WEBVTT - Short Stuff: Curse Tablets

0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:06.560
<v Speaker 1>Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck.

0:00:06.640 --> 0:00:09.119
<v Speaker 1>Jerry's here sitting in for Dave and this short stuff.

0:00:09.240 --> 0:00:13.640
<v Speaker 1>Getty up, tally ho, let's go. Let's make sure this

0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:19.200
<v Speaker 1>one doesn't blow. Oh, say thank you, A curse, a

0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:22.520
<v Speaker 1>curse upon your house, a pox upon you, then jerk.

0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:27.600
<v Speaker 1>I would never write a curse tablet for you, my friend. No,

0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:31.720
<v Speaker 1>nor would I. I mean, like I I would even

0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:34.240
<v Speaker 1>think that would go without saying, because it's just such

0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:38.240
<v Speaker 1>a jerk move to write a cursed habilely against somebody,

0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:41.040
<v Speaker 1>if you think about it. Yeah, I never had heard

0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:44.640
<v Speaker 1>of these before. Uh. These are what kind of what

0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:48.280
<v Speaker 1>it sounds like. It's a tablet? Uh. This is generally

0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:53.319
<v Speaker 1>ancient rome or grease with a curse inscribed upon it. Uh.

0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:58.800
<v Speaker 1>And you would generally inscribe this curse um after somebody's death, right,

0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:03.400
<v Speaker 1>not neces necessarily, not necessarily though there's one, a famous

0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:07.280
<v Speaker 1>one in POMPEII that somebody affixed to a tomb so

0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:09.480
<v Speaker 1>you could do it after death. And what you were

0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:14.240
<v Speaker 1>essentially saying, do you want to read that one? Sure

0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:17.240
<v Speaker 1>you ready? I'm ready? And this comes to our friends

0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:21.720
<v Speaker 1>from house stuffworks Dot com in Ancient Roman, ancient Greece. Stranger,

0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:24.840
<v Speaker 1>stay a short while if it is not too troublesome,

0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:28.040
<v Speaker 1>and learn what to avoid. This man, who I hoped

0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:32.000
<v Speaker 1>was a friend of mine, brought prosecutors to me, a

0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:35.399
<v Speaker 1>k A. Persecutors sort of, I think the literal pink

0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:39.640
<v Speaker 1>you suit him? Okay, prosecutors to me, and oh yeah sure,

0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:43.480
<v Speaker 1>and instigated proceedings. I am grateful to the gods and

0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:48.400
<v Speaker 1>my innocence, colon. I am free from all trouble. He

0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:53.640
<v Speaker 1>who deceived us, may he not receive the pennates, which

0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:58.280
<v Speaker 1>are the household gods, nor the underworld. So what this

0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:02.360
<v Speaker 1>guy who cursed this this other person's tomb was saying,

0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:05.840
<v Speaker 1>is this guy's a jerk. I hope that his his

0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:08.600
<v Speaker 1>soul basically doesn't even make it to the afterlife. That

0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:13.639
<v Speaker 1>essentially he's just doomed to wander aimlessly for eternity because

0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:16.760
<v Speaker 1>he sued me once. That's right. And this is a

0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:20.520
<v Speaker 1>great example of a sort of a standard issue cursed tablet,

0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:25.280
<v Speaker 1>also known at times as a uh here we go

0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:28.519
<v Speaker 1>the fixione. Wow nice, I was gonna say the E

0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:31.920
<v Speaker 1>on the end and pinch my four finger and thumb together.

0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:36.240
<v Speaker 1>The fixion. Yeah, I think that's that's it. You might

0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:39.800
<v Speaker 1>be right, but this was a common practice at various

0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:44.760
<v Speaker 1>times through the ancient times. And uh, they were not

0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:48.880
<v Speaker 1>necessarily always written on the same thing. Sometimes it was papyrus.

0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:52.000
<v Speaker 1>Sometimes I believe they found lamps and pieces of clay

0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:54.640
<v Speaker 1>and things like that. It kind of depends on how

0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:56.919
<v Speaker 1>much money you had. Um, but there was a lot

0:02:56.960 --> 0:03:01.440
<v Speaker 1>of lead because of the silver mining operations, especially near Athens,

0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:05.800
<v Speaker 1>and so lead turned out to be a really great

0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:08.960
<v Speaker 1>sort of permanent thing that you could carve something on

0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:12.040
<v Speaker 1>and apparently looks really cool when carved upon. Yeah, there's

0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:15.080
<v Speaker 1>somebody interviewed in the House Stuff Works article that said,

0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:17.480
<v Speaker 1>you know when you when you write on it, when

0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:20.000
<v Speaker 1>you carve it, it has like this kind of like

0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:24.520
<v Speaker 1>a silvery line that really kind of pops I guess

0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:28.320
<v Speaker 1>against like the dull the dullness of the oxidized lead.

