Speaker 1: Welcome to steph you missed in history class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Okay, Tracy
Speaker 1: and listeners. I sort of have to apologize because I
Speaker 1: did not mean to do too ancient cities as topics
Speaker 1: so close together. I think it's fine. We recently did Ephesus,
Speaker 1: and so I was like, Okay, and you know, we've
Speaker 1: talked about before how we try to cycle through things
Speaker 1: so we're not doing the same topic over and over.
Speaker 1: And I know I have definitely been guilty of doing
Speaker 1: a lot of biographies lately. So this time I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we did an ancient city. I want to do a
Speaker 1: history mystery this time around. And that actually led me
Speaker 1: to today's topic, which it turns out is another ancient city. Uh.
Speaker 1: This city has a unique identity in that, in some
Speaker 1: ways it kind of lacks identity. That is the mystery
Speaker 1: of it. We don't know much about the people who
Speaker 1: lived there because most of the ideas of the cultural
Speaker 1: identity come from analysis of the ruins of the city itself,
Speaker 1: and there are some gaps there about what the people
Speaker 1: that lived there might have been. Like, uh, so we
Speaker 1: are talking today about Mohenjo Daro. We've had some other
Speaker 1: ancient cities that have a similar lack of knowledge about
Speaker 1: what the people who lived there or didn't live there.
Speaker 1: We're like, like, I remember when we talked about Poverty Point,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of debate about how exactly that
Speaker 1: space was used. Um, but yeah, there's just sort of
Speaker 1: a a lot that we're gleaning from the side itself,
Speaker 1: right which, and we'll talk about it more, but that
Speaker 1: has led to some very different interpretations of the ruins
Speaker 1: and the artifacts that have been found there. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of an interesting examination of how it makes me
Speaker 1: think a lot about how our current culture will be
Speaker 1: misinterpreted by the archaeologists of the future, presumably from space.
Speaker 1: So Mahenjo Daro is in the Indus River valley in
Speaker 1: the Sinned province of present day southern Pakistan. It's it's
Speaker 1: about two miles or three kilometers away from the Indus
Speaker 1: River and the city was built around b c. E.
Speaker 1: And so that means it's construction was happening at the
Speaker 1: same time as the Great Pyramids of Egypt. The size,
Speaker 1: organization and evidence of an industry of regulated trade have
Speaker 1: all led archaeologists to believe that Mahenjo Daro was one
Speaker 1: of the most important cities of the Indus Valley civilization,
Speaker 1: also called the Harappan civilization. The other ancient Indus Valley
Speaker 1: city you may have heard about is Harappa, which is
Speaker 1: in the Punjab province of Pakistan. Mahenjo Daro is four
Speaker 1: hundred miles it's about six hundred and forty kilometers southeast
Speaker 1: of Harappa, and it's unclear whether Mahenjo Daro and Harappa
Speaker 1: were active at the same time or whether one came
Speaker 1: before the other, but Mahenjo Daro is one of the
Speaker 1: first known urban centers, and it is the largest and
Speaker 1: best preserved of the ancient Indus Valley civilization cities. The
Speaker 1: name Mohenjo Daro you'll sometimes see written out a number
Speaker 1: of different ways that vary in how they use spacing
Speaker 1: and hyphen nation. Sometimes it's Mohendo with a hyphen, Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's all together as one word. It means mound of
Speaker 1: the dead. But that is of course not the name
Speaker 1: that the city was called when it was inhabited. That's
Speaker 1: the name that was given to it by archaeologists, and
Speaker 1: we really don't know what people living there called it
Speaker 1: while they were living there. One of the things that's
Speaker 1: unique to Mahenjo Daro is its lack of governmental structures.
Speaker 1: There is a marketplace, and there are trading spaces and
Speaker 1: their public spaces, but there are no palaces. There is
Speaker 1: no clear evidence of any sort of hierarchical leadership structure.
