Manning and they write, quote, such slide

653
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:17,120
Speaker 1: keys were pushed into the bolt from below to lift

654
00:35:17,160 --> 00:35:20,080
Speaker 1: the tumblers and then slid the bolt and open the lock.

655
00:35:20,400 --> 00:35:24,720
Speaker 1: The keyhole has a characteristic inverted L shape. And indeed,

656
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:27,279
Speaker 1: if you look at some of these examples of these. Uh,

657
00:35:27,360 --> 00:35:30,600
Speaker 1: these these iron keys, Um, you know they have this

658
00:35:30,719 --> 00:35:33,200
Speaker 1: signature L shape. They look different than you know they

659
00:35:33,280 --> 00:35:34,960
Speaker 1: obviously they don't look like a modern key, but they

660
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:38,560
Speaker 1: also don't look like the symbolic idea of the key

661
00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:40,480
Speaker 1: that we have sort of in our mind, our idea

662
00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:43,799
Speaker 1: of an old fashioned key. You know, these look like

663
00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:47,399
Speaker 1: alien bottle openers in a way. Yes, bottle openers. That's

664
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:49,600
Speaker 1: what I was thinking. We couldn't quite bring it to mind.

665
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:52,200
Speaker 1: You're right now. According to the authors, the most advanced

666
00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:56,000
Speaker 1: form um was the was the Roman. We found in

667
00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:59,440
Speaker 1: the Roman world a Roman lock and Moost elaborate that.

668
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:01,400
Speaker 1: And it was in the most elaborate that saw use

669
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:03,440
Speaker 1: in the ancient world. Uh, this would have been a

670
00:36:03,560 --> 00:36:06,160
Speaker 1: lever lock. Uh. And this is still in use today.

671
00:36:06,280 --> 00:36:09,520
Speaker 1: Quote A single pivoted tumbler held down by a spring.

672
00:36:09,840 --> 00:36:12,560
Speaker 1: A series of fixed wards prevented the wrong key from

673
00:36:12,600 --> 00:36:15,279
Speaker 1: turning the lock, and the key, which had slots in

674
00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:17,400
Speaker 1: its bits to allow it to pass through the wards,

675
00:36:17,480 --> 00:36:21,160
Speaker 1: was rotated to lift the tumbler and then slide the bolt. Now,

676
00:36:21,200 --> 00:36:23,239
Speaker 1: I realize some of that might be hard to picture. Um,

677
00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:25,759
Speaker 1: you know, when we're talking about the the intricacies of

678
00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:29,440
Speaker 1: a of a of a lock. Uh. But but but

679
00:36:29,520 --> 00:36:33,160
Speaker 1: still we're seeing some some major advancements taking place here, right,

680
00:36:33,239 --> 00:36:35,960
Speaker 1: the ward in a lock. This is something else we

681
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:38,640
Speaker 1: saw in different forms in the ancient world. But when

682
00:36:38,680 --> 00:36:42,799
Speaker 1: you hear ward with locks, basically think um walls or

683
00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:46,480
Speaker 1: obstructions that would allow only a key of a certain

684
00:36:46,640 --> 00:36:51,760
Speaker 1: specific shape to fit through. Yeah. Now, lever locks appear

685
00:36:51,840 --> 00:36:54,760
Speaker 1: in the late first millennium BC in the Roman world.

686
00:36:55,080 --> 00:36:58,440
Speaker 1: But there's another interesting, uh invention I want to talk

687
00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:02,280
Speaker 1: about here, and that's the padlock, which was a Chinese

688
00:37:02,360 --> 00:37:05,520
Speaker 1: invention of the early first millennium BC. And here's how

689
00:37:05,560 --> 00:37:08,720
Speaker 1: Fagan and Manning describe it. Quote. In this the bolt

690
00:37:08,800 --> 00:37:12,360
Speaker 1: had flat springs welded or riveted to its tip, behind

691
00:37:12,400 --> 00:37:14,880
Speaker 1: which they splayed out to give the appearance of barbs.

692
00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:17,480
Speaker 1: When the bolt was pushed through the boat hole in

693
00:37:17,520 --> 00:37:20,640
Speaker 1: the lock case, these springs were first compressed, and then

694
00:37:20,840 --> 00:37:22,800
Speaker 1: when the bolt was in the case, sprang out to

695
00:37:22,880 --> 00:37:25,759
Speaker 1: prevent it being removed. It was released with a key

696
00:37:25,840 --> 00:37:29,120
Speaker 1: which slid over the springs and compressed them, thus allowing

697
00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:32,919
Speaker 1: the bolt to be withdrawn. Okay, I'm trying to picture that. Yeah,

698
00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:35,319
Speaker 1: I had trouble as well, so I was looking around

699
00:37:35,360 --> 00:37:39,400
Speaker 1: for an illustration and I found one at a fabulous website.

700
00:37:40,040 --> 00:37:46,840
Speaker 1: I visited Rain Boorgs Historical locks website history It's historical

701
00:37:46,920 --> 00:37:51,520
Speaker 1: locks dot com, and uh, this is just a wonderful website,

702
00:37:51,560 --> 00:37:55,840
Speaker 1: fully sided and backed up by Borg's own experiences and observations,

703
00:37:56,080 --> 00:37:59,920
Speaker 1: seemingly just traveling the world looking for locks and key

704
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:03,120
Speaker 1: he's in researching. He's a Swedish collector of keys and locks,

705
00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:06,680
Speaker 1: has a PhD in aesthetics, engineering and mythology, and he

706
00:38:06,680 --> 00:38:09,560
Speaker 1: basically he basically travels the world looking at locks, and

707
00:38:09,640 --> 00:38:11,040
Speaker 1: I just I want to base a whole D and

708
00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:14,560
Speaker 1: D character on him already. Um So I'm gonna keep

709
00:38:14,560 --> 00:38:17,759
Speaker 1: referring to to Boorgs work here and I recommend everyone

710
00:38:17,840 --> 00:38:20,400
Speaker 1: check out his website. But what class would that be

711
00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:22,960
Speaker 1: hold on? If your specialist in locks? That sounds like

712
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:26,160
Speaker 1: a rogue or is it yet? No, Well it could

713
00:38:26,239 --> 00:38:27,759
Speaker 1: could be, you know, you could take it an editor.

714
00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:30,840
Speaker 1: I was thinking more more of the rogue direction you

715
00:38:30,880 --> 00:38:34,960
Speaker 1: have having to be just a fanatical um lock and

716
00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:37,520
Speaker 1: key enthusiast where he he wants to pick the locks,

717
00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:40,360
Speaker 1: not so much too to steal anything, but just to

718
00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:43,080
Speaker 1: conquer the lock, to understand the lock, and to perhaps

719
00:38:43,239 --> 00:38:46,160
Speaker 1: steal the lock itself and leave whatever gold and jewelry

720
00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:49,399
Speaker 1: on the other side untouched. You know that's my development, right,

721
00:38:49,600 --> 00:38:52,839
Speaker 1: I'm rogue thief branch you are, Yeah, Yeah, that's where

722
00:38:52,960 --> 00:38:56,800
Speaker 1: That's where I've been going, all right. So yeah, great website,

723
00:38:56,840 --> 00:38:59,200
Speaker 1: Historical locks dot Com. I'm gonna keep referring back to

724
00:38:59,200 --> 00:39:02,240
Speaker 1: to Boorgs work here. Um, but he has an excellent description,

725
00:39:02,520 --> 00:39:05,439
Speaker 1: an excellent illustration rather of of how this padlock would