0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:31.320
<v Speaker 1>And then also it's just easy to write and let

0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:33.320
<v Speaker 1>you can carve in it pretty easily. You don't have

0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:35.880
<v Speaker 1>to be like a silver smith of any sort to

0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:38.040
<v Speaker 1>do that. You can just be an average smoke with

0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:43.160
<v Speaker 1>something sharp. That's right. Uh, there was a historian too.

0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:45.240
<v Speaker 1>They talked to that said that it kind of came

0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:49.840
<v Speaker 1>and went throughout history. But it, interestingly, it was like

0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:52.680
<v Speaker 1>a real fad and then went a way really quickly.

0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:55.560
<v Speaker 1>Each time that happened. It wasn't like a gradual rise

0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:59.320
<v Speaker 1>and fall. They described it as sharp spikes and popularity. Yeah,

0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:02.240
<v Speaker 1>and I saw that it was. Um, it was a

0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:04.920
<v Speaker 1>The time that it popped up was somewhere around like

0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:09.440
<v Speaker 1>five hundred BC too, maybe three fifty BC is when

0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:13.440
<v Speaker 1>it first starts. And um, if you'll remember Chuck from

0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:18.800
<v Speaker 1>our bicameralism episode, that's about the time people got their

0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:22.640
<v Speaker 1>their brain their consciousness in order and started to get

0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:26.960
<v Speaker 1>the superstitious because the gods had abandoned them. Interesting, I

0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:28.960
<v Speaker 1>think so too. I wonder if this has anything to

0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:31.560
<v Speaker 1>do with that. Yeah, I mean sure, it might have

0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:33.600
<v Speaker 1>just been part of that time. You know, why not

0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:38.080
<v Speaker 1>Julian James hypothesis wasn't scientific. I can add to it anyway.

0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:43.240
<v Speaker 1>I like, all right, so let's it's very smugged the

0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:46.039
<v Speaker 1>way he said that, I liked it. Uh, You're that

0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:48.120
<v Speaker 1>always reminds me and somebody hear the word smug when

0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:52.000
<v Speaker 1>Tom Cruise talked to Matt Lower about being smug. Oh, yeah, no,

0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:54.159
<v Speaker 1>I never saw that. Oh, it's one of the great

0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:57.440
<v Speaker 1>Of course, Matt Lower ended up being a creepy, so

0:04:57.440 --> 0:04:59.120
<v Speaker 1>I'm not defending him, but I think he was talking

0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:01.320
<v Speaker 1>about scientology and he just kept I don't know, he's

0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:06.279
<v Speaker 1>talking about glib Sorry, Yeah, that's right, I have seen that. Yeah,

0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:09.400
<v Speaker 1>good clip. All right, let's take a break and ponder

0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:13.400
<v Speaker 1>tom cruisiness and uh, we'll be back to talk about

0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:17.920
<v Speaker 1>curse tablets right after this. That's y s game that

0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:26.880
<v Speaker 1>you should know that we should know that knows. But

0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:49.000
<v Speaker 1>Josh Clark, so one of the things that people seem

0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:51.200
<v Speaker 1>to do, and this was like when when they were

0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:54.720
<v Speaker 1>in fashion, when curse tablets were in fashion, um, everybody

0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:57.680
<v Speaker 1>was into him. But it seems like one of the

0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:01.600
<v Speaker 1>things that you would do was like curse your rivals. Um,

0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:04.640
<v Speaker 1>sometimes your rival in politics, your rival in business. I

0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:09.000
<v Speaker 1>think some people cursed the rival chariot teams to their

0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:13.320
<v Speaker 1>favorite chariot teams, which is really lunkheaded, but it like

0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:15.520
<v Speaker 1>it just goes to show people have been lungheaded for

0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:19.279
<v Speaker 1>thousands of years, right, there's always been lucks. Yeah, your neighbors,

0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:21.560
<v Speaker 1>especially if you have some sort of dispute, anyone who

0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:25.760
<v Speaker 1>takes you to court. Um. And then also people um,

0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:29.159
<v Speaker 1>who are romantic rivals to somebody you like. I saw

0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:35.080
<v Speaker 1>one that basically said, may I think Helen be bound

0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:38.080
<v Speaker 1>when she tries to flirt with or have sex with

0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:41.760
<v Speaker 1>you know, the dude that I like, whatever his name was,

0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:45.640
<v Speaker 1>I don't remember, um, And that basically she was saying, like, please,

0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:50.480
<v Speaker 1>God's intervene and keep her from being able to perform

0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:57.920
<v Speaker 1>in the sack with um, Aristophanes, Let's say, who I'm

0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:03.040
<v Speaker 1>neverking was a man or Romulus, by the way, smells

0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:05.640
<v Speaker 1>bad and has a small pep. Yeah. But the whole

0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:08.840
<v Speaker 1>thing was, um, The whole thing was that you were

0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:11.360
<v Speaker 1>basically calling upon the gods. You were invoking the gods

0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:14.320
<v Speaker 1>to to do something bad to this person that you

0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:18.440
<v Speaker 1>did not like. Yeah. And uh So, as you would imagine,

0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:20.000
<v Speaker 1>if you had a lot of money, you were probably

0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:23.960
<v Speaker 1>more educated. You could probably spell and write these things yourself.

