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Speaker 1: and thanks Thinking Sideways. I don't you never know what
Speaker 1: stories of things we simply don't know the answer to. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: welcome to another episode of Thinking Sideways the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: so excited. I'm so excited. I'm Devin, joined as usual
Speaker 1: by Joe I Steve. This week we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about mystery, uh the text access Kalakadaka's head. Yes, I
Speaker 1: did pick a mystery that I can't pronounce. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: but seriously, I'm gonna spell it for you guys, um
Speaker 1: in case you just you know, hit play and don't
Speaker 1: ever look at the titles or whatever, and then I'm
Speaker 1: going to genuinely try to pronounce it, and then that
Speaker 1: might be the very last time I try to say
Speaker 1: this word. Well, then refer to it as the head. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the TLC head. Yeah, Oh, the TLC head. Yeah. There's
Speaker 1: no L in there. Though there's an L in there,
Speaker 1: there's two l's in there, so it's it's spelled t
Speaker 1: e c A x I C dash c A l
Speaker 1: I x t l A U A c A So
Speaker 1: I think it's Pennsylvania. Yeah, texts as waca look tex
Speaker 1: sas sasakaca perfect sounds great, well done than spot on.
Speaker 1: I think my a's are a little too hard, but
Speaker 1: that's pretty good for me. Um. The short summary of
Speaker 1: this mystery is that in the thirties some guys found
Speaker 1: a terra cotta head in a grave um and it
Speaker 1: had no business being in that grave. Oh yeah, this one, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know I should have said yeah, but I
Speaker 1: mean that is genuinely that's the short thumbary of there
Speaker 1: that like, some guys found terra cotta head in a
Speaker 1: you know, it's an out of place artifact. You guys, congratulations,
Speaker 1: we're doing an artifact, out of place artifact episode. And
Speaker 1: this has actually been the subject of a lot of
Speaker 1: scholarly dispute. It has mostly in German. Yeah, so that's
Speaker 1: been really fun. One of the one of the things
Speaker 1: about this head that's just really puzzling to being it
Speaker 1: was found eighty three years ago, and yet it's been
Speaker 1: around all that time, and it's been they've discussed so
Speaker 1: much and there's only two actual freaking photographs right in
Speaker 1: the whole world. None for scale exactly. Nobody's thought to
Speaker 1: put a ruler in there in there so you can
Speaker 1: or beer can. Yeah, I mean anything hand even would
Speaker 1: be helpful. I was very angry about that. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was like text messages. Yeah, I mean it's like
Speaker 1: it almost at first it looks like there might be
Speaker 1: four pictures of it, but actually there's one picture that's
Speaker 1: been reversed. So yeah, there's two freaking pictures. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: let's some talk a little more in detail about this head.
Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty three, a team of archaeologists led by
Speaker 1: Jose Garcia Paon I believe it's how you say his name,
Speaker 1: um found a pre Columbian slash pre Hispanic, depending on
Speaker 1: which term you'd prefer to use, grave site in the
Speaker 1: Toluca Valley, which is about forty miles out of current
Speaker 1: Mexico City, Mexico. The settlement was called Colleague Quaca, which
Speaker 1: translates generally to like house on the prairie, and that
Speaker 1: settlement was a pre Columbian post Classic era Mesoamerican settlement.
Speaker 1: Words there on the prairie different, No, obviously, they ripped. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but the pre Columbian for those of you don't know
Speaker 1: what that means, that's prior to Columbus arriving. Yes, I
Speaker 1: know you probably know that Moore. Oh yeah no, but
Speaker 1: thank you for specifying that. I have dates, but for
Speaker 1: like other stuff, not for pre Columbian um. And you know,
Speaker 1: Columbus sailed the ocean blue in so for us dummies,
Speaker 1: the post classic era of Mesoamerican settlement not not. And
Speaker 1: this is also pre Columbian obviously, is like um one
Speaker 1: thousand to see, I'm going to be using C E
Speaker 1: and B C E. I'm sorry with that trick. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's a common era, but common okay, I
Speaker 1: see both ways. Yeah, but they're the like, you know,
Speaker 1: non denominational religious, non religious scientific way to say that. So,
Speaker 1: you know, one of one of the puzzles I've always
Speaker 1: pointed about that it's BC before Christ and then a
Speaker 1: D after Christ. So does that mean that there's like
Speaker 1: a thirty year gap in between the two periods? You
Speaker 1: know what this is? This is right up there with
Speaker 1: me getting yelled at for saying year zero. We should
Speaker 1: leave that at Yeah. So Payon speculated based on the
Speaker 1: architecture of this settlement that it was probably like closer
Speaker 1: to the Middle Classic, middle to late of the Classic era,
Speaker 1: not um the post Classic era. And that was pretty
Speaker 1: much just the big structures, just based on the kind
Speaker 1: of archaeology. And we'll talk a little bit about the
Speaker 1: area in a second. The building was kind of a zigarette,
Speaker 1: Is that right? Or was it not that he was excavating.
Speaker 1: I thought it was just the pyramid pyramid. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Well there're seventeen structures, all said and done in this area, so, um,
Speaker 1: most of them are sacrificial altars or grave sites. Um.
Speaker 1: But this pyramid was a burial grave pyramid situation. So
Speaker 1: apparently people had actually settled this area since about fifteen
Speaker 1: hundred BC, so a long time years. No, So they
Speaker 1: had started settling in fifteen thousand b c E. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry b c E. And then um, the structures that
Speaker 1: they were excavating were from like a thousand cekay, So
Speaker 1: that was about two thousand years yeah. And then at
Speaker 1: some point, at some point I think it was like
Speaker 1: this this this one structure that they excavated it. Don't
Speaker 1: they believe that the tomb itself could have been actually
Speaker 1: you know, filled up with stuff and sealed up some
Speaker 1: somewhere around. They don't have a good date on this
Speaker 1: structure itself, um, and even more so on this layer
Speaker 1: of stuff that we're going to be talking about, but
Speaker 1: I do believe that, Yeah, it was in the earlier
Speaker 1: part of stuff versus the later part of stuff. You're
Speaker 1: welcome everywhere stuff stuff. Um. And as I said, there
Speaker 1: were seventeen monuments um or buildings that have been found
Speaker 1: in this area. Um, most of them haven't been explored.