726
00:39:05,440 --> 00:39:08,920
Speaker 1: have worked on his page about Chinese padlocks. UM. By

727
00:39:08,960 --> 00:39:11,719
Speaker 1: the way, he also points to another predecessor to the

728
00:39:11,760 --> 00:39:14,880
Speaker 1: lock and key, and that is the knot. I didn't

729
00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:16,800
Speaker 1: really think about this, but he says in early China,

730
00:39:16,880 --> 00:39:20,160
Speaker 1: strong knots that required the tooth of a wild animal

731
00:39:20,239 --> 00:39:24,320
Speaker 1: to undo them, um were utilized, and so this tooth,

732
00:39:24,840 --> 00:39:27,280
Speaker 1: which he also says it was a a c as

733
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:30,480
Speaker 1: i at s or c s i UM. I'm not

734
00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:33,560
Speaker 1: sure what the exact if he's referring to a Mandarin were,

735
00:39:33,600 --> 00:39:36,160
Speaker 1: they're not, but he says this in some ways was

736
00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:38,799
Speaker 1: the first key. Uh. And we see an idea of

737
00:39:38,840 --> 00:39:41,120
Speaker 1: this too in the legend of the Gordian knot. You know,

738
00:39:41,160 --> 00:39:43,600
Speaker 1: a knot that must that is supposed to be solved

739
00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:47,400
Speaker 1: in some way in order to unlock something. You know.

740
00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:51,160
Speaker 1: But anyway, back to the Chinese padlock. As Borg explains,

741
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:53,719
Speaker 1: there's not a ton of information at least available in

742
00:39:53,760 --> 00:39:55,920
Speaker 1: English on it. But but he he flashes out some

743
00:39:55,960 --> 00:39:58,879
Speaker 1: of the history of the Chinese padlock. Uh, someone want

744
00:39:58,920 --> 00:40:01,600
Speaker 1: to read from his web sight here quote As I

745
00:40:01,640 --> 00:40:04,919
Speaker 1: see it, it appears that mechanical locks began being manufactured

746
00:40:04,920 --> 00:40:07,640
Speaker 1: and used somewhat later in China than in Western Europe.

747
00:40:07,960 --> 00:40:09,800
Speaker 1: They are based on the locks developed in the second

748
00:40:09,840 --> 00:40:12,360
Speaker 1: and third centuries by Roman engineers and spread by the

749
00:40:12,440 --> 00:40:14,919
Speaker 1: Roman army to all parts of the Giant Empire. They're

750
00:40:14,960 --> 00:40:18,080
Speaker 1: striking similarities between locks in China and Scanda, and in

751
00:40:18,120 --> 00:40:21,440
Speaker 1: Scandinavia during the late Viking era. Both of these cultures

752
00:40:21,440 --> 00:40:24,680
Speaker 1: were removed from direct influence by the Roman Empire. Many

753
00:40:24,719 --> 00:40:27,279
Speaker 1: of the larger iron padlocks I have studied have an

754
00:40:27,360 --> 00:40:32,080
Speaker 1: unmistakable character of seventeenth through nineteenth century Arabic locks. However,

755
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:34,520
Speaker 1: it is clear that padlocks with ward springs on the

756
00:40:34,560 --> 00:40:38,000
Speaker 1: shackle have been used by emperors and wealthy officials from

757
00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:42,520
Speaker 1: the Gin era to sixty five through on. But how

758
00:40:42,560 --> 00:40:46,239
Speaker 1: did the first emperors arrive at the idea of using padlocks?

759
00:40:47,560 --> 00:40:50,799
Speaker 1: So Borg thinks that foreign lock technology may have entered

760
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:56,000
Speaker 1: into Chinese culture via Chinese trade and Chinese expansion, with

761
00:40:56,160 --> 00:40:59,320
Speaker 1: like India and Iran and the Silk Road in general

762
00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:04,720
Speaker 1: being here a building then upon existing Chinese security technologies.

763
00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:08,000
Speaker 1: Now at first, Board says such locks were probably just

764
00:41:08,040 --> 00:41:12,160
Speaker 1: status symbols rather than dependable security devices. But his keys

765
00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:15,800
Speaker 1: became more common and locks became more common. Married women

766
00:41:15,840 --> 00:41:20,160
Speaker 1: wore keys, designating their role as key bearers looking after

767
00:41:20,200 --> 00:41:23,040
Speaker 1: the family's property, something that we apparently also see in

768
00:41:23,080 --> 00:41:26,560
Speaker 1: European traditions. According to Borg, so I guess the technos

769
00:41:26,640 --> 00:41:30,279
Speaker 1: symbology here is just unavoidable. Oh well, much in the

770
00:41:30,320 --> 00:41:33,520
Speaker 1: same way that say, the prophet Isaiah would say, uh

771
00:41:33,560 --> 00:41:35,880
Speaker 1: that that God says to David, I will place the

772
00:41:35,960 --> 00:41:39,280
Speaker 1: key upon your shoulder, meaning like you are in charge,

773
00:41:39,400 --> 00:41:42,440
Speaker 1: you have the authority. Having the key to the household

774
00:41:42,480 --> 00:41:45,880
Speaker 1: would be like symbolizing your authority over the household and

775
00:41:45,960 --> 00:41:49,600
Speaker 1: the trust placed in you. Yeah, key means access, A

776
00:41:49,719 --> 00:41:54,080
Speaker 1: key means um possession. Really, so uh then in the

777
00:41:54,160 --> 00:41:58,680
Speaker 1: Ming dynasty sixty four, improved materials and designs brought about

778
00:41:58,719 --> 00:42:02,279
Speaker 1: improved padlocks. The wooden pin tumbler lock with two to

779
00:42:02,360 --> 00:42:04,799
Speaker 1: three pins was used in China at this time, as

780
00:42:04,840 --> 00:42:07,520
Speaker 1: it was in Europe and parts of Africa, but Borg

781
00:42:07,640 --> 00:42:12,440
Speaker 1: rights with clear ancient Egyptian roots. Chinese padlocks were often engraved,

782
00:42:12,520 --> 00:42:15,640
Speaker 1: sometimes with the name of the current emperor, but Borg

783
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:18,440
Speaker 1: says more often than not it was poetry or wishes

784
00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:21,319
Speaker 1: of good fortune, you know, that were that were inscribed

785
00:42:21,400 --> 00:42:24,360
Speaker 1: on the lock. Like I said, Borg has great information

786
00:42:24,400 --> 00:42:27,200
Speaker 1: on his website, but he also has tons of wonderful photographs,

787
00:42:27,680 --> 00:42:31,080
Speaker 1: uh in the illustrations of keys and so some of

788
00:42:31,120 --> 00:42:35,080
Speaker 1: these um uh, these these Chinese padlocks are just amazing

789
00:42:35,160 --> 00:42:37,960
Speaker 1: to look at. Um. One of the ones has a

790
00:42:38,600 --> 00:42:41,680
Speaker 1: so you've got a key here that I'm looking at

791
00:42:41,760 --> 00:42:44,239
Speaker 1: that has a design that looks like it could be

792
00:42:44,400 --> 00:42:48,919
Speaker 1: a complex like rune or China or like Mandarin character. Yeah.