0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:26.280
<v Speaker 1>But if you were wealthy, you probably paid someone to

0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:29.600
<v Speaker 1>do it, maybe beautifully. Um, But like you said, all

0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:32.080
<v Speaker 1>stripes did it. So if you didn't have a lot

0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:33.760
<v Speaker 1>of money, that may have been one like on a

0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:36.640
<v Speaker 1>shard of clay, and you would go to you may

0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:38.560
<v Speaker 1>not be able to read or write, so you would

0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:42.920
<v Speaker 1>go to a magician, and these magician how is described

0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:45.680
<v Speaker 1>in this House of Works article, where like contract attorneys,

0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:49.440
<v Speaker 1>and they would kind of give you a template and

0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:52.720
<v Speaker 1>have blanks, and you know, say, fill in the blanks

0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:57.160
<v Speaker 1>with like who's your grievance? Uh? What's his name? Uh?

0:07:57.160 --> 0:07:59.160
<v Speaker 1>And what was the grievance? And then they would sort

0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:02.080
<v Speaker 1>of fill this thing in and Fred Flintstone style. And

0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:04.800
<v Speaker 1>apparently there were times even where they found some examples

0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:07.400
<v Speaker 1>of these square that the name or the grievance was

0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:09.400
<v Speaker 1>so long that they had to kind of squish it

0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:13.000
<v Speaker 1>in and on these template forms, which is really funny

0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:14.600
<v Speaker 1>that if you think about it. Yeah, and also it

0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:19.520
<v Speaker 1>sounds like an ancient mad lib, but magic mad lib basically, yeah, exactly.

0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:23.360
<v Speaker 1>So um, these things got so popular and so widespread

0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:27.040
<v Speaker 1>that in some of the Cursed tablets they'll find like

0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:31.440
<v Speaker 1>clauses that say, and if the other person finds out

0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:34.600
<v Speaker 1>that I've cursed them and they try to reverse curse me,

0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:39.000
<v Speaker 1>then I am rubber in their glue in that case,

0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:41.520
<v Speaker 1>and their curse will bounce off of me and stick

0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:44.720
<v Speaker 1>to them instead, right, And they would say, what is rubber.

0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:46.960
<v Speaker 1>I mean, let's let's just step back for a second.

0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:50.679
<v Speaker 1>Took or essentially talking about the same thing, a cursed

0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:54.320
<v Speaker 1>tablet and saying I'm rubber in your glue is basically

0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:58.600
<v Speaker 1>the same thing. I just think we should point that out. Yeah,

0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:00.840
<v Speaker 1>and it's funny. I do need to poke a little

0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:03.040
<v Speaker 1>fun in this article because I didn't include it for

0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:05.000
<v Speaker 1>your I should have included so you could have a laugh.

0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:09.400
<v Speaker 1>Year deleted it at the end. It was talking about

0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:12.360
<v Speaker 1>where these things kind of when they fell out of popularity.

0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:14.880
<v Speaker 1>It's like, well, some argue that even though they don't

0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:17.199
<v Speaker 1>do anymore, our society is still very much like this,

0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:19.880
<v Speaker 1>and just take a look at Twitter, a sort of

0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:25.679
<v Speaker 1>modern version of a curse stuff. I gotta laugh. Yeah, yeah,

0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:29.960
<v Speaker 1>I guess I kind of yeah, yeah, I think they

0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:33.240
<v Speaker 1>were cursing Twitter. Just then. Another thing too, is there

0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:35.440
<v Speaker 1>was a person interviewed that said that they were like

0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:38.800
<v Speaker 1>a magical arms race because there'd be curses counter curses,

0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:42.440
<v Speaker 1>amulets like the evil Eye, you know, or the eye

0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:47.360
<v Speaker 1>of Osiris, maybe the very famous like amulet or symbol

0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:50.600
<v Speaker 1>that was worn to ward off curses. Like I think

0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:52.440
<v Speaker 1>that was the rubber that you would wear so that

0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:55.360
<v Speaker 1>the curses would bounce off of you like I'm looking

0:09:55.360 --> 0:10:00.679
<v Speaker 1>at you, buddy, basically, and then that's it is. Tablets

0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:10.320
<v Speaker 1>gone for the better, short stuff out. Stuff you Should

0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:12.760
<v Speaker 1>Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more

0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:16.760
<v Speaker 1>podcasts My heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:21.400
<v Speaker 1>or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H