Speaker 1: I guess you know, which kind of makes sense. You
Speaker 1: don't necessarily need to like visit the sight of human
Speaker 1: sacrifices and stuff like that. It's kind of fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe tor stro Yeah, I wasn't. I was on the
Speaker 1: soul in like Titicaca, and there's some inca ruins on that,
Speaker 1: and there was this massive stone table that was there,
Speaker 1: and I was just thinking that had to have been
Speaker 1: for secon I'm sure. Yeah, But anyway, there's they're a
Speaker 1: bunch of sheep running around the island. So there was
Speaker 1: this little sheep like rubbing us back on the stone. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He was usually to scratch. Yeah, I mean a lot
Speaker 1: of them were kind of sacrificial areas. Um some of
Speaker 1: them are like within a city limit, so you can't
Speaker 1: really investigate that anyway. This one was the kind of
Speaker 1: pyramid burial ground for it was the I believe it
Speaker 1: was like a more royal burial. They did not have
Speaker 1: us pyramids and stuff, you know. Yeah. So, and in
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirty three dig, the team was exploring this
Speaker 1: grave site. Like I said, there are lots in that area,
Speaker 1: but this was not like a human sacrifice thing. This
Speaker 1: grave site was had floor so as a pyramid, and
Speaker 1: it had floors in it. And so this discovery was
Speaker 1: made on the third floor or under the third floor,
Speaker 1: and the third floor down right where the floor above it,
Speaker 1: and then there was a subterranean floor. Yeah. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it was the third floor down and it was kind
Speaker 1: of you know what you would expect to be found
Speaker 1: in a grave site for this kind of a culture.
Speaker 1: There's you know, lots of gold, copper, turquoise rock, crystal bone, shell,
Speaker 1: pottery stuff and in addition to a corpse, yeah and
Speaker 1: well yeah and a corpse yeah, and then there was
Speaker 1: a small terra cottahead um and that is our out
Speaker 1: of place artifact because it doesn't seem to have belonged there,
Speaker 1: but the they thought that the burial was UM fourteen
Speaker 1: seventies six to fifteen ten C. Yeah, not BC. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: so later, so roughly about five years before the dig happened. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and um, I guess of note right, pretty well within
Speaker 1: a limit of like Colombian era. Well yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's this is when people are starting to explore the
Speaker 1: new world. It could have been as as much as
Speaker 1: eighteen years after the arrival of Columbus. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it could have been earlier, but based on this
Speaker 1: time sale, yeah, based on this time stamp. So here's
Speaker 1: what we know about the head itself. Um, though it
Speaker 1: was found in Mexico, it looks kind of Roman um,
Speaker 1: or at least a little European to me. To me,
Speaker 1: Steve's making a face already, he's not happy already. I
Speaker 1: would say it looks a little Roman. Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1: As we were saying, like, I don't know why I
Speaker 1: have this impression, but I do. I think it's like
Speaker 1: the size of like a bubble head. It's I think
Speaker 1: it's small. It does look kind of small on the photos,
Speaker 1: but it could be bigger. But there I have no
Speaker 1: size reference, and I have. No, I've not found any
Speaker 1: description of it, so I I always when I looked
Speaker 1: at it, I pictured it more along the size of
Speaker 1: a golf ball. To me, it seems just the definition
Speaker 1: and the grains of the stone. Yeah, I always That's
Speaker 1: why I kind of figured it must have big more
Speaker 1: of a golf ball size. Yeah, I figured around that
Speaker 1: size are a little bigger. But yeah, I mean, we're
Speaker 1: all we're gonna say, yeah, we're gonna say, we're gonna
Speaker 1: say between a golf ball and a baseball somewhere around
Speaker 1: probably about somewhere around. Again, it's it's annoying because actually
Speaker 1: I looked at a lot of websites just to find
Speaker 1: one that says how every single website I could that, like,
Speaker 1: I thought, oh yeah, this one's gonna say no, none
Speaker 1: of them. That's why I want searching for pictures, because
Speaker 1: I thought somebody would have had half a brain and
Speaker 1: put a ruler next to it. But no, it's just
Speaker 1: those two pictures, you know, all you get somebody photoshopped
Speaker 1: onto us the image of the ruins or painting of
Speaker 1: the ruins, I should say, yeah, because there's no helpful
Speaker 1: total scale right there. People think that it may or
Speaker 1: may not have been a part of a full body
Speaker 1: sculpture at some point. Again, that seems like the sort
Speaker 1: of thing that you would be able to tell. But well, yeah,
Speaker 1: it would be like this the spot at the neck
Speaker 1: where it broke off, and that's why more pictures would
Speaker 1: be helpful, really helpful, or a scale. Yeah, anyway, about
Speaker 1: a third of the ball itself is its face. Would
Speaker 1: you say about a third you mean that that weird,
Speaker 1: pointy headed and hairy thing. Yeah, I'd say the lower
Speaker 1: third is a face, and then the middle third is hair,
Speaker 1: and then the top third is like a hat kind
Speaker 1: of thing. And it's got a beard too. It has
Speaker 1: a beard, which is interesting because the Indians over here
Speaker 1: didn't have didn't have beer. Yeah, the eyes are closed,
Speaker 1: has a strong nose, I think a pretty strong mouth
Speaker 1: as well. I mean, you know you're carving it, so
Speaker 1: you're not going to be like, oh no mouth, You're
Speaker 1: got carve lines for everything, right and overall, um, I
Speaker 1: think the impression is like very sever Severian severian Um,
Speaker 1: which is like a very distinct time in Roman history
Speaker 1: where they wore their hair in this kind of not
Speaker 1: like this grown out Julian Julius Caesar curly do um,
Speaker 1: and then they had like kind of longer curly beards. Steve, Okay,
Speaker 1: it works. He's nodding and shrugging, just for all home.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's that. That's it's best that you
Speaker 1: can describe it without somebody looking at an image. I was,
Speaker 1: I was picturing it as you were describing it. That's
Speaker 1: what the face was obviously. Um, since we're talking about
Speaker 1: a thing that there's like two whole pictures of, you
Speaker 1: go find one of those two pictures, probably both. U
Speaker 1: see the episode title as your guide how to spell it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: just just you know, highlighting, you know, search. Yeah. The
Speaker 1: thing to know about Severian, the Severian era in Rome
Speaker 1: is that that was actually like, um, two hundred c
Speaker 1: e give or take, you know, fifty years maybe after
Speaker 1: I think it was night one. It was a hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety five to like two sixty something, Yeah, which
Speaker 1: was which will kind of apply that sometime and then
Speaker 1: you know, between then and maybe it made its way
Speaker 1: over here and got into a tomb. Yeah, yeah, which
Speaker 1: is kind of weird. Well yeah a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it kind of applies, and maybe there were people over
Speaker 1: here from from the you know, the Old World to
Speaker 1: the New World long time before before Columbus. Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: so we're kind of at theories are dune dun dum.
Speaker 1: I know, it's it's crazy that we're at theories. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: but we're a theories because actually the theories are like
Speaker 1: the most interesting discussion part of this episode to me
Speaker 1: at least. And you've got this broken up as at
Speaker 1: least into two different parts of theories, because I think
Speaker 1: that's what's warranted here. So there's two theories. Either this
Speaker 1: is like a Roman sculpture head or it's not. And
Speaker 1: then there's also the other part of this theory section
Speaker 1: is um, either it's a hoax or not right, because,
Speaker 1: as our listeners may be thinking, um, this sounds kind
Speaker 1: of fake. So it sounds like it's totally made up.
Speaker 1: Who finds a Roman head in a Mexican burial ground?
