WEBVTT - Casket-a-go-go, Part 1 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:09.720 Welcome to Invention, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, 0:00:09.840 --> 0:00:12.480 welcome to Invention. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:16.159 Joe McCormick. And what's up. It's October. H If you 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:18.400 are a listener of our other podcast, Stuff to Blow 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:21.000 your Mind, you already know that we have a tradition 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:23.480 on that show of devoting the entire month of October 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:27.440 two subjects of a spooky, ghostly or monstrous variety. That's 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:29.680 kind of our bag, and so we thought we'd give 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:32.159 it a try on this podcast too, because why the 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:34.839 heck not. Yeah, yeah, So, you know, we're thinking of 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:36.680 things to cover, and some of these, some of these 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:38.400 are topics we might may very well cover in the 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:41.720 future without We could do chainsaws, we could do uh 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:45.400 booby traps, you know. But of course the most obvious 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:49.760 one is to consider something about the casket, the coffin, uh, 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:53.479 the you know, something about the containers in which we 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:56.760 entomb the dead, the vessels of our dead. That's right, 0:00:56.880 --> 0:01:00.920 And there is more surprising interesting in vation in the 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:05.080 history of this invention genre then you might expect. Yeah, 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:07.440 I mean, because it's a pretty basic concept, right, a 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:11.440 box into which one puts the dead, and then you 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:14.959 put that box any number of places, right, and you know, 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:17.080 usually it's not going to be something that you're gonna 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:21.160 have to, I don't know, revisit, do anything with after 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:23.720 a certain period of time. So it doesn't need to 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:26.600 be a complicated box either, Right, It's just like you're 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:29.480 gonna bury it. So what kind of features does it 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:31.840 need to have? But in that you touched on the 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:35.600 basic human problem here. Like death itself is a pretty simple, 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:40.160 laid out process, it becomes complicated or more complicated through 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:42.600 our human ideas. And therefore even something as simple as 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:46.639 a casket is fine and simple, except people keep thinking 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:50.160 about it, they keep worrying about it and what it represents, 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:55.200 and they pour all of these anxieties into new innovations. Right, 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:57.560 And so I would say this is gonna be one 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:02.360 where the mother of invention is some embination of necessity 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:09.200 and paranoid fantasy. Yes, um, basically the fear of death 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:15.080 overwhelming um necessity and invention, or paradoxically, the fear of 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:18.560 being alive will come back to that. Uh, you know what, 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:21.320 I learned a wonderful phrase while we were preparing for 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:23.920 this episode that I don't think I knew before, and 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:26.480 it's the the disposal of human remains has a sort 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:31.760 of industry term, and that term is final disposition. Be 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:34.000 a great movie franchise, right, I mean, it makes it 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:36.680 sound like this is you reached your final form, like 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:39.359 this is this is the ultimate you. So of course 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:41.440 you want to put a lot of money into how 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:43.960 how you look and what you are poured into. Right. 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:47.000 But also I think of disposition as something kind of 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:51.240 like mood, uh, somewhere between like mood and character trait. 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:54.200 So you could be of like a surly disposition, but 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:57.720 I guess in finality you are of a dead disposition 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:00.160 or you know, just peaceful. You know, it's like I 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:02.760 think they're asleep, right, yeah, now, you know, we always 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:05.160 like to ask the question what came before? So if 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:08.880 we're talking about containers or vessels for the dead, coffins, caskets, 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:11.560 burial vaults, all that kind of thing, asking what came 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:14.200 before is probably gonna be looking at the practice of 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:18.239 human burial before we were using these uh, these containers 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:21.000 or vessels to put people in, and human burial is 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:25.560 actually and archaeologically and anthropologically significant practice in the timeline 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:28.720 of our species because it's I mean, this is one 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:30.320 of those things where it's hard to know for sure, 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:33.960 but it's often taken as a sign of the earliest 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:39.080 archaeologically detectable indications of something like human religion. Yeah, Burial 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:40.920 sites are often a key means of gazing into the 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:43.640 