793
00:42:48,960 --> 00:42:51,920
Speaker 1: This is a box shaped padlock with a a side

794
00:42:52,480 --> 00:42:55,840
Speaker 1: key that goes into the side. It's just really really ornate,

795
00:42:55,920 --> 00:42:58,719
Speaker 1: really beautiful as this kind of you know golden or

796
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:02,439
Speaker 1: u you know, a copper color to it. It's it's

797
00:43:02,440 --> 00:43:06,680
Speaker 1: really awesome. And Chinese padlocks took on a number of

798
00:43:06,680 --> 00:43:11,239
Speaker 1: of really artistic forms, including the forms of various zodiac animals. Um.

799
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:14,120
Speaker 1: We we also see animal shaped loocks in other parts

800
00:43:14,160 --> 00:43:16,440
Speaker 1: of the world, such as Russian and Persia. But but

801
00:43:16,520 --> 00:43:21,000
Speaker 1: the Chinese had these wonderful like zodiac animal shaped padlocks.

802
00:43:21,200 --> 00:43:23,080
Speaker 1: There's one of a snake that he has a picture of.

803
00:43:23,160 --> 00:43:26,720
Speaker 1: This just amazing. Uh with this uh this this long

804
00:43:27,640 --> 00:43:29,640
Speaker 1: key that goes into it that looks a little bit

805
00:43:29,680 --> 00:43:32,879
Speaker 1: like a like a file or something. Yeah, I see

806
00:43:32,880 --> 00:43:35,399
Speaker 1: a horse. Yeah, there's a horse. And then um oh,

807
00:43:35,440 --> 00:43:37,120
Speaker 1: and then this is, you know, not a zodiac animal.

808
00:43:37,200 --> 00:43:41,480
Speaker 1: But there's a some fabulous crab blocks. You know, I

809
00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:44,279
Speaker 1: love a crab block if anybody's wondering what to get

810
00:43:44,320 --> 00:43:48,080
Speaker 1: me for my birthday. Now we also see some really

811
00:43:48,080 --> 00:43:52,080
Speaker 1: awesome looking Chinese combination locks. Now Bor grides that that

812
00:43:52,160 --> 00:43:55,320
Speaker 1: these are quote a nearly thousand year old Arabic convention,

813
00:43:56,080 --> 00:43:58,520
Speaker 1: but it took several centuries for the technology to travel

814
00:43:58,600 --> 00:44:01,320
Speaker 1: to Europe, and it likely took hold in China around

815
00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:05,760
Speaker 1: the thirteenth century. Now, he points out that Italian engineer

816
00:44:06,040 --> 00:44:09,759
Speaker 1: Giovanni uh de Fontana was the first European to make

817
00:44:09,800 --> 00:44:13,960
Speaker 1: a sketch of the Ara block idea back in fourteen twenty.

818
00:44:14,080 --> 00:44:17,040
Speaker 1: And if we look to the writings of Muslim engineer

819
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:20,799
Speaker 1: al Jazari in twelve oh six, uh, he wrote a

820
00:44:20,800 --> 00:44:25,239
Speaker 1: book titled the Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices. Uh.

821
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:27,080
Speaker 1: And al Jazari is an interesting figure. Two was a

822
00:44:27,120 --> 00:44:31,520
Speaker 1: poly math and an inventor of various automata. So all

823
00:44:31,560 --> 00:44:32,920
Speaker 1: sorts of I think there was like some sort of

824
00:44:32,960 --> 00:44:37,360
Speaker 1: a mechanical flute player or something that he made. Oh,

825
00:44:37,520 --> 00:44:39,240
Speaker 1: that may have come up in a in a previous

826
00:44:39,239 --> 00:44:41,719
Speaker 1: episode we did. Uh. I think we did a whole

827
00:44:41,719 --> 00:44:45,400
Speaker 1: episode maybe of invention about early automata at some point

828
00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:48,600
Speaker 1: and talking about how they played into debates about the

829
00:44:48,680 --> 00:44:53,760
Speaker 1: nature of what living things were. Yeah. So the Chinese

830
00:44:53,800 --> 00:44:56,279
Speaker 1: padlocks were really interesting because they also have this kind

831
00:44:56,280 --> 00:45:00,399
Speaker 1: of um, you know, this horizontal elong It did look

832
00:45:00,440 --> 00:45:04,480
Speaker 1: to them. They don't look really much like a modern padlock. Uh.

833
00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:07,760
Speaker 1: This is outboard describes them, describes them. Quote. These keyless

834
00:45:07,800 --> 00:45:10,680
Speaker 1: locks are opened by turning by the turning of several

835
00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:14,080
Speaker 1: rings or cubes. The surfaces of the rings or cubes

836
00:45:14,080 --> 00:45:18,560
Speaker 1: have imprinted letters, numbers, or in this case Chinese characters. Commonly,

837
00:45:18,560 --> 00:45:21,759
Speaker 1: each ring or cube is marked with four characters. Each

838
00:45:21,840 --> 00:45:24,120
Speaker 1: must be turned to the correct position before the lock

839
00:45:24,200 --> 00:45:26,600
Speaker 1: can be opened, and he has examples of this on

840
00:45:26,600 --> 00:45:28,520
Speaker 1: the website as well. But but all this led to

841
00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:33,479
Speaker 1: a whole tradition of Chinese padlock charms. Uh And this

842
00:45:33,480 --> 00:45:35,600
Speaker 1: this reminds me a bit of the we we discussed

843
00:45:35,640 --> 00:45:38,520
Speaker 1: recently on our episode about beds. We talked about the

844
00:45:38,560 --> 00:45:42,520
Speaker 1: Egyptian headrest and the ancient Egyptian headrest that kind of

845
00:45:42,560 --> 00:45:44,520
Speaker 1: like you know, holds the neck up during sleep, and

846
00:45:44,520 --> 00:45:47,360
Speaker 1: how this ended up taking the form of a of

847
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:50,840
Speaker 1: a charm. You know that that was not a functional headrest,

848
00:45:50,920 --> 00:45:53,759
Speaker 1: but but brought with it all the magical ideas that

849
00:45:53,800 --> 00:45:56,920
Speaker 1: were associated with it. And likewise you see the emergence

850
00:45:56,960 --> 00:46:01,360
Speaker 1: of Chinese padlock charms, flat ornate representations of padlocks that

851
00:46:01,480 --> 00:46:05,400
Speaker 1: had no mechanical functionality. Instead, they were protective wards for

852
00:46:05,480 --> 00:46:08,920
Speaker 1: individuals or families. And apparently part of the idea here

853
00:46:09,000 --> 00:46:12,400
Speaker 1: is that you could lock a newborn child to life

854
00:46:12,920 --> 00:46:14,760
Speaker 1: and you would hang this in the house or whatnot,

855
00:46:14,800 --> 00:46:17,120
Speaker 1: and then um, you know, older individuals could could actually

856
00:46:17,200 --> 00:46:20,480
Speaker 1: wear the lock charm on their person. Wow. So you

857
00:46:20,480 --> 00:46:23,319
Speaker 1: can see the obvious symbolic connection there that like the

858
00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:26,560
Speaker 1: lock is security, the lock is protections of the charm

859
00:46:26,719 --> 00:46:30,560
Speaker 1: is a is a abstracted version of that. Yeah, And

860
00:46:30,600 --> 00:46:32,520
Speaker 1: if you want to see some examples of this, there's

861
00:46:32,560 --> 00:46:35,279
Speaker 1: a there's a website called primal Trek that trek is

862
00:46:35,280 --> 00:46:38,600
Speaker 1: spelled like star trek, primal trek dot com and they

863
00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:42,000
Speaker 1: has it's a site about various Chinese charms. It's I

864
00:46:42,000 --> 00:46:44,359
Speaker 1: think it's largely like a collector's website, so it's not