Speaker 1: You know? Thousand years later? Did you never watch Lost?
Speaker 1: Actually I didn't watch Lost, but turn off the computer.
Speaker 1: Now we're done, done forever and until you watch all
Speaker 1: the seasons of Lost. So we'll see you in like
Speaker 1: a week. Okay, I'm back. Wow whist Oh my god.
Speaker 1: I love the smoke monster man in lock so so
Speaker 1: we start. We're gonna start with like, yeah, where's the
Speaker 1: origin basically right, so let's say it's Roman. Okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's say it's Roman. So okay, done, It's Roman. Great,
Speaker 1: we all agree. Great. No, So there's actually been a
Speaker 1: lot of research done on this. Bernard and Drea is
Speaker 1: a guy from the German Institute of Archaeology in Rome.
Speaker 1: And I know that sounds kind of like one of
Speaker 1: those like, um, you know, I t T Technical Institute,
Speaker 1: School of Design. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to offend anyone,
Speaker 1: but those kind of you know, not maybe totally accredited
Speaker 1: university places. But no, this is like a real thing
Speaker 1: that has a lot of really great peer reviewed stuff.
Speaker 1: So it's a totally credible source. Um, here's what he
Speaker 1: has to say on this. It's translated to through two
Speaker 1: different languages, so I'm sorry, but it's a direct quote.
Speaker 1: So it's translated from German to Spanish and then Spanish
Speaker 1: to English. Good. Are you going to read it a
Speaker 1: German accent? I'm not, actually, but you might. Eat. I'll
Speaker 1: read part of it the German accent. This, Okay, let's do.
Speaker 1: Let's do. Let's do just normal English Joe, you want
Speaker 1: me to read it? Okay? Uh? This result quote, This
Speaker 1: result clears up the doubts the colonial manufacture of the
Speaker 1: artifact and makes the hypothesis of Roman origin, among other possibilities, applicable.
Speaker 1: The identification of the head as Roman work from the
Speaker 1: second to third century a d. Has been further confirmed
Speaker 1: by Bernard Andrea, a director emeritus of the German Is
Speaker 1: to the Archaeotology in Rome, Italy. According to Andrea, the
Speaker 1: head is without a doubt Roman. The lab analysis is
Speaker 1: confirmed that it is ancient. Oh god, this is such
Speaker 1: who we The stylistic examination tells us precisely that it
Speaker 1: is a Roman word from around the second century a D.
Speaker 1: And the hairstyle and the shape of the beard present
Speaker 1: the typical traits of the Severian emperor period eight, exactly
Speaker 1: in the fashion of the epoch. So, okay, so that's
Speaker 1: when that period was was one. You're pretty clive, that's
Speaker 1: pretty close. That was good for just like off the cuff, remembering. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it means either it was actually produced by the
Speaker 1: Romans at that time, or maybe coincidentally somebody else produced
Speaker 1: it and just sort of mimic their style. Yeah, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's small. It does look it looks I don't know,
Speaker 1: it looks Roman to me. I know that I'm probably biased,
Speaker 1: but it looks Roman to me. Yeah, I'm going to
Speaker 1: say you're biased. What do you What does it look
Speaker 1: like to you? It looks like something that somebody carved
Speaker 1: out of stone. Know what I mean is if you
Speaker 1: take ten people who know how to work clay and
Speaker 1: fire it and make pottery stuff like that today, and
Speaker 1: you said, each of them, I want you to make
Speaker 1: a uh terrakan ahead that looks like Joe, you would
Speaker 1: get five that would look kind of similar and five
Speaker 1: that would be wildly different from the other bunch. And
Speaker 1: it's all a matter of style and personal style. Because
Speaker 1: the thing that really bugs me is that the in
Speaker 1: this region, it's not as if they were locked into
Speaker 1: a specific style as far as I'm aware. In Mexico,
Speaker 1: I mean, there there was a predominant style, but there
Speaker 1: wasn't anything that said you can't deviate from that. Like
Speaker 1: in Egypt, there was a thing where you had to
Speaker 1: stay within the style or they cut your hands off.
Speaker 1: You know, you you didn't you didn't deviate from that. That.
Speaker 1: While there was a strong influence to do that didn't
Speaker 1: require that you had to, and they got very creative
Speaker 1: with things. So now I see that. But you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things about this one is that stylistically
Speaker 1: it's very different from what is produced in that that
Speaker 1: it is. But like as you say, it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: somebody can't just deviate from the rules and do something differently,
Speaker 1: you guys. I mean, there's there's always innovation, but we
Speaker 1: should have found more works like this in the area.
Speaker 1: Well unless and I've made this argument before for other things,
Speaker 1: unless everybody hated it. Unless you know, this person created
Speaker 1: a whole bunch and out of a hundred were thrown
Speaker 1: against the wall and destroy because they were terrible, and
Speaker 1: there's nobody liked and nobody could buy them because they
Speaker 1: didn't have money. Yeah, you know, people use something balancet
Speaker 1: in a boat, so they're all on the bottom of
Speaker 1: the river. I mean, there's a million reasons why. So
Speaker 1: that's why I admit I struggle with the whole Roman thing.
Speaker 1: It bothers me. Yeah, I mean, so the things for me, okay,
Speaker 1: maybe not Roman, but probably not meso American, because by
Speaker 1: and large Meso Americans didn't have facial hair at the time.
Speaker 1: Or if they did, it was really straight, as was
Speaker 1: their hair. You don't see a lot of like curly
Speaker 1: hair Indians. Yeah, I mean basically that's you don't. But
Speaker 1: I don't think this is curly hair. It's totally curly hair. No,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's wavy. It's wavy. And you don't
Speaker 1: see a lot of mess Americans with wavy hair either.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just okay, you know, we could, we
Speaker 1: could go down that rabbit hole for hours and achieve nothing.
Speaker 1: I disagree, but I'm just so there. There's a couple
Speaker 1: of the things that back this up from being maybe
Speaker 1: Roman maybe not. At the very least, it backs up
Speaker 1: about that time period kind of Um. They did this
Speaker 1: testing that I'd never heard of before. This is totally
Speaker 1: new to me, and I have a coworker slash friend
Speaker 1: who is actually trained archaeologist, and I was like, hey,
Speaker 1: have you heard of this? And she was like, I
Speaker 1: have no idea what you're talking about, but it's ounds
Speaker 1: really interesting. And this is uh, thermo luminescence dating. Through
Speaker 1: testing of thermo luminescence, that's when you take a flashlight
Speaker 1: and you try to find a date on it. Yeah, yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it works really well, especially link. Yeah, So as I
Speaker 1: understand it, basically, what this does is it it measures
Speaker 1: the amount of radiation or radioactivity that's been accumulated um
Speaker 1: in the object in the object from background radiation, right,
Speaker 1: divided by like the dose that you would like typically
Speaker 1: see by year, and that equals the age. And this
Speaker 1: only works on things that have been exposed to intense heat,
Speaker 1: So terra cotta that's been fired, for instance, you can
Speaker 1: age in this process kind of the catches. It's not
Speaker 1: I actually like asked our Twitter followers to like explain,
Speaker 1: like I'm five, and Liam did a really good job
Speaker 1: of this basically like what he said, and I think
Speaker 1: this is probably true from the research that I've seen,
Speaker 1: is that it's not like, hey, is this um from
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty or four hundred and fifty BC.