past for starters like this is a way where you 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:48.400 might find a very well, you know, comparatively preserved body 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:51.000 of the deceased, and you can learn things about their anatomy, 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:53.680 how they died, how they lived, what they ate, that 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:57.840 sort of thing. But then also burial customs frequently involved 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:02.480 bearing the individual with artifacts, and those artifacts maybe you know, 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.480 more religious in in uh in their scope and may 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:08.360 reveal things about what these people believed. But then they 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:13.040 also might well be artifacts from their daily life tools 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:17.039 they used, weapons they used, etcetera. It's extremely common throughout 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:20.000 human history to bury people with personal effects, as if 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:23.360 they would need these things wherever they were going next. 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:26.120 And that's sort of an indication that, again we don't 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:29.119 know exactly how or when religious beliefs first took shape 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:31.960 and human beings. But when you see, for example, people 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:35.560 putting a bow or or a you know, a grooming 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:39.000 device like a comb or something in a grave with 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:41.599 a person. You can't know for sure what that means, 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:43.599 but it seems to be a sign that the people 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:45.960 of this ancient time and place may have imagined their 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:49.720 loved ones are living on somehow surviving the death of 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:52.480 the physical body, and in some way they might need 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:56.240 this thing again. Right, yeah, and and certainly certainly that 0:04:56.240 --> 0:04:58.800 that does become an aspect of many different belief systems, 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:01.040 the idea that there isn't after there is another world 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:03.640 beyond death. I wonder too, how much of it is 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:07.320 just through tool use. You know, when we use a tool, 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:10.040 it becomes a part of our body, you know, it 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:13.320 it updates our body schema, It becomes an extension of 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:16.720 the you know, the barriers between our self and the 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:19.000 rest of the world. And therefore this kind of like 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:21.920 perhaps this is innate idea that the tool that this 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:24.560 individual used every day is not nearly a tool, it 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:27.880 is a part of them. And as they go into 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:30.920 the earth and perhaps into another realm, of course they 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:33.640 have to bring their tools with them exactly, but whatever 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:36.480 is going on there, I mean, when you see humans 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:39.680 from the ancient world from the Stone Age being buried 0:05:39.839 --> 0:05:43.479 with tools that they're they're definitely not going to be 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:47.919 physically using anymore. You've got to think that there's there's 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:50.880 something happening in the brains of the people who are 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:53.880 still alive there, whether it's religious or not. Maybe you 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:56.839 could even frame it to some kind of secular sentimentality. 0:05:57.279 --> 0:05:59.960 You know, they want to think about the person there, 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:02.960 you know, resting in peace with these items that they used. 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:06.839 Whatever it is, it's it's something that's transcending the mere 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:12.040 utility value of tools, right. It's because like if somebody 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:14.800 dies and they had a favorite comb, and you're just 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:17.520 thinking about pure utilitarian value, you might as well like 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:19.599 keep the comb. You could use it yourself, or you 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:22.240 could trade it for something. Leaving it with a dead 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:25.160 person suggests a sort of second order way of thinking 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:28.560 about life and death. Now, humans and hominance have been 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:31.080 burying they're dead for a long time, of burying with 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:33.480 grave goods for a long time, like tools and clothing 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:38.320 and ornaments, and the Neanderthals buried they're dead with with belongings. Uh. 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:41.320 The date of the earliest known human burials is disputed. 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:43.800 I've seen it estimated that burial of the dead goes 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:47.520 back roughly at least a hundred thousand years or so UM. 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:52.520 But there's so many interesting examples of practices regarding final 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:55.479 disposition in the ancient world that are different than what 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:58.719 we're used to in many of our cultures today, but 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:02.080 are also you can kind of see the through lines 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:04.919 from ancient history until now. One example I want to 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:08.680 think of is the burial practices of the ancient Proto 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:11.400 city of Chattel Hoyak, which was that it was this 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:16.080 early proto city from the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods of Anatolia. 