865
00:46:44,400 --> 00:46:47,719
Speaker 1: an academic site, but it but it has lots of

866
00:46:47,760 --> 00:46:50,160
Speaker 1: cool photographs and you can see examples of these lock

867
00:46:50,239 --> 00:46:54,680
Speaker 1: charms there. And again they're they're oftentimes beautifully decorated as well,

868
00:46:54,680 --> 00:46:58,680
Speaker 1: with various symbols and signs, mandoring characters, et cetera. Now,

869
00:46:58,719 --> 00:47:01,279
Speaker 1: the Chinese wedding lock tradition also came out of this,

870
00:47:01,360 --> 00:47:04,680
Speaker 1: and it's still practiced today with inscribed padlocks, and of

871
00:47:04,680 --> 00:47:07,000
Speaker 1: course we see versions of this practiced around the world

872
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:08,520
Speaker 1: as well. You know, if you go out to a

873
00:47:08,600 --> 00:47:12,239
Speaker 1: bridge in your area or certain fences, you may find

874
00:47:12,239 --> 00:47:14,879
Speaker 1: a bunch of padlocks that have been placed there. Uh,

875
00:47:14,920 --> 00:47:17,799
Speaker 1: and then that's been done with, you know, at least

876
00:47:17,880 --> 00:47:20,879
Speaker 1: with some sort of symbolism implied, if not some sort

877
00:47:20,920 --> 00:47:24,400
Speaker 1: of actual magic. But you look at examples of the

878
00:47:24,719 --> 00:47:28,719
Speaker 1: wedding locks from from China's past and they're they're absolutely

879
00:47:28,760 --> 00:47:31,680
Speaker 1: beautiful as well. The photographs that I found on board

880
00:47:31,800 --> 00:47:33,640
Speaker 1: side of these. You know, it looks like some sort

881
00:47:33,680 --> 00:47:36,520
Speaker 1: of a musical instrument. Oh yeah, I see it. The

882
00:47:36,560 --> 00:47:39,080
Speaker 1: shape is it's like the base of a loote. Yeah,

883
00:47:39,160 --> 00:47:41,279
Speaker 1: and the lock itself like reminds me more of some

884
00:47:41,360 --> 00:47:46,360
Speaker 1: sort of like ultramodern uh purse or something, you know. Uh,

885
00:47:46,880 --> 00:47:49,239
Speaker 1: it's it's Yeah, they're really fascinating and again you can

886
00:47:49,320 --> 00:47:50,600
Speaker 1: you really need to look up a picture of them

887
00:47:50,600 --> 00:47:52,799
Speaker 1: to understand what I'm talking about. But but yeah, it's

888
00:47:52,840 --> 00:47:55,719
Speaker 1: beautiful and just another insight into just how the idea

889
00:47:55,880 --> 00:47:59,759
Speaker 1: of the lock and the key, how it permeates our

890
00:48:00,239 --> 00:48:03,319
Speaker 1: understanding of ourselves and our relationships to the world and

891
00:48:03,360 --> 00:48:06,640
Speaker 1: other people. Yeah, it's funny how much, uh, if you

892
00:48:06,719 --> 00:48:11,400
Speaker 1: listen to people having I don't know, social cultural values arguments,

893
00:48:11,560 --> 00:48:15,759
Speaker 1: it's funny how much the phrase wedlock comes up. That's great.

894
00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:19,400
Speaker 1: Wedlock is never a phrase that's used in like normal

895
00:48:19,480 --> 00:48:22,440
Speaker 1: life where you're talking about normal relationships, you know, like

896
00:48:22,760 --> 00:48:24,719
Speaker 1: you want to get married to somebody, You don't say

897
00:48:24,760 --> 00:48:27,799
Speaker 1: I want to be in wedlock with you. It's like

898
00:48:27,920 --> 00:48:31,279
Speaker 1: only a phrase that's deployed when framing marriage in some

899
00:48:31,360 --> 00:48:34,600
Speaker 1: kind of like sort of contentious political argument. And that

900
00:48:34,760 --> 00:48:39,439
Speaker 1: funny I place you under wedlock. I cast wedlock third level.

901
00:48:45,120 --> 00:48:48,680
Speaker 1: Thank thank you, thank you. Now. We we mentioned earlier

902
00:48:48,680 --> 00:48:51,040
Speaker 1: about just the idea of of like a large lock

903
00:48:51,160 --> 00:48:53,200
Speaker 1: that's part of the door, and how one of the

904
00:48:53,320 --> 00:48:55,640
Speaker 1: issues here is just how small can you possibly make

905
00:48:55,680 --> 00:48:58,640
Speaker 1: the parts right? And uh, and then especially when you're

906
00:48:58,640 --> 00:49:02,240
Speaker 1: getting too into locks that are produced than for everyone

907
00:49:02,280 --> 00:49:06,840
Speaker 1: in the city, which would be the locksmith's uh, you know,

908
00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:10,399
Speaker 1: duty to the to those who live there. Um. There's

909
00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:13,800
Speaker 1: an interesting case that that is, uh that is cited

910
00:49:14,160 --> 00:49:17,279
Speaker 1: in the book Connections by James Burke. Of course, he

911
00:49:17,320 --> 00:49:21,239
Speaker 1: also did the television series Connections about the history of

912
00:49:21,239 --> 00:49:24,640
Speaker 1: inventions and how and how they're connected by sometimes these

913
00:49:24,680 --> 00:49:27,600
Speaker 1: sort of like trivial seemingly trivial moments in h in

914
00:49:27,760 --> 00:49:30,920
Speaker 1: human Life and Human History. Wonderful series. But he has

915
00:49:30,960 --> 00:49:33,680
Speaker 1: a bit where he talks about locks and the Industrial Revolution,

916
00:49:34,560 --> 00:49:38,479
Speaker 1: and he makes special mention of Henry Modsley, who lives

917
00:49:38,520 --> 00:49:42,120
Speaker 1: seventeen seventy one through eighteen thirty one, an English machine

918
00:49:42,120 --> 00:49:45,479
Speaker 1: tool inventor who just apparently worked his way up through

919
00:49:45,520 --> 00:49:48,520
Speaker 1: factory work from the age of twelve, just doing all

920
00:49:48,560 --> 00:49:51,799
Speaker 1: sorts of kind of god awful sounding jobs. But he

921
00:49:51,880 --> 00:49:56,520
Speaker 1: had this, um, you know, very ingenious mind for mechanisms,

922
00:49:56,560 --> 00:49:58,560
Speaker 1: and you know he's just figuring out how everything works

923
00:49:59,120 --> 00:50:02,560
Speaker 1: at every stage the game. And then at age eighteen

924
00:50:02,600 --> 00:50:05,200
Speaker 1: he begins to work for the English inventor and locksmith

925
00:50:05,520 --> 00:50:09,920
Speaker 1: Joseph Brahma. Oh so major figure. People might well have

926
00:50:10,000 --> 00:50:13,520
Speaker 1: heard of the Brahma lock before. Yes, yeah, the Brahma

927
00:50:13,560 --> 00:50:17,440
Speaker 1: lock is central to this. Brahma also invented the hydraulic press.