Speaker 1: It's more like, hey, is this something that what that
Speaker 1: was made like a thousand years ago or was it
Speaker 1: made in the last hundred years? What? What radiation? Do
Speaker 1: you know? Off? Type? What radiation? It is that it's
Speaker 1: measuring background radiation that everything accumulates. Well, there's there's certain
Speaker 1: certain radioactive things that are measured, Like I can't remember
Speaker 1: what it is that went out when they let off
Speaker 1: all the nukes back in the forties, And that is
Speaker 1: something that is in the atmosphere and is measurable, and
Speaker 1: you know, you can tell how long things have been
Speaker 1: exposed to the air because of that. So I was
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what it is because my reason
Speaker 1: to ask something like that is if it is exposed
Speaker 1: to background radiation, My next question is how much background
Speaker 1: radiation can set object absorbed when buried three stories underground. Well,
Speaker 1: it's still background radiation even buried underground. Yeah, I understand that,
Speaker 1: but it's it's I would presume that there are going
Speaker 1: to be other things that are going to be absorbing
Speaker 1: some of that as well. So it's after three floors,
Speaker 1: it's not going to get as much maybe not. And
Speaker 1: the thing about it, and I don't know exactly what
Speaker 1: it's measuring, so I'm I'm spitballing here and I admit it.
Speaker 1: But and the thing. The thing, the other thing too,
Speaker 1: is that after this thing was made and fired and everything,
Speaker 1: then it could have been moved all around and background
Speaker 1: radiation varies a lot from place to place. I understand
Speaker 1: why that would make it impossible that as people said
Speaker 1: on Twitter, like, Okay, it's pretty accurate, but you have
Speaker 1: to be absolutely certain that like that that was the
Speaker 1: only time it was exposed to heat was when it
Speaker 1: was fired, right, So like if it had gone through
Speaker 1: a different fire or like exposed to intense heat in
Speaker 1: some other way, that will totally throw your dating off.
Speaker 1: And in fairness, the thermo luminescence testing said that this
Speaker 1: this head was anywhere between was created any where between
Speaker 1: UM eight hundred BC and twelve hundred C, so not
Speaker 1: exactly like a small range. Okay, yeah, but also like
Speaker 1: realistically we can accept that this is an ancient object, right,
Speaker 1: It's not like somebody in the last It's not a
Speaker 1: couple hundred years carved it and just like you know,
Speaker 1: toast it. Yeah, planet, it's not. It's not a modern
Speaker 1: day hoax basically, So that helps to kind of satisfy. Sorry,
Speaker 1: that just kind of helps to satisfy for me that
Speaker 1: like it wasn't somebody saying, oh, this is a nice
Speaker 1: recreation of the Italian you know, in the eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: and so I'm going to make it and then it
Speaker 1: found its way in. It's reasonable to assume that if
Speaker 1: we are to believe the experts in this area that
Speaker 1: it is actually inspired by that period of time in
Speaker 1: Rome that it is it was probably that was when
Speaker 1: it was made, was about that time? Okay. Yeah. One
Speaker 1: of the questions that I never saw on the eating,
Speaker 1: which is, did anybody ever analyze the material that this
Speaker 1: thing was made out of to try and figure out
Speaker 1: where it was from? Steve? They took two pictures and
Speaker 1: didn't measure it. So there's the answer to not as
Speaker 1: far as I know, okay, and I presumed as much
Speaker 1: this whole thing is. The research on it has been
Speaker 1: a little lackluster, but it has many You would think
Speaker 1: they would, they would scrape a little something somewhere. We
Speaker 1: should and we should clarify. That's like from the experts,
Speaker 1: not from us, Like we did a pretty good job
Speaker 1: of researching within resources available. Yes, yeah, alright, well let's
Speaker 1: let's keep talking about this golf ball. So, Steve, Yes,
Speaker 1: if it's not Roman, what do you think it could
Speaker 1: be Atlantean? Okay? But in real life, what do you
Speaker 1: think it could be? I mean, like, there are other
Speaker 1: theories out here. Do you subscribe to one of those theories?
Speaker 1: Do you do? I subscribed to the last one that
Speaker 1: you have in this grouping. Okay, there are, but I mean,
Speaker 1: like in terms of like Roman blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: What you mean by Roman blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: It's origin? You think it's the last bullet point on
Speaker 1: this list? That one? Okay, fine, let's talk about different thing. Then. Well,
Speaker 1: now let's talk about Roman for a second. Mean there,
Speaker 1: I mean there is a possibility that somehow some objects
Speaker 1: from the Mediterranean could have made their way across the
Speaker 1: sea to the America's agreed? Can we save that and
Speaker 1: tell hoax are real? Because I promised we'll talk about
Speaker 1: that in a minute. Yeah. I just want to talk
Speaker 1: about the origin of it right now, Okay, and then
Speaker 1: we'll decide how something like this could get across the
Speaker 1: ocean or not, depending on what you believe is that okay? Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: there could definitely have been you know, originated right there
Speaker 1: by a local artist. Yeah, so, I mean it could
Speaker 1: have been Mexican. It was found in Mexico. It would
Speaker 1: explain the dating. The only thing is that it would
Speaker 1: be a pretty atypical style for that era. But I
Speaker 1: mean that's not unheard of. The other theories out there
Speaker 1: are that could be Vikings or Celts, but more strongly
Speaker 1: Vikings because they were more you know, seafaring whatever. And
Speaker 1: then they definitely there's much evidence that they were here
Speaker 1: ye back when. Yeah, there's some good evidence for that. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, I guess the thing for me is
Speaker 1: the only thing that doesn't look really Roman is that hat.
Speaker 1: It looks weird. Romans didn't really wear hats like that,
Speaker 1: but Vikings did. They were like little hats like that,
Speaker 1: and it almost does. Yeah, okay, it's terra cotta. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like Turkish. Yeah, it could be shriner's head.
Speaker 1: Oh god, no, but it is. It doesn't look Roman,
Speaker 1: that hat. It does look a little like the Vikings
Speaker 1: warm way more hats than I think like the Romans.
Speaker 1: Really they lived in a climate they did. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: Celts definitely wore hats kind of more like that as well.
Speaker 1: But you know, people in Mexican war hats like that too,
Speaker 1: Like the Aztecs certainly war hats like that. And you know,
Speaker 1: this was at the very end of its existence. This
Speaker 1: was an Aztec settlement. So did the Aztecs kind of
Speaker 1: invade They did at the very very end yeah, and
Speaker 1: then they were like, oh, just kidding, we can't be
Speaker 1: here either by um, so that worked out pretty good
Speaker 1: for them. But yeah, I mean it's hard to tell.