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:20.160 It flourished around seven thousand BC, around nine thousand years ago. 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:23.120 This would be in modern day Turkey. So to to 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:27.400 picture this ancient proto city, you picture all these homes 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:31.440 grouped together, which are each like a boxy pit where 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:33.880 you would the roof would be covered and you'd enter 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:36.600 and leave through a hole in the roof via a ladder. 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:39.040 And then when you're walking around the city, you just 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:41.600 be walking around this flat area on top of the 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:44.720 houses which are all crammed right up in against each other, 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:47.480 instead of having streets between the houses. Yeah, I believe 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:49.400 that this uh, this location has come up on the 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:52.680 show before Yeah, it's a fascinating site. We could do 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:55.400 whole sections. Probably, probably we could do a whole series 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:57.800 on stuff to blow your mind just about Chattel Hoyak, 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:00.360 because there's so much interesting stuff to learn and about 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:03.560 their culture. It's one of the oldest, you know, settlements 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:06.760 of this size that we know about. But the really 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:09.040 interesting thing about the city is that the city itself 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:12.720 and these houses that people dwelled in, it doubles as 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:16.600 a graveyard because it appears that people in the city 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:21.160 of Chadlehoyak would bury their loved ones under the floor 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:24.119 in the houses where they lived, but they would also 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:27.400 sometimes keep parts of the bodies of their loved ones 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:30.480 in the homes with them as like decorative items for 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:33.080 a period of time. For example, some of the remains 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:36.320 from Chaddlehoya show that people would cut the head off 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:39.920 of a dead person's body, presumably again a family member member, 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:42.160 or somebody that you knew or loved, and then they 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:45.480 would cover the head in plaster and use ochre to 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:48.520 paint a face or some other design on the plaster 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:51.960 mask over the real dead person's head and keep that 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:55.760 with them in the house as a decorative ritual item. Meanwhile, 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:58.200 the body would be buried in the floor, under the 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:01.320 hearth or under the bed, and sometimes bodies here would 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:04.719 be placed in some kind of container, maybe like a basket, 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:08.600 a woven basket, or wrapping of reed mats. And of 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:11.880 course this uh, this civilization, they didn't leave behind any 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:14.640 texts or anything. We don't have a holy book from them. 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:17.520 We don't know what they believed, what they believed about 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:20.720 life and death and what happened after death. But it's 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:23.920 so interesting to try to just try to understand from 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:26.920 the physical remains that they left behind. Yeah, because you 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:29.440 can go in various directions there, right, I mean, on 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:32.400 one hand, you can you can face a vision in 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:36.960 which the dead are presumed to still be alive in 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:39.880 some fashion, that the remains still have some sort of 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:43.000 life to them. Perhaps they're still speaking to the people 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:45.280 in some way, shape or form, or it's believed that 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:48.000 they speak to the people, or is it something more 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:51.160 removed where they they know that this is the head 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:53.760 of someone who is no longer alive, but you are 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:57.480 able to to make a testament to that person out 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:00.720 of it. Yeah, it's a truly fascinatingness story. And and 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:03.400 the tidbits that are there are so interesting, so we 0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:06.680 should absolutely come back to Chadlahoyac. But this is just 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:10.000 one example of tons of different burial traditions from around 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:14.120 the world that established early on a precedent that respectable 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:17.520 burial was not one in which a body was just 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:20.400 like thrown naked in the soil or left out for 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:22.800 scavenging animals. So there are some cultures in which a 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:25.920 respectable burial is to be left out for scavenging animals. 