928
00:50:17,520 --> 00:50:21,000
Speaker 1: So if we have any Terminator fans out there, you

929
00:50:21,000 --> 00:50:23,960
Speaker 1: can think you can thank a Brahma. Otherwise the scene

930
00:50:23,960 --> 00:50:29,360
Speaker 1: wouldn't be possible. So Brahma designed and patented an improved

931
00:50:29,360 --> 00:50:33,239
Speaker 1: tumbler lock um, but he encounter challenges when it came

932
00:50:33,280 --> 00:50:36,480
Speaker 1: to manufacturing it for an economic price, because it's one

933
00:50:36,520 --> 00:50:38,839
Speaker 1: thing to make a really cool lock or really effective lock,

934
00:50:39,120 --> 00:50:41,080
Speaker 1: a lock that I think I read that he he

935
00:50:41,120 --> 00:50:43,640
Speaker 1: even had one of these placed in in the front

936
00:50:43,680 --> 00:50:45,640
Speaker 1: of his store, and there was a reward if you

937
00:50:45,640 --> 00:50:48,880
Speaker 1: could pick it, you know, But well this comes up

938
00:50:48,920 --> 00:50:51,720
Speaker 1: often then, um, you know, in many episodes of invention,

939
00:50:51,800 --> 00:50:56,239
Speaker 1: we discovered that often the the impediment to an invention

940
00:50:56,640 --> 00:50:59,000
Speaker 1: going out into the world is not that it can't

941
00:50:59,080 --> 00:51:02,480
Speaker 1: be made, but that it can't be made economically, that

942
00:51:02,560 --> 00:51:04,759
Speaker 1: it can't be made in a way that you know,

943
00:51:04,960 --> 00:51:07,680
Speaker 1: makes sense for anybody to make it. Yeah. I remember

944
00:51:07,680 --> 00:51:10,399
Speaker 1: we talked about this with with Jeff Barry ak Beach

945
00:51:10,680 --> 00:51:13,560
Speaker 1: Barry about cocktails, like even in that like it's one

946
00:51:13,560 --> 00:51:15,480
Speaker 1: thing to make a really awesome cocktail with all these

947
00:51:15,480 --> 00:51:18,600
Speaker 1: crazy ingredients, but can you scale that? Can you actually

948
00:51:18,719 --> 00:51:20,680
Speaker 1: can you make it in a bar and then and

949
00:51:20,719 --> 00:51:22,439
Speaker 1: then sell it put a price on it that people

950
00:51:22,480 --> 00:51:25,359
Speaker 1: will pay. And of course it's the same thing with

951
00:51:25,400 --> 00:51:29,120
Speaker 1: this lock. So um yeah, So so Brahmin he has this,

952
00:51:29,200 --> 00:51:31,319
Speaker 1: he has this problem. How can I make this this

953
00:51:31,440 --> 00:51:34,400
Speaker 1: lock in a way where people will actually be buying

954
00:51:34,400 --> 00:51:36,640
Speaker 1: and I'll make money off of it? Because apparently the

955
00:51:36,680 --> 00:51:40,160
Speaker 1: time was right because uh, because Burke mentions that there

956
00:51:40,160 --> 00:51:43,320
Speaker 1: were a series of robberies in London, so it increased

957
00:51:43,320 --> 00:51:47,200
Speaker 1: had increased the demand for security technology and and Brahma

958
00:51:47,239 --> 00:51:50,120
Speaker 1: wanted to take advantage of this, so he ends up

959
00:51:50,200 --> 00:51:54,759
Speaker 1: hiring Modesley, and Modesley devised tools to make the locksmiths

960
00:51:54,840 --> 00:51:58,719
Speaker 1: work faster and more accurate, enabling the Brahma lock to

961
00:51:58,760 --> 00:52:02,799
Speaker 1: be produced for cheaper and sold at an economic price. Now,

962
00:52:02,880 --> 00:52:05,959
Speaker 1: Modesley eventually leaves, I was reading the Dibramo like pulled

963
00:52:05,960 --> 00:52:07,839
Speaker 1: a Scrooge on him and wouldn't give him a raise

964
00:52:07,920 --> 00:52:11,120
Speaker 1: after all of this, So he leaves, but he takes

965
00:52:11,120 --> 00:52:13,280
Speaker 1: his lathe with him and he sets up his own shop,

966
00:52:13,360 --> 00:52:17,080
Speaker 1: and in time he becomes what some historians consider the

967
00:52:17,120 --> 00:52:21,400
Speaker 1: founding father of machine tool technology. And this is actually

968
00:52:21,440 --> 00:52:25,279
Speaker 1: historically very important, or at least Burke makes the the

969
00:52:25,400 --> 00:52:27,879
Speaker 1: argument that it is, because, of course, it is true

970
00:52:27,920 --> 00:52:31,800
Speaker 1: that precise machining of metal parts, which means the ability

971
00:52:31,880 --> 00:52:35,160
Speaker 1: to cut a piece of metal into an accurate design

972
00:52:35,280 --> 00:52:38,680
Speaker 1: over and over with little error or variants, that that

973
00:52:38,800 --> 00:52:42,719
Speaker 1: precise machining was a really important ingredient for the Industrial revolution.

974
00:52:42,760 --> 00:52:46,600
Speaker 1: If you're mass mass manufacturing machine parts so that people

975
00:52:46,680 --> 00:52:49,920
Speaker 1: can mechanize production of whatever it is, you know, whatever

976
00:52:50,000 --> 00:52:53,440
Speaker 1: textiles they're working on, or or whatever um you need

977
00:52:53,480 --> 00:52:56,759
Speaker 1: to be able to produce all of these small, accurate

978
00:52:56,840 --> 00:53:00,920
Speaker 1: reproductions of these these fine metal parts, and having the

979
00:53:01,000 --> 00:53:03,480
Speaker 1: right kind of lath or the ability to machine these

980
00:53:03,480 --> 00:53:06,960
Speaker 1: parts correctly is crucial. Absolutely. So yeah, we see the

981
00:53:07,520 --> 00:53:11,279
Speaker 1: role of the lock in this, this pivotal moment in

982
00:53:11,440 --> 00:53:16,080
Speaker 1: just the future of human technology. Uh so, yeah, fascinating

983
00:53:16,120 --> 00:53:19,440
Speaker 1: to think about. Now, for the rest of the podcast, though,

984
00:53:19,440 --> 00:53:21,319
Speaker 1: I thought we'd we talk a little bit at least

985
00:53:21,360 --> 00:53:26,080
Speaker 1: about the use of locks and um and keys in

986
00:53:26,560 --> 00:53:30,240
Speaker 1: you know, superstitious stories, but also in symbolism. Uh certainly

987
00:53:30,280 --> 00:53:32,120
Speaker 1: we won't be able to even you know, scratch the

988
00:53:32,120 --> 00:53:35,440
Speaker 1: surface of the global traditions here and again, this will

989
00:53:35,480 --> 00:53:38,120
Speaker 1: be a great place for our various listeners to reach

990
00:53:38,120 --> 00:53:41,120
Speaker 1: out to us and share more. But uh Bora goes

991
00:53:41,160 --> 00:53:44,120
Speaker 1: into this a tiny bit on his website, and uh,

992
00:53:44,480 --> 00:53:46,240
Speaker 1: I want to read this one example that he shares.

993
00:53:46,320 --> 00:53:49,120
Speaker 1: Quote in Swedish folk tales, we have the castle that

994
00:53:49,200 --> 00:53:53,520
Speaker 1: stood on golden posts. A cat transformed itself into a

995
00:53:53,520 --> 00:53:56,560
Speaker 1: loaf of bread in the keyhole of a giant's castle,

996
00:53:57,040 --> 00:54:00,439
Speaker 1: keeping the giant from getting into his home. Unlock the door,

997
00:54:00,520 --> 00:54:02,879
Speaker 1: or the giant yelled, but instead the cat told him

998
00:54:02,920 --> 00:54:06,279
Speaker 1: about its many adventures until the sun went up and

999
00:54:06,320 --> 00:54:13,120
Speaker 1: the giant bursts. That sounds like a highly condensed folk tale,

1000
00:54:14,000 --> 00:54:17,040
Speaker 1: maybe something that was originally about ten times as long.