Speaker 1: Most of the people who have done research on this
Speaker 1: head don't think that it came from Mexico, But I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, I think Steve seems to think
Speaker 1: that it did come from Mexico. Yeah, I feel like
Speaker 1: it's just there's there's too many things. Do you think
Speaker 1: Mesoamerica do you think I think in the region. I
Speaker 1: think that it had to originate in that that in
Speaker 1: the larger region of where it was found, you know,
Speaker 1: something to have made its way across the Atlantic or
Speaker 1: the Pacific. It's it's too many things have to line up,
Speaker 1: whether they have to happen so fast after the rival
Speaker 1: of Columbus, or just the perfect chain of events for
Speaker 1: it to have made its way there from some earlier
Speaker 1: unknown visitors. Well, there is you know, I mean, the
Speaker 1: Vikings were here quite a bit earlier than a lot earlier,
Speaker 1: and there is strong evidence that there was there was
Speaker 1: extensive trading all across the North American continent. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're going way way back to ancient times and so
Speaker 1: I could totally picture the Vikings coming over with some
Speaker 1: little some little bobbles and stuff like that, in trading
Speaker 1: them off to the locals, and eventually it's traded back
Speaker 1: and forth, and eventually some objects make their way all
Speaker 1: the way down to Mexico City. Yeah, it's entirely possible. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's that's kind of one of the theories as
Speaker 1: to like how it could have gotten there. I tend
Speaker 1: to agree with you. I think of of them, I'm
Speaker 1: willing to say I feel obligated to make the strong
Speaker 1: argument that it's Roman, but I'm much more inclined to
Speaker 1: say it's indigenous in some fashion, or or Viking some
Speaker 1: not Roman. So you don't like the Romans, say I
Speaker 1: love the Romans. I am culturally obligated to say that
Speaker 1: I love the Romans, but I don't. I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: think this is a Roman origin. But yeah, and again,
Speaker 1: it could be of Roman origin. It got traded all
Speaker 1: the way up to Viking Land. It's totally Rome did
Speaker 1: conquer Brittany, I mean, they conquered really far up and
Speaker 1: so it's possible that it came all the way up.
Speaker 1: I guess my argument against that, though, is that it's
Speaker 1: terra cotta, and it's little. It doesn't look like it's
Speaker 1: particularly hardy, but it's also not really Yeah, but it's
Speaker 1: also not particularly dinged up. You know, it's still got
Speaker 1: its nose. For instance, on most of the sculptures you
Speaker 1: see the chip off, they chip off real fast. It's
Speaker 1: still got a lot of the definition in the hair
Speaker 1: and the hat. Even you can see some stroke marks.
Speaker 1: And you would assume that if this was something that
Speaker 1: was being traded hand to hand to hand to hand,
Speaker 1: it's going to lose a lot of definition just by
Speaker 1: being handled all the time. That's true. So I guess
Speaker 1: that's my only argument against it being traded on a
Speaker 1: lot of different ways. But that's also my argument against
Speaker 1: something we're going to talk about a minute. Okay, So
Speaker 1: I guess we can kind of agree we don't know
Speaker 1: where it came from. Yeah, let's say, most likely, it
Speaker 1: probably came from somewhere in the in the area. That
Speaker 1: would seem like the most likely it would, although it's
Speaker 1: it's weird that it came from that area, but yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, stylistically, yeah, way different than anything else. And
Speaker 1: the discount be at the local It wasn't because it
Speaker 1: was buried with like a rich purpose and stuff. That's
Speaker 1: where they got it, was the discount. So okay, let's
Speaker 1: let's attack this now. Is it a hoax or is
Speaker 1: it real? Okay, let's let's go ahead and say it's real.
Speaker 1: It's a real deal. Since we've thrown our chips on
Speaker 1: that so far, let's kind of just like keep talking
Speaker 1: about it being the real deal. So there are three
Speaker 1: kind of sub theories here. For me, one is the
Speaker 1: Joe theory, where like some European group brought it with
Speaker 1: them and I guess, you know, it could be Vikings,
Speaker 1: could be Celtic, could be Italian, I guess even Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there were people actually in the window between
Speaker 1: Columbus and fifty and ten. There were people coming over here,
Speaker 1: not not just the big ones you've heard of, and
Speaker 1: so it could have been brought up. Well yeah, and
Speaker 1: there are people that we don't know of who made
Speaker 1: it here and never made it home. Well yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean there's a book that came out quite a
Speaker 1: while back. Actually, it's called The Last Voyage of Columbus,
Speaker 1: and I loaned it out to somebody and never got
Speaker 1: it back, which is annoying. But it's a good buck though.
Speaker 1: I can't but I can't remember the author's name talking
Speaker 1: to you, Dave, Yeah, if you got if you google
Speaker 1: it though, it's about columbus fourth voyage and he came
Speaker 1: across it and they went to an incredible amount of adventures.
Speaker 1: It's an amazing book. But the ships picked up this
Speaker 1: parasitic worm in their holes. There were wooden ships obviously,
Speaker 1: so even though they made it all the way across us, well,
Speaker 1: their ships wound up taking on water faster than they
Speaker 1: could bail and they finally had a ditch on a
Speaker 1: deserted island and they spent about a year ruined on
Speaker 1: this island. Is this a real story? Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: Columbus's fourth voyage. Oh, they want to do some incredible adventures.
Speaker 1: But you got to read this book, and so I
Speaker 1: could totally picture somebody making it all the way over here,
Speaker 1: making out and then oops, our boats are boats, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we can't get back. And so they were. They're made
Speaker 1: very well done. Lots of explorers that made it all
Speaker 1: the way to the America's made it back or made
Speaker 1: it here and their boats were perfectly fine, but they
Speaker 1: didn't survive the locals. Yeah, they killed them. That's entirely possible.
Speaker 1: They made it here. Their boats were fine, but they
Speaker 1: were like, let's just stay because they think I'm a god. Yaues.
Speaker 1: I have this beautiful flowing beer. Yeah, and so stroking
Speaker 1: it flowing beard. You gotta start working on that before
Speaker 1: people come, you know. See, you know, I mean that's
Speaker 1: kind of that's that's similar to one of the theories
Speaker 1: that's out there right now, which I think is a
Speaker 1: really interesting and compelling theory, and that is that this
Speaker 1: is just like somebody found a shipwreck, you know, that
Speaker 1: like some maybe Italian or Spanish ship was trying to
Speaker 1: make it across they didn't. It was a shipwreck ship. Yes,
Speaker 1: some European ship had this among a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: on it and it shipwrecked on an island. And you know,
Speaker 1: somebody was out there kind of pillaging and found this
Speaker 1: thing and brought a bunch of stuff back and it
Speaker 1: kind of made it into the hands of the rich
Speaker 1: and powerful because they were prized trinkets from some unknown society.