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:28.960 An example of that would be the sky burial practices. Yeah, 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:33.000 particularly I'm in Tibet, Yeah, where the the ideas of 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:36.000 the body is. Uh, there are a few different modes 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:39.640 of burial in in Tibet, but but this particular mode 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:43.880 would be the ritual um dissection of the body and 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:47.560 then those pieces of the body were then made available 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:53.400 to scavenging vultures buzzards that within consume it. And it's 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:55.800 it's like and it ties into also like the older 0:10:56.880 --> 0:10:59.680 animist religion of Tibet. You know, it's the idea that 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:04.239 that your flesh is returning to to these divine creatures, 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:08.000 these creatures of the sky, which I have long found 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:11.240 rather beautiful, right though even though it doesn't line up 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:13.559 with a whole lot of traditions throughout the world that 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:16.080 would say that what what you should do for respect 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:18.760 with the dead body is to sort of hide it, 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:21.840 to inter it, to cover it up, and specifically to 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:24.880 place it inside some kind of container, whether that be 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:28.120 a wrapping of some kind or a special box, right, 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:30.800 which isn't always a possibility in some parts of the world, 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:33.959 particularly if you're in a high rocky region such as Tibet, 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:36.440 where there may not be a lot of soil in 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:38.280 which to bury things. Where there may not be a 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:41.800 lot of uh, you know, a freely available would to 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:46.200 burn uh in order to reduce a body to ash. Uh. 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:51.040 So there are also some environmental concerns taken to account to. Yeah, 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:53.319 that's an interesting point to consider to how like the 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:57.960 bioecology of the region contributes to these cultural practices. But 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:00.760 I mean, I wonder why it's so calm men to 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:03.480 believe that a dead body, again this is not universal, 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:05.680 but why it's so common to believe a dead body 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:10.120 should be placed in some kind of container. Uh. We 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:13.600 don't know exactly what the reason for that is. Uh, 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:16.000 it's pure speculation on my part, but I kind of 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:19.480 wonder if it has to do with a learned cultural 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:24.640 association from daily life in technological societies where items of 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:27.600 value are generally not left out in the open, but 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:31.280 they are stored inside containers. And initially this would probably 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:34.600 be for practical reasons, like to protect valuable objects and 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:38.680 substances from the elements from thieves, from scavenging animals in 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:41.400 the case of foods, like in a grain bin. And 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:45.080 thus you learn over time that, uh, when something is 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:48.640 of value, you protect it inside a container. And this 0:12:48.880 --> 0:12:51.600 when you go to buryer deceased relative, you follow that 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:54.959 practical precedent and show that they're a valuable thing by 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:57.920 placing them inside a container. Yeah, I mean a container 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:00.800 is control. It is it is exercise eis in control 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:04.840 um over and against the rest of the world. Be 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:08.000 that container something you put your bread in or your grain, 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:10.400 or be at the container that you put your family 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:13.880 in that you you call your house. Uh. And then 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:16.200 when when death enters into our lives, like that is 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:20.640 a situation where people often feel completely without control. So yeah, 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:23.600 it makes sense that you would turn to this technology 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:27.480 of the container to help, you know, put firm boundaries 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:29.839 on what is occurring. Yeah, and you know, I can't 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:33.600 help but notice how often objects of religious value are 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:36.880 placed inside containers as well, or even over time, the 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:39.640 sacred objects are the containers and on the ark of 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:44.080 the covenant, yeah, exactly, or mythic items like Pandora's box. 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:46.600 Oh yeah. I don't know how much you've seen of 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:49.920 like the preparations for the process of Catholic mass, but 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:52.120 there's a heck of a lot of opening and closing 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:56.040 of containers. There's things in boxes, containers they get taken out, 0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:59.559 you know. Uh. Yeah, it's like it's like it's it's 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:02.320 a special old place. Yeah. I mean, all our rituals 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:04.200 really need a good box. You know, because you have 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:07.959 a ritual, you probably have paraphernalia. And that paraphernalia just 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:10.040 can't be left laying around on the coffee table. It 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:12.720 needs a box. Uh and uh. And so it makes 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:15.120 sense that you would you would have a box for 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:17.959 for also the dead as well. Yeah. So of course, 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:21.400 not all cultures put their dead in containers of some kind, 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:25.040 but many did, and over time, some cultures developed extremely 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:28.560 elaborate types of containers for human burial, such as like 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:31.080 the ornate sarcoph a guy for the mummified remains of 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:33.600 pharaohs and other wealthy figures in ancient Egypt. This is 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:38.560 probably the most famous of all the vessels of the dead. Yeah. Now, 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:42.280 Egyptian bombing processes, they span roughly three thousand years of 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:44.520 human history, so it changed a lot during that time. 