1001
00:54:17,480 --> 00:54:19,239
Speaker 1: I don't know. I kind of love it. It's it's

1002
00:54:19,320 --> 00:54:21,640
Speaker 1: kind of you know, it almost feels like it's tweet length.

1003
00:54:21,840 --> 00:54:24,959
Speaker 1: But but but perfect. Listen, we're not screwing around. Okay,

1004
00:54:25,040 --> 00:54:28,000
Speaker 1: I gotta get to the burning up really fast. I'm

1005
00:54:28,000 --> 00:54:30,319
Speaker 1: not burning up bursting. Sorry, the sun comes up and

1006
00:54:30,320 --> 00:54:36,839
Speaker 1: he bursts. Um, wait, hold, why did the cat turn

1007
00:54:36,880 --> 00:54:40,279
Speaker 1: into a loaf of bread? I guess? Okay, so I'm guessing. Okay,

1008
00:54:40,320 --> 00:54:42,840
Speaker 1: it's a giant. So it's a huge door and in

1009
00:54:42,920 --> 00:54:47,160
Speaker 1: a huge keyhole, and I guess the cat climbs in

1010
00:54:47,360 --> 00:54:50,160
Speaker 1: and then expands into the form. Like if the cat

1011
00:54:50,200 --> 00:54:52,760
Speaker 1: can change his form, then I guess he becomes bread

1012
00:54:52,800 --> 00:54:55,319
Speaker 1: in order to completely stop up the keyhole and thus

1013
00:54:55,400 --> 00:54:59,879
Speaker 1: be impossible to remove. Okay, I see, so the cat

1014
00:55:00,120 --> 00:55:02,040
Speaker 1: is doing this on purpose. It's not just like the

1015
00:55:02,080 --> 00:55:06,640
Speaker 1: cat happened to transform into a loaf of bread, right, Yeah,

1016
00:55:06,880 --> 00:55:08,799
Speaker 1: I'm guessing the cat is kind of like the dog

1017
00:55:08,880 --> 00:55:12,680
Speaker 1: on Adventure Time. Um, Jake, you know where he can

1018
00:55:12,760 --> 00:55:14,480
Speaker 1: he can change his shape, Like the cat goes into

1019
00:55:14,520 --> 00:55:17,959
Speaker 1: the keyhole, swells up and then the giants it really

1020
00:55:18,000 --> 00:55:20,320
Speaker 1: wants to get inside because the giants like a troll

1021
00:55:20,400 --> 00:55:24,840
Speaker 1: and we'll burst if the sun touches him. So yeah,

1022
00:55:24,880 --> 00:55:31,040
Speaker 1: it's a perfect story. Go back to nippel him um.

1023
00:55:31,120 --> 00:55:33,760
Speaker 1: So from here, I'd like to to move on to

1024
00:55:33,760 --> 00:55:37,520
Speaker 1: to some of some symbols um that involved the key Uh.

1025
00:55:37,560 --> 00:55:40,239
Speaker 1: There there's one in particular I wanted to start with

1026
00:55:40,320 --> 00:55:42,200
Speaker 1: because it was one that I remember seeing when I

1027
00:55:42,239 --> 00:55:44,560
Speaker 1: was a kid, and I didn't I didn't understand what

1028
00:55:44,600 --> 00:55:49,160
Speaker 1: it what it was about. Um. So to to lay

1029
00:55:49,160 --> 00:55:52,880
Speaker 1: a little background here, I I assemble and paint various miniatures.

1030
00:55:52,880 --> 00:55:55,080
Speaker 1: I do little dungeons, dragons, miniatures. I do a lot

1031
00:55:55,080 --> 00:55:57,719
Speaker 1: of Star Wars miniatures right now, I do Star Wars vehicles.

1032
00:55:58,080 --> 00:56:01,280
Speaker 1: But my dad was really into war were two miniatures,

1033
00:56:01,320 --> 00:56:03,879
Speaker 1: so you know a lot of like um, like US

1034
00:56:03,920 --> 00:56:07,160
Speaker 1: Air Force planes and tanks, but also some German planes

1035
00:56:07,160 --> 00:56:10,680
Speaker 1: and tanks as well. And I remember there being um

1036
00:56:11,120 --> 00:56:13,040
Speaker 1: a book or a pamphlet that came with one of

1037
00:56:13,080 --> 00:56:16,160
Speaker 1: these that showed all these different German military symbols and

1038
00:56:16,200 --> 00:56:18,400
Speaker 1: they were really perplexing to look at, especially since a

1039
00:56:18,400 --> 00:56:20,800
Speaker 1: lot of them seemed to like really resonate with evil.

1040
00:56:20,920 --> 00:56:23,080
Speaker 1: You know. It's kind of like that Mitchell and Webb

1041
00:56:23,120 --> 00:56:25,759
Speaker 1: look bit, you know, are we the Batties where they're

1042
00:56:25,760 --> 00:56:28,040
Speaker 1: looking at all the various skulls and black and white

1043
00:56:28,239 --> 00:56:32,040
Speaker 1: symbols all over their their Nazi uniforms. And I recall

1044
00:56:32,280 --> 00:56:35,920
Speaker 1: one unit insignia in particular that had a key on it.

1045
00:56:36,360 --> 00:56:37,839
Speaker 1: And and I hadn't thought about this in a long

1046
00:56:37,840 --> 00:56:40,279
Speaker 1: time until we started to put this episode together. So

1047
00:56:40,320 --> 00:56:41,759
Speaker 1: I looked into it. I'm like, what it was that

1048
00:56:41,840 --> 00:56:43,799
Speaker 1: key about? And I was thinking, Okay, it's gonna have

1049
00:56:43,840 --> 00:56:46,399
Speaker 1: some sort of you know, occult symbol. You know. It's

1050
00:56:46,400 --> 00:56:49,279
Speaker 1: one of these various symbols that the Nazis um you know,

1051
00:56:49,320 --> 00:56:52,040
Speaker 1: appropriated and you know, stole from some other traditions, the

1052
00:56:52,480 --> 00:56:55,640
Speaker 1: key to the gate of the thousand year Reich or whatever, yeah,

1053
00:56:55,680 --> 00:56:58,160
Speaker 1: or or whatever, you know. But I was curious, like

1054
00:56:58,160 --> 00:57:01,040
Speaker 1: where they got it. Um. So, first of all, this

1055
00:57:01,120 --> 00:57:03,800
Speaker 1: was the symbol for the first s s Panzer Division

1056
00:57:04,239 --> 00:57:06,440
Speaker 1: and UM, and yeah, it does look kind of spooky.

1057
00:57:06,480 --> 00:57:09,440
Speaker 1: It's in black and white, you know. UM. As it

1058
00:57:09,480 --> 00:57:12,520
Speaker 1: turns out, though, it has a pretty non spooky, non

1059
00:57:12,560 --> 00:57:17,160
Speaker 1: occult origin. Apparently Joseph Sep Dietrich was the unit's first

1060
00:57:17,200 --> 00:57:21,240
Speaker 1: commander and his last name Dietrick. Uh. It can be

1061
00:57:21,640 --> 00:57:27,160
Speaker 1: translated as keeper of secrets or lock pick or skeleton key.