Speaker 1: Unique Yeah. So yeah, yeah, I mean that's interesting. And
Speaker 1: then that also helps to kind of alleviate because the
Speaker 1: big problem with this, right is that people just assume
Speaker 1: that this head signifies human contact and interaction between cultures
Speaker 1: that were was previously undocumented. Whether we totally buy into
Speaker 1: the like Columbius Cortes store Columbus Cortes story of like
Speaker 1: these are the two people who made the first contact,
Speaker 1: I don't. I mean, I don't think anybody in this
Speaker 1: room does, and probably most of the people who listen
Speaker 1: to the podcast don't buy into that. There's definitely European contact,
Speaker 1: whether it be Vikings, whether it be Celts, whether it
Speaker 1: be whoever you know that happened that had to have
Speaker 1: happened before. There's some mysteries that I know we want
Speaker 1: to talk about that even helped to kind of prove
Speaker 1: that a little bit. Well, there's there's some mysteries that
Speaker 1: sort of kind of indicate that there was regular trade
Speaker 1: between the Americas and the Mediterranean, like, for example, the
Speaker 1: cocaine mummies, you know, which I'm sure you've heard of,
Speaker 1: but just for our listeners, researchers were testing tissue samples
Speaker 1: from various Egyptian mummies and they found traces of cocaine
Speaker 1: and nicotine in them. And of course the coca plant
Speaker 1: and the tobac co plant didn't exist anywhere in the
Speaker 1: Mediterranean back when those mummies were mummified, and so there's
Speaker 1: an honest and gotten mystery there was there actually trade
Speaker 1: between the Mediterranean and the America's and there's other alternate
Speaker 1: explanations for how that stuff got there, Like everybody smoked
Speaker 1: in the museum and they did a light line of
Speaker 1: blow off of the well. I mean, there there are
Speaker 1: lots of stuff. We'll do an episode Sunday about this
Speaker 1: because I have I have all kinds of theories about it. Well,
Speaker 1: another thing that will do an episode on probably is
Speaker 1: the period Reese. Yeah that is you know, a really
Speaker 1: interesting map from fifteen thirteen or something like that based
Speaker 1: on two years of other maps. Yeah, that like show
Speaker 1: some stuff that technically it shouldn't show. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think they're strong evidence for their being trade, whether it
Speaker 1: was like Roman or otherwise between Europe and the Mediterranean
Speaker 1: and America. Maybe that's That's one of the best sad
Speaker 1: things about the ancient world is that they were always
Speaker 1: I was having wars and they were always sacking cities
Speaker 1: and leveling them and burn the libraries, like the everything
Speaker 1: was lit with fire. I know. It's like it's like
Speaker 1: there could be there could have been ancient records and
Speaker 1: say in the Library of Alexandria, for example, you know
Speaker 1: that tell the whole probably yeah, and then it all
Speaker 1: got it all got just vanished. It's the shame. So
Speaker 1: one of the other ideas is that it could have
Speaker 1: been this head could have been traded in Asia, um,
Speaker 1: with the kind of European Asian trade, and then brought
Speaker 1: through trade routes with Asia and then across the Pacific Ocean.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's particularly viable. Shipping is still an
Speaker 1: issue that. Yeah, that's quite a distance for this thing
Speaker 1: to have been bat never do Yeah, we're talking to
Speaker 1: need a longer distance than you know, the whole Grome
Speaker 1: to Viking Land and across and then and then I
Speaker 1: can't get anything from the pottery barn to my house
Speaker 1: without a ship. Well that's because you're buying pottery barn. Hey,
Speaker 1: I got, I got good taste. Okay, it's quality. You
Speaker 1: got a good registry, is what you got. Yeah, um, no,
Speaker 1: I mean kind of back to the the shipwreck thing.
Speaker 1: We do know that Rome had you know, stuff in
Speaker 1: the Canary Islands, stuff like that, so they were further
Speaker 1: out than originally anticipated. So something could have floated over there.
Speaker 1: Originally thought, you know, like fifty years ago, we thought whatever, No,
Speaker 1: they weren't nowhere, and then now we're like, oh, they
Speaker 1: were everywhere. Yeah, they were definitely under from the Canary Islands.
Speaker 1: They had a trading post out there. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: could picture even even if they didn't intentionally, maybe they
Speaker 1: got caught in a storm and driven across the ocean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly on the shores of the New World. Yeah, or
Speaker 1: even on an island kind of close to the New World.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you get like slammed on the
Speaker 1: Bahamas or something like that. You know, it's totally possible
Speaker 1: that people are going out there all the time and
Speaker 1: then there's trading happening there, you know. So Okay, interesting
Speaker 1: discussions about it not being a hoax. Right, let's talk
Speaker 1: about maybe this not being totally real. I kind of
Speaker 1: like this one. This one really cracks me up, and
Speaker 1: I think I just wanted to reiterate that it could
Speaker 1: actually have made its way. Again, we had an eighteen
Speaker 1: year window there possibly that this this tomb was sealed
Speaker 1: up possibly his latest so but totally could have just
Speaker 1: come across someone with Colombus or somebody else and then yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah it could have come It totally could have just
Speaker 1: come across and then you know, been a gift like
Speaker 1: one of the first gifts, because this was a tomb
Speaker 1: of a king, right, I mean, this was a tomb
Speaker 1: of a person who was in charge of this area,
Speaker 1: and so it would be something that you would expect
Speaker 1: a European to give, you know, hey, here's our gift
Speaker 1: of offering or peace offering. Yeah, and it's totally weird
Speaker 1: and cool, but also I guess it doesn't explain realistically
Speaker 1: why you know, they have this piece of from two
Speaker 1: hundred have been painted, you know, I mean it's a
Speaker 1: lot of pottery. You know that the thing is a
Speaker 1: lot of that kind of stuff was painted, and that
Speaker 1: the thing is not all that impressive in its current state.
Speaker 1: But if it had been painted well and you know,
Speaker 1: gaudy colors or bright colors, it would have been quite
Speaker 1: interestingly for something something like that. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: things that rub off when it's wet and in the ground.
Speaker 1: But I mean it's like, I gotta describe this thing.
Speaker 1: It looks to me like the head of a lawn gnome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: has a shorter hat, but yeah, it kind of does. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so okay, so let's talk about let's talk about this
Speaker 1: being a hoax. And we're not saying like it never existed.
Speaker 1: This is a made up story, to be clear. We're
Speaker 1: just saying like there's some internet it's a real thing.