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:47.000 In fact, you can look at the history of just 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:49.840 burial in Egypt and see it's just kind of like 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:53.520 the evolution of burial in general, because it essentially begins 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:56.520 as pit burials in the hot sand, in which they 0:14:56.520 --> 0:14:59.520 you know, just the body is placed in the in 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:03.280 the ground, and then it transforms, and the cosmology that 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:06.960 informs the practices also transform, uh, and it becomes a 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:09.960 matter of continuation of the soul. The tomb is not 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:12.720 just a you know, a receptacle for the body, but 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:15.440 is kind of a kind of like a spaceship kind 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:19.400 of a vessel for for for this journey, uh, into 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:23.000 the afterlife, into the other world. That is. That's you know, 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:25.480 it is rather different than I think, sort of the 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:28.880 modern pop culture idea of a heaven or even a 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:32.400 hell like it was. The the Egyptian afterlife was like 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:37.120 another realm of adventure and intrigue full of trials, and 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:40.960 so you had to be prepared and thus all the preparations, 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:45.160 all these uh uh, these different funeral practices, um, you know. 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:48.640 But but the evolution of ancient Egyptian funeral practices, you know, 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:52.760 puts an increasing demand on the preservation of the biological 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:55.560 body after death, something that's very much a part of 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:59.680 modern funeral practices as well. Um, which which is actually 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:05.360 fairly recent. Yeah, like the modern reintroduction of embalming. Yeah, 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:07.640 it would be interesting to perhaps come back to that 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:11.120 in the future. Now. As far as mummification itself, which 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:14.480 of course, you know, just the drying out of the body, 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:18.920 which can occur either through natural or artificial means. Like 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:21.920 there are examples of of bodies that have been mummifized 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:24.680 just purely because of the environment in which they were left, 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:28.200 or perhaps buried bog bodies and that sort of thing. Yeah. 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:33.280 But as as far as the earliest artificially created mummies, uh, 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:35.720 they seem to date back to around six thousand BC 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:40.560 in the Atacama Desert region of South America, sandwich between 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:43.200 Chile and Peru. And I know you said that it's 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:46.160 artificial mummification. There but that that, of course is like 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:50.360 an ideal type of environment for preservation, like mummification, because 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:53.480 it's what dry and right. Yeah, all right, let's take 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:55.000 a quick break. When we come back, we're going to 0:16:55.080 --> 0:17:03.240 talk about confidence. Alright, we're back, all right. Now, we 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:07.159 don't know exactly when humans started using coffins. Some of 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:10.080 the earliest evidence appears to be of like solid wooden 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:13.159 coffins appears to come from different sites in ancient China. 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:15.600 That seems to be something that happened. They're a good bit. 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:18.840 But of course there were sarcopher guy in boxes in 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:22.000 ancient Egypt. Two. Yeah, the Egyptians seemed to have turned 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:26.040 to wrappings, but then baskets and then ultimately wooden caskets 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:28.560 during the pre Dynastic period, and that would have been 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:34.480 u Now a question I have long wondered about, but 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:38.840 I've never asked until now. What's the difference between a 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:41.320 coffin and a casket? I don't know, Joe, what's the 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:44.360 difference between a cock and a casket? With that punch line, Oh, 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:46.000 you expect there to be a good punch line, it's 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:50.400 not a good punch line. The difference is shape, basically, Yeah, 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:53.600 it's shape and design. So as used today, these terms 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:56.880 mean that a casket is basically a rectangular box. Now 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:00.080 that just means roughly rectangular. It can have round to 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:02.800 edges or you know, like angled off edges or whatever, 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:06.200 but it's basically a big rectangle, whereas coffins are more 