1062
00:57:27,640 --> 00:57:29,800
Speaker 1: So that's all there is to it. That the guy's

1063
00:57:29,880 --> 00:57:33,120
Speaker 1: last name like meant lock pick or skeleton key, and

1064
00:57:33,160 --> 00:57:35,520
Speaker 1: so they use that as the emblem UH. And then

1065
00:57:35,560 --> 00:57:38,600
Speaker 1: the Armored U S. S. Pans or Corps had at

1066
00:57:38,600 --> 00:57:41,080
Speaker 1: a different version of the symbol with like cross keys.

1067
00:57:41,560 --> 00:57:43,680
Speaker 1: But it's interesting because it also kind of sums up

1068
00:57:43,680 --> 00:57:46,600
Speaker 1: the utter emptiness of the Nazis in a way. You know.

1069
00:57:46,680 --> 00:57:49,400
Speaker 1: It's just it was picked because it it it had

1070
00:57:49,440 --> 00:57:51,240
Speaker 1: some tide of this dude's last name, and it looked

1071
00:57:51,320 --> 00:57:54,960
Speaker 1: kind of spooky, but it means nothing. Right, portentous seeming

1072
00:57:55,000 --> 00:57:59,520
Speaker 1: images with the appearance of symbolic significance, but in fact

1073
00:57:59,600 --> 00:58:04,480
Speaker 1: they just went to nothing other than an individual personalities ego. Yeah,

1074
00:58:04,520 --> 00:58:06,640
Speaker 1: but I mean too, I guess on on some level

1075
00:58:06,640 --> 00:58:08,600
Speaker 1: though you look at it, it involves the key and

1076
00:58:08,720 --> 00:58:11,120
Speaker 1: involved the lock and the key in the lock are

1077
00:58:11,160 --> 00:58:14,360
Speaker 1: found just throughout human iconography, in one form of another

1078
00:58:14,520 --> 00:58:17,880
Speaker 1: or another. UM one of the big ones are the

1079
00:58:17,880 --> 00:58:22,520
Speaker 1: the you'll find our St. Peter's keys. You've seen these before, right,

1080
00:58:22,560 --> 00:58:26,600
Speaker 1: ja oh, absolutely, yeah. So St. Peter Um, according to

1081
00:58:26,680 --> 00:58:30,320
Speaker 1: Christian tradition, was the was the first pope. You know,

1082
00:58:30,360 --> 00:58:32,560
Speaker 1: he was of course one of the disciples of Jesus,

1083
00:58:33,040 --> 00:58:35,320
Speaker 1: and it said that he was the first leader of

1084
00:58:35,360 --> 00:58:38,880
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church. And so a lot of Catholic imagery

1085
00:58:39,040 --> 00:58:42,800
Speaker 1: uses the the keys of Peter as imagery, you know,

1086
00:58:42,920 --> 00:58:45,960
Speaker 1: symbolizing the authority of the church or stuff having to

1087
00:58:46,000 --> 00:58:48,760
Speaker 1: do with the papacy or Vatican City. Yeah. I believe

1088
00:58:48,800 --> 00:58:52,800
Speaker 1: that the Matthew sixteen nineteen says, and I will give

1089
00:58:53,240 --> 00:58:56,120
Speaker 1: unto the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatsoever

1090
00:58:56,200 --> 00:58:58,560
Speaker 1: thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in Heaven,

1091
00:58:58,840 --> 00:59:01,360
Speaker 1: and whatsover thou shall lose on earth, shall be losed

1092
00:59:01,680 --> 00:59:04,720
Speaker 1: in heaven. Um. So you see these on a lot

1093
00:59:04,760 --> 00:59:08,040
Speaker 1: of the you know, flags and seals associated with the papacy,

1094
00:59:08,200 --> 00:59:09,640
Speaker 1: but we also see them in a lot of Swiss

1095
00:59:09,680 --> 00:59:13,480
Speaker 1: flags as well, and and other like European bits of heraldry.

1096
00:59:13,760 --> 00:59:16,160
Speaker 1: You know, as much as I'm kind of a Bible nerd,

1097
00:59:16,200 --> 00:59:19,040
Speaker 1: I've actually never looked deeply into that passage. I wonder,

1098
00:59:19,280 --> 00:59:22,480
Speaker 1: I wonder what the historical context of that whole the

1099
00:59:22,760 --> 00:59:25,400
Speaker 1: key imagery is. I bet that that cashes out in

1100
00:59:25,400 --> 00:59:28,680
Speaker 1: a kind of surprising and interesting way. I would put

1101
00:59:28,720 --> 00:59:32,200
Speaker 1: some money on it. Yeah. Um. Now, if you're looking

1102
00:59:32,440 --> 00:59:35,040
Speaker 1: for more modern uses of it, more recent uses of it,

1103
00:59:35,240 --> 00:59:36,760
Speaker 1: you can look at the flag of the U. S.

1104
00:59:36,880 --> 00:59:40,360
Speaker 1: National Security Agency, the n s A, because it has, um,

1105
00:59:40,800 --> 00:59:43,960
Speaker 1: it's the seal with the you know, the United States Eagle,

1106
00:59:44,400 --> 00:59:46,840
Speaker 1: and what does it have gripped in its talents but

1107
00:59:46,920 --> 00:59:49,880
Speaker 1: a big old key. It suggests that the agency is

1108
00:59:49,920 --> 00:59:52,840
Speaker 1: a bird of prey that swoops down and snatches up

1109
00:59:52,880 --> 00:59:56,440
Speaker 1: access to things. Yeah, or or has just been granted

1110
00:59:56,440 --> 00:59:58,200
Speaker 1: the key to the city by the mayor, like it's

1111
00:59:58,240 --> 01:00:06,320
Speaker 1: a huge key the hopes of Yeah. So that's a

1112
01:00:06,360 --> 01:00:08,720
Speaker 1: fun one to look up. Um. Another one that I

1113
01:00:08,800 --> 01:00:11,840
Speaker 1: ran across, uh, And again we're not mentioning near all

1114
01:00:11,840 --> 01:00:13,640
Speaker 1: of these, but just some of the ones that stood

1115
01:00:13,640 --> 01:00:16,760
Speaker 1: out to me. There's the flag of Gibraltar. Uh. This

1116
01:00:16,840 --> 01:00:19,600
Speaker 1: is the flag for the British Overseas territory, and it

1117
01:00:19,640 --> 01:00:23,080
Speaker 1: features a key affixed to a fortress by a golden cord.

1118
01:00:23,360 --> 01:00:25,560
Speaker 1: So it's a golden key, has his golden cord and

1119
01:00:25,600 --> 01:00:30,400
Speaker 1: it's kind of like tied inside the fortress's mouth sort of. Um.

1120
01:00:30,480 --> 01:00:32,360
Speaker 1: And the golden key here is said to represent the

1121
01:00:32,400 --> 01:00:36,520
Speaker 1: Fortress of Gibraltar's importance and also signify the idea that

1122
01:00:36,600 --> 01:00:40,760
Speaker 1: Gibraltar was long seen as the key to Spain. But

1123
01:00:40,880 --> 01:00:42,640
Speaker 1: this one's nate because the key's just hanging there. It's

1124
01:00:42,680 --> 01:00:44,560
Speaker 1: kind of inviting you, like, am I supposed to take it?

1125
01:00:44,600 --> 01:00:49,320
Speaker 1: Is that for me? Um? There's also a really interesting one.