Speaker 1: So it might not have been. It is actually in
Speaker 1: a museum somewhere. It is, and it's been you know,
Speaker 1: a subject of pair of view studies, I guess. But
Speaker 1: according to a informal declaration by a guy by the
Speaker 1: name of Paul Schmidt, who's an archaeologist at Union, the
Speaker 1: National Automatical Autonomous University of Mexico, we've talked about Union before, UM,
Speaker 1: we talked about NIAM when we were talking about the
Speaker 1: Bermeja island. Yeah, so sorry for assuming that you would
Speaker 1: remember what Union was, but UNS talking about uh So,
Speaker 1: according to Mr Schmidt, the head was planted in the
Speaker 1: site by UM they call it participating archaeologist Hugo Madonno,
Speaker 1: who I understand was kind of like an under is
Speaker 1: a student or a low level yellower level Yeah kind
Speaker 1: of yeah, um the buster blue chink. Anyway, according to
Speaker 1: um Schmidt, Hugo wanted to play a practice joke, and
Speaker 1: he placed this head in this sight to be discovered
Speaker 1: and it kind of backfired on him because they were like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this is so cool, Like everybody was
Speaker 1: ha ha ha, there's no way that's real, and instead
Speaker 1: of everybody's like, oh my god, my career is made.
Speaker 1: That is part of the part of the reason. Apparently
Speaker 1: you just didn't have the heart to break it to
Speaker 1: the break in two. What's his name? Morano was Mono that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just didn't have the heart because he was so
Speaker 1: enthralled by his fund um. Well, according to a lot
Speaker 1: of other people, these are like totally fake allegations. There's
Speaker 1: no way to confirm it because confirm there's no way
Speaker 1: to confirm it because everybody involved his dad at this point, Right,
Speaker 1: you can't just reach out and I know that you've
Speaker 1: got some stuff about this, but the process of documentation
Speaker 1: left a lot to be desired. Yeah, we'll talk about
Speaker 1: that a minute. Let's talk about that. So I guess
Speaker 1: for me, the only thing is that seems like a
Speaker 1: really like to take an artifact right that is genuinely old,
Speaker 1: Like there's no doubt in anyone's mind that this is
Speaker 1: like a genuinely really old artifact to somehow have this
Speaker 1: artifact where the do you get it? To begin with? Right,
Speaker 1: So to somehow have this seriously old artifact and just
Speaker 1: be like, oh, I know what, we'll get them. I'll
Speaker 1: sneak in in the night and place this in the
Speaker 1: dig site and they'll like, then they'll see you know.
Speaker 1: For me, I keep picturing like somebody just being like
Speaker 1: and like tossing it like on lunch break, like talking
Speaker 1: into I know that's probably like not how everybody's picturing
Speaker 1: is just like that episode of The Bradies where they
Speaker 1: find the tiki heads they're walking along and trip over
Speaker 1: huh excolutely yeah, But I mean, like, why why would
Speaker 1: this student have this head? To begin with? We must
Speaker 1: have comforted out of the archives, I mean must have, right,
Speaker 1: But then but then it was like but then it
Speaker 1: was never documented that it was missing. Well, you know
Speaker 1: a lot of museums have tons of stuff that's not
Speaker 1: on display. It's just buried and creates, you know, to
Speaker 1: be ordered later. Yeah, and so I can see what
Speaker 1: you could you could totally swipe something like that. So
Speaker 1: the other um, the other thing that could have happened
Speaker 1: is that a student could have accidentally placed this head
Speaker 1: into the collection with the stuff from the Mexico city
Speaker 1: that was in the museum, accidentally placed it because I
Speaker 1: didn't mention this before. Oh the misfiling, is that what
Speaker 1: you're getting at? It was misfiled essentially. Yeah. But so
Speaker 1: the thing I didn't say before is that although this
Speaker 1: was reportedly discovered in the nineteen thirty three dig Um,
Speaker 1: pay On didn't actually ever say anything about the head
Speaker 1: until the nineteen sixties. So there's a total possibility that
Speaker 1: he just went to look at his collection and was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: that's weird, there's that head there. Huh. Because in the
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties, to quote my coworker again, Um, as soon
Speaker 1: as I said, she said when was this discovered? And
Speaker 1: I said three, And she said to me, oh, archaeology
Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirties was shady. Yeah. Have you never
Speaker 1: seen an Indiana Jones movie? Yeah? And just steals all
Speaker 1: the gold runs? Yeah? Yeah, I mean for her especially,
Speaker 1: you know. And I'll tell you some more stuff that
Speaker 1: she was kind of talking about later. But pay On
Speaker 1: wasn't on site of the time he had his students
Speaker 1: working on this dig, and because of that, there's almost
Speaker 1: no documentation that happened around this dig. There are there's
Speaker 1: not a single photo that I can find of this
Speaker 1: dig site. There's no documentation as far as I can
Speaker 1: find of this excavation. You know, usually when you're doing
Speaker 1: an excavation, you're drawing detailed diagrams. That's why the streaming grids. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're like making note of everything, everything you're finding. You're
Speaker 1: taking picture. Is every time you find something, every time
Speaker 1: you destroy something, you're taking a picture so that you
Speaker 1: can say, here's my proof that I found this. That's
Speaker 1: sites that are like only like one or two excavating. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The quote that she said, which I think is like great, right,
Speaker 1: is she says, um, the number one thing you have
Speaker 1: to know about archaeology is that it's destructive. In order
Speaker 1: to recover artifacts, you have to tear through the land.
Speaker 1: And if you don't document and draw and photograph every
Speaker 1: last speck of the site, you can't argue anything. There's
Speaker 1: no doovers in archaeology. Context is everything, and an artifact
Speaker 1: isn't important unless it's found in relation to things, which
Speaker 1: is so true. Totally makes sense. Right, So we're saying
Speaker 1: we're taking on faith pretty much, we're taking on the
Speaker 1: word of students in the ninety thirties who may or
Speaker 1: may not have been actually students, that they found this
Speaker 1: head with all this other stuff. But it's totally possible
Speaker 1: this head was found in Italy for all we know,
Speaker 1: and it had been misspiled and placed with this collection.
Speaker 1: But since there's no pictures, no documentation, no nothing, and
Speaker 1: Payon didn't talk about it until the nineteen sixties, that
Speaker 1: leads to me to believe that he didn't even know
Speaker 1: what existed until he went to go view the collection
Speaker 1: and thought, that doesn't seem right. Maybe they did find it. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's interesting, weird, let's talk about that. You know that
Speaker 1: this makes me think of what, So you guys know
Speaker 1: this that you know, I grew up in southern Oregon
Speaker 1: and there is a lot of Native tribes that lived
Speaker 1: in the area because it was just chuck full of
Speaker 1: rivers and it's all silty ground and if you go
Speaker 1: to the right areas, for years, people would always be
Speaker 1: digging around looking for arrowheads. Yeah. I did that the kids.
Speaker 1: And what really cracked me up is it was a
Speaker 1: known thing to go to, you know, the areas where
Speaker 1: we're just outside of it. That the tour would be
Speaker 1: and say, oh, well, this is this is an m
Speaker 1: qua arrowhead found at this side, and this is this
Speaker 1: kind of arrowhead found at that side, and blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: And for a dollar fifty it can be yours and
Speaker 1: see this is where they tied it on, and and
Speaker 1: people will be like, oh wow, this is great, and
Speaker 1: they tell their children and they'd be passed down through histories.