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:09.920 like that classic Dracula box that you see. It's angled 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:12.680 to be widest at the shoulders and then to taper 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:15.440 off at the head and the feet, so it's got 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:18.520 six sides rather than four. And by doing this you 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:21.639 can actually use less wood to create your coffin, meaning 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:24.680 that the coffin is often cheaper than a casket. Yeah, 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:27.800 and it certainly has become iconic. I remember my my 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:31.000 dad made me one out of probably like balsa wood 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:33.400 or something when I was a kid. Life size, No, 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:35.800 not life size. It's large enough for a Gi Joe 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:40.400 figure the small kind excited but but it was pretty cool, 0:18:40.600 --> 0:18:42.840 painted it and everything. Wait, I'm sorry, which one a 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:47.439 coffin or a casket? Uh? It was a coffin Okay, 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:49.640 so wider at the shoulders and wider at the shoulders 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:52.080 to fit a g I Joe. Yea, even though the 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:54.399 g I Joe would mean one size fits all with 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:56.399 a g I joe, they would have have probably been 0:18:56.440 --> 0:19:00.080 better off going into a casket. Now, caskets and coffins 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:02.840 are often made of wood, which of course will collapse 0:19:02.920 --> 0:19:06.000 over time due to decomposition and break through under the ground. 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:08.520 So another thing that you'll often see and actually you 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:11.240 can see this going way back to ancient Egypt and stuff, 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:14.280 but it's a modern practice as well. Uh. And this 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:17.320 is the idea of burial vaults or grave liners that 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:20.720 are basically the coffin or the casket goes inside these 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:23.280 and they will go under the ground and they hold 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:25.400 the ground up better so you don't get the sunken 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:29.359 grave effect in the cemetery. Yeah. I do love a 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:33.200 good sunken grave effect though, because growing up in really 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:38.000 rural uh Tennessee, we would encounter these. Uh. The region 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:40.560 we were in it was near Kentucky Lake, so a 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:42.960 lot of the people that lived there had had to 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:45.280 leave so that they could flood the area. And so 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:48.160 you found the remnants of old homesteads in the woods 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:52.639 and sometimes they're there there, their graves were there, and 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:55.040 they were almost always sunken. You would find these sunken 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:58.879 graves and these uh and also these uh, these these 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:03.600 twin rows of buttercups that still came up, uh lining 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:06.159 what used to be like a walkway to a front porch. 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:10.320 Oh wow, yeah, that's spooky man. Yeah, hey, it's Halloween. 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:13.760 But certainly, yeah, if you have some sort of more 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:18.040 reinforced container around your wooden your wooden coffin or casket, 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:21.760 you don't have to worry about about the the weight 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:25.800 of the soil pressing down into the rotten casketer or 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:29.879 coffin and creating that sunken effect. Now here's a question, Robert, 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:33.640 while wandering among the buttercups in the sunken areas, did 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:38.520 you ever hear a tiny voice somewhere saying help, No, no, no, 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:42.040 all those voices that had ceased. You gotta admit that 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:45.240 that'd be even spookier, I get, I mean I would, Yeah, 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:47.800 that would be spooky because I mean they would raise 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:51.080 a lot of questions about the whole burial process for sure. Well, right, 0:20:51.200 --> 0:20:56.159 but this actually is not a completely unfounded scenario. This 0:20:56.240 --> 0:20:59.400 has happened at various times in human history, and however 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:03.000 often it actually happens. People have been obsessed with things 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:06.200 like this happening since you know, for a long time, 0:21:06.359 --> 0:21:09.479 especially at certain periods in history, were for some reason 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:14.640 burial alive literature just skyrocketed in popularity, and people got 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:17.600 their mind that like, they couldn't stop thinking about it. Right. 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:19.800 One of the main areas we're gonna look at is 0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:23.000 the Victorian era and uh and and there's plenty to 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:25.600 point to there. But we can also go back to 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:30.200 um to really like the first century. See to see 0:21:30.240 --> 0:21:34.119 some other examples um consider the first century. See Greek 0:21:34.200 --> 0:21:40.520 novel uh Calo by a Cheriton of Aphrodisseus, which Bernard 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:44.000 Laying describes as sort of a Romeo and Juliet tale, 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:47.360 except the two starcross lovers end up marrying each other 0:21:47.400 --> 0:21:50.600 at the beginning of the novel, and then he apparently 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:53.399 kills her in a jealous rah. Okay, this is more 0:21:53.440 --> 0:21:55.840 of a Greek thing. Yeah, but here's the things that 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:59.760