1126
01:00:49,320 --> 01:00:51,160
Speaker 1: I ran across the coat of arms of the German

1127
01:00:51,240 --> 01:00:55,080
Speaker 1: city of Bremen, a rather curious looking key as it's

1128
01:00:55,400 --> 01:00:58,640
Speaker 1: linked to the patron saint of the Bremen Cathedral, uh

1129
01:00:58,680 --> 01:01:01,800
Speaker 1: Simon petras Ak say Peter um. But but this is

1130
01:01:01,800 --> 01:01:03,720
Speaker 1: this key has a real maze like look to it.

1131
01:01:03,720 --> 01:01:05,960
Speaker 1: It's really interesting when you look at the the end

1132
01:01:06,000 --> 01:01:09,920
Speaker 1: bit here, it's very ornate. So I guess this is

1133
01:01:09,920 --> 01:01:13,160
Speaker 1: what you would call awarded key, right, like, yeah, And

1134
01:01:13,200 --> 01:01:16,040
Speaker 1: the way that it works is has a complex, intricate

1135
01:01:16,160 --> 01:01:19,680
Speaker 1: sort of series of patterns in solid metal and then

1136
01:01:19,720 --> 01:01:23,600
Speaker 1: it would turn through corresponding gaps in the walls inside

1137
01:01:23,640 --> 01:01:26,280
Speaker 1: the lock, right And yeah, so I imagine this could

1138
01:01:26,280 --> 01:01:28,400
Speaker 1: be a functional key like there. But but on the

1139
01:01:28,400 --> 01:01:31,240
Speaker 1: other hand, it also so just you know the places

1140
01:01:31,320 --> 01:01:33,480
Speaker 1: you can go with the key as symbol, like the

1141
01:01:33,560 --> 01:01:36,600
Speaker 1: key can then just be transformed into other objects, you know,

1142
01:01:36,680 --> 01:01:40,400
Speaker 1: where in a way when you wouldn't have to go

1143
01:01:40,480 --> 01:01:43,000
Speaker 1: far to not recognize this as a key anymore. Because

1144
01:01:43,040 --> 01:01:44,480
Speaker 1: there are also a bunch of lions on this and

1145
01:01:44,520 --> 01:01:47,000
Speaker 1: one of the lions is brandishing the key, and it

1146
01:01:47,000 --> 01:01:50,919
Speaker 1: looks more like it's a sword or a small hand cannon. Um,

1147
01:01:50,960 --> 01:01:54,680
Speaker 1: it's it's curious. Yeah, So I guess, I guess what

1148
01:01:54,720 --> 01:01:57,240
Speaker 1: we're saying is that sometimes the key means virtually nothing,

1149
01:01:57,280 --> 01:02:01,880
Speaker 1: but but often it signifies authority or teaching importance. Just

1150
01:02:01,920 --> 01:02:07,880
Speaker 1: a few examples the trust, ownership, UM, secret knowledge, certainly

1151
01:02:07,920 --> 01:02:12,080
Speaker 1: at times UM forbidden knowledge. Yeah, there's so many directions

1152
01:02:12,120 --> 01:02:14,920
Speaker 1: you can go in. I wonder is there anybody else

1153
01:02:15,080 --> 01:02:18,640
Speaker 1: out there who's enough of a fan of the original

1154
01:02:18,680 --> 01:02:21,640
Speaker 1: Halloween that in your household whenever you lose your keys

1155
01:02:21,760 --> 01:02:25,200
Speaker 1: and you're looking for him, everybody starts saying the keys

1156
01:02:25,640 --> 01:02:28,440
Speaker 1: like Jamie Lee Curtis does. And and you know the

1157
01:02:28,520 --> 01:02:31,680
Speaker 1: ending sequence, Oh man, do you remember that? God? I

1158
01:02:32,400 --> 01:02:34,960
Speaker 1: vaguely remember that, but it does make me think of

1159
01:02:35,040 --> 01:02:38,840
Speaker 1: just oh man, keys and horror films, the key fumbling scene,

1160
01:02:39,240 --> 01:02:41,080
Speaker 1: the key to a door, or certainly the key to

1161
01:02:41,120 --> 01:02:43,840
Speaker 1: an automobile. Where would we be without the key? Where

1162
01:02:43,840 --> 01:02:46,960
Speaker 1: would our suspense be? You know, I feel like a

1163
01:02:47,000 --> 01:02:50,480
Speaker 1: lot of movies have replicated that scene in Halloween where

1164
01:02:50,960 --> 01:02:52,720
Speaker 1: you're fumbling with the keys, you're trying to get through

1165
01:02:52,720 --> 01:02:55,600
Speaker 1: the door, the killer is approaching. You finally get through

1166
01:02:55,640 --> 01:02:57,520
Speaker 1: the door, and then the killers just where are they?

1167
01:02:57,560 --> 01:02:59,600
Speaker 1: They're just gone, you know, they were right up on

1168
01:02:59,680 --> 01:03:01,480
Speaker 1: you when you get through, and then of course they're

1169
01:03:01,480 --> 01:03:06,320
Speaker 1: somewhere inside. Uh yeah, they'll they'll do it every time. Man.

1170
01:03:06,400 --> 01:03:08,840
Speaker 1: I I certainly feel like we've only scratched the surface

1171
01:03:08,840 --> 01:03:13,200
Speaker 1: here about uh, certainly about keys and locks in history

1172
01:03:13,240 --> 01:03:17,120
Speaker 1: and global cultures and also pop culture and yeah, man,

1173
01:03:17,120 --> 01:03:19,200
Speaker 1: there's so many different directions to go in. So obviously

1174
01:03:19,240 --> 01:03:21,360
Speaker 1: we would love to hear from everybody out there, you know,

1175
01:03:21,400 --> 01:03:24,480
Speaker 1: how locks and keys feature into your life, locks and

1176
01:03:24,600 --> 01:03:26,520
Speaker 1: keys from your part of the world or places that

1177
01:03:26,560 --> 01:03:29,440
Speaker 1: you've traveled to. Um, you know, it's all, it's all

1178
01:03:29,440 --> 01:03:31,200
Speaker 1: on the table. Would love to love to hear from

1179
01:03:31,240 --> 01:03:33,560
Speaker 1: you Yeah. In the meantime, if you would like to

1180
01:03:33,600 --> 01:03:35,520
Speaker 1: check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind,

1181
01:03:35,600 --> 01:03:39,080
Speaker 1: past episodes to deal with inventions or whatnot, you can

1182
01:03:39,120 --> 01:03:42,400
Speaker 1: find us wherever you get your podcasts and wherever that

1183
01:03:42,400 --> 01:03:44,320
Speaker 1: happens to be. We just asked that you rate, review,

1184
01:03:44,360 --> 01:03:47,040
Speaker 1: and subscribe if the platform allows you to do that,

1185
01:03:47,120 --> 01:03:50,680
Speaker 1: if they provide you the keys necessary. Huge thanks as

1186
01:03:50,680 --> 01:03:54,200
Speaker 1: always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If

1187
01:03:54,240 --> 01:03:55,720
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us with

1188
01:03:55,840 --> 01:03:58,080
Speaker 1: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a

1189
01:03:58,160 --> 01:04:00,120
Speaker 1: topic for the future, or just to say hi, you

1190
01:04:00,160 --> 01:04:02,880
Speaker 1: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your

1191
01:04:02,880 --> 01:04:12,880
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production

1192
01:04:12,960 --> 01:04:15,680
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,

1193
01:04:15,920 --> 01:04:18,600
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

1194
01:04:18,640 --> 01:04:31,120
Speaker 1: you listening to your favorite shows.