Speaker 1: Look at this great arrowhead that I bought that was
Speaker 1: found from this side. And really what it was is
Speaker 1: it was Jim Bob down the street with an angle
Speaker 1: grinder and some rocks and he was grinding him and
Speaker 1: chipping him and making fakes that dated correctly if you
Speaker 1: just dated the material like it makes me think of
Speaker 1: oh wow, this would have just been so easy to
Speaker 1: just throw in the mix. And I guess there for me,
Speaker 1: from all of the things that I've seen, people pretty
Speaker 1: much agree that this is a genuine ancient artifact. And
Speaker 1: that's why I say throw in the mix. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that some guy made it with an angle green shop,
Speaker 1: but it would be pretty easy. For the amount of
Speaker 1: oversight and like a burden of proof that we've got
Speaker 1: with this thing, it would be so easy for somebody
Speaker 1: to just be like, I know, or somebody to be like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's in the box. It's probably part
Speaker 1: of it, I am I only yeah, yeah, But the
Speaker 1: thing about it is is that it's not it doesn't
Speaker 1: appear to be a native artifact. And so how did
Speaker 1: how did it wind up in the museum where you
Speaker 1: actually get accidentally mixed in with these objects from that tomb? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know collection. Yeah, I mean I could have
Speaker 1: been it could have been left over from something from
Speaker 1: some of the museum that they just didn't happen to return.
Speaker 1: I mean maybe, I mean things you gotta remember, you
Speaker 1: know that that era was kind of volatile for institutions.
Speaker 1: You know, things would spring up and collapse pretty quick,
Speaker 1: and so somebody could have amassed a collection and said,
Speaker 1: I'm now going to donate it to this museum because
Speaker 1: that's in my will and testament, and then it goes
Speaker 1: to that museum, which in that museum instantly folds and
Speaker 1: their stuff is just then shuttled to some other museum.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's that's an easy process, and that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff happened all the time. Yeah, yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: it's a little easier in this case to suppose that
Speaker 1: it was just human incompetence or carelessness. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: for me, like, the thing I keep picturing is, you know,
Speaker 1: you've got your like, you know, minimum wage assistant helping
Speaker 1: to set up this exhibition, and they've got their gloves
Speaker 1: on and you know, they're placing stuff, and they think, Okay,
Speaker 1: I gotta take that head away next, right, and then
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, I'm just kidding. It's five Okay, I'll
Speaker 1: do that tomorrow. But tomorrow comes and they're not there.
Speaker 1: It's the other hungover or yeah whatever, or they just
Speaker 1: like forget right and that head they're like, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's probably part of that's probably part of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's lots of other stuff here. It's probably
Speaker 1: part of it. But I guess, you know, for me,
Speaker 1: it's just it's so hard because there's just no documentation
Speaker 1: on this thing, and I really wish there was, And
Speaker 1: that's why it's an unsolved mystery. The reason for this
Speaker 1: being an unsolved mystery is not because we couldn't. This
Speaker 1: is one of those ones right where it's like they
Speaker 1: had just taken a couple of dang pictures of that site,
Speaker 1: we would know exactly what was happening when you originally
Speaker 1: pulled all the all the many many things out of
Speaker 1: this grave. If they had just made an inventory, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know that we could even know if it was
Speaker 1: even in the original grave or not. That's one huge question.
Speaker 1: And then of course it opens up some other questions
Speaker 1: of like, well, how to get there if it was
Speaker 1: a part of that grave. But by and large, for me,
Speaker 1: it's just there's so many questions, and I just it's
Speaker 1: frustrating because if do course or do process had been followed, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the so there are many ways it could have gotten
Speaker 1: into that grave or gotten into that collection. We just
Speaker 1: don't know where it got in along the line. Okay,
Speaker 1: well what I mean, what do you think, Steve? I
Speaker 1: I still think that it was probably local. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: I still think that it's probably from the region and
Speaker 1: it was part of the original burial and they totally
Speaker 1: found in. Yeah, I don't. I feel like it probably
Speaker 1: wasn't inserted just because of the age of it. It
Speaker 1: just seems like it's in too good of shape to
Speaker 1: have gone through anything else, because most artifacts that are
Speaker 1: dug up are not in good shape. Yeah, but you gotta,
Speaker 1: especially you're like Roman and European based stuff like that.
Speaker 1: It's never in good shape. It's rarely in good shape
Speaker 1: because their city has always got sacked, Their stuff always
Speaker 1: got tossed around. Oh yeah, of course. The thing is
Speaker 1: if it was made locally, it must have been kept
Speaker 1: in something the equivalent of the museum itself to have
Speaker 1: survived so many years. I mean we're talking a long
Speaker 1: long time before the thing finally got put into somebody's grave. Well,
Speaker 1: we might be according to that thermal luminescence dating, it
Speaker 1: could have been as late as like twelve. The thing
Speaker 1: that the thing that we haven't talked about though, is
Speaker 1: that it's possible that it wasn't the first time that
Speaker 1: it was put in somebody's grave. I mean, robbing is
Speaker 1: an old practice, and it could be that somebody said,
Speaker 1: we don't have a big enough hall to honor the king. Uh, well,
Speaker 1: bob down the down the road. Nobody liked him anyway,
Speaker 1: he was bobbed the jerk rulers, so we're going to
Speaker 1: go ahead and rob his stuff. And then they just
Speaker 1: they went in and carted it all out and dumped
Speaker 1: it the new one. And I mean I guess. The
Speaker 1: other frustration for me is that since we don't really
Speaker 1: know how this was, like, was the head a little
Speaker 1: more buried than everything else? And if so, is it
Speaker 1: possible that that it was, like we well, maybe it
Speaker 1: was even like a child's toy that got buried like
Speaker 1: years before this newer civilization came in and they built
Speaker 1: their pyramid above it and then used it as a
Speaker 1: traditional You know, there's there's so many possibilities here that
Speaker 1: just like kids leave their toys everywhere you do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I don't know. I think it's going to have
Speaker 1: to stay in history. I think so too. So we'll
Speaker 1: post probably both of the pictures stuff this. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: that's that's a lot of searching as long as well
Speaker 1: as some of our research. And I'm gonna just preemptively
Speaker 1: apologize for like the background color of some of these
Speaker 1: websites that I'm gonna post, by the way, in the pictures,
Speaker 1: I will I'm gonna photoshop a ruler into that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just so you can get us some idea, just photo
Speaker 1: shopping about five of them. Yeah, yeah, different scales just
Speaker 1: rotate and well, yeah, or maybe I'll photoshop like a
Speaker 1: beer can or something something like that. Yeah, anyway, you
Speaker 1: can find all that stuff on our website. That website
Speaker 1: is thinking Sideways podcast dot com. You can obviously listen
Speaker 1: to us on iTunes. UM. If you're listening to us
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Speaker 1: And um, I guess that's it for this. So I
Speaker 1: was literally just gonna make that joke. No oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw that Comte fie. Guys,