Speaker 1: Based on its well organized and thoughtful layout and design,
Speaker 1: Mohenjo Daro may have been a seat of power, but
Speaker 1: we still can't quite figure out exactly with any certainty
Speaker 1: how it was governed. The city covers two forty hectars,
Speaker 1: which is nearly six hundred acres, so that makes it
Speaker 1: about five times the size of the Vatican. Mahento Daro
Speaker 1: has two districts which have been named the Citadel and
Speaker 1: the Lower Town, and again these are names that archaeologists
Speaker 1: have labeled them with. The tallest of the Mohino Daro
Speaker 1: mounds is the home of the citadel. The Great Bath
Speaker 1: is perhaps the most impressive structure of the citadel section
Speaker 1: of the city. It is also probably the most famous
Speaker 1: part of the city. This bath is massive. It is
Speaker 1: thirty nine ft that's twelve meters by twenty three ft
Speaker 1: that's seven ms and the depth of the pool is
Speaker 1: eight feet, which is two point five ms. The bath
Speaker 1: was constructed with bricks that were mortared with gypsum, and
Speaker 1: then to make it water tight, the whole thing was
Speaker 1: sealed with bitumen to enter an exit. There were stairs
Speaker 1: for bathers on either end of the bath. This pool
Speaker 1: at Mohando Daro predated Roman bath by about two hundred years,
Speaker 1: but it was just as impressive as those later structures.
Speaker 1: A nearby well supplied the bath with water and water
Speaker 1: was discarded from the bath via a corbelled drain. Because
Speaker 1: of its size and location in the citadel section of
Speaker 1: the city, it is believed that the Great Bath was
Speaker 1: used for group bathing, possibly as part of rituals, and this,
Speaker 1: combined with the other advanced bathroom facilities and draining systems
Speaker 1: of the city, have led to the conclusion that cleanliness
Speaker 1: was deeply important to the culture of the city. While
Speaker 1: the city had numerous gathering places, it lacked temples or
Speaker 1: other obviously religious structures, and the Great Bath has sometimes
Speaker 1: been suggested as a possible temple. But there's also a stupa,
Speaker 1: which is a Buddhist structure and that shaped like a dome.
Speaker 1: But the stupa at Mohando Daro was built long after
Speaker 1: the city was abandoned. It's estimated that the structure was
Speaker 1: added to the citadel mound as late as the or
Speaker 1: two hundred. Yeah, we'll talk about the timeline of when
Speaker 1: the city was no longer active, but that is long
Speaker 1: after it. So basically like new structures were built on
Speaker 1: top of ruins and that is how that stupa stands
Speaker 1: so high. H The so called Lower Town of Mohenjo
Speaker 1: Daro is based on a grid system, just like any
Speaker 1: modern city. Really, it's sectioned off into blocks with barriers
Speaker 1: constructed from baked mud bricks as well as mud bricks
Speaker 1: that are made in the non big style, which is
Speaker 1: like mud and straw, and then mud was also applied
Speaker 1: to the brick walls to seal them and minimize erosion.
Speaker 1: The lower Town section of the city may have supported
Speaker 1: as many as twenty thousand to forty thousand residents. It
Speaker 1: appears that the city enjoyed a certain level of egalitarian wealth. Ivory, gold,
Speaker 1: and semi precious stones have been found all throughout Mohenjo Daro. Additionally,
Speaker 1: most of the homes seem to have had the same
Speaker 1: basic level of amenities. Just about every house had a
Speaker 1: toilet and a bath that connected to the city's drainage system.
Speaker 1: They are also stairs at most of the homes, suggesting
Speaker 1: either a second story or a terrace roof. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: are very few kind of what we would consider indicators
Speaker 1: of like a lower class residents area. Uh. And some
Speaker 1: of those again are in those those areas that are
Speaker 1: built on top of other ruins, so it does seem
Speaker 1: again very egalitarian. Uh. And there are also some theories
Speaker 1: that that second story or terrorist roof may have been
Speaker 1: part of an effort to avoid flooding. The record of
Speaker 1: art in Mohenjo Daro is a little bit sparse. Any
Speaker 1: decorative elements in the architecture are long gone, and there
Speaker 1: isn't a whole lot of sculpture to indicate the values
Speaker 1: of the people of the city in terms of their art.
Speaker 1: There are a few examples, some of which we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about in just a bit, but for the
Speaker 1: most part, it has been small pieces like jewelry or
Speaker 1: little you know, bits of sculpture that have survived. Mohenjo
Speaker 1: Daro call lapsed as a center of civilization about six
Speaker 1: hundred years into its life sometime around nine b C,
Speaker 1: but the cause of that collapse is unknown. A shift
Speaker 1: in the Indus River might have been to blame because
Speaker 1: it would have really impacted the vitality of a city
Speaker 1: that was depending on river transported trade. There have also
Speaker 1: been theories that the city flooded due to the river shifting,
Speaker 1: and that some of the technology that the city used
Speaker 1: to control water flow actually caused standing water in the
Speaker 1: city streets for a prolonged period of time. But again,
Speaker 1: while there is evidence of some flood damage, this is
Speaker 1: still speculative. We just don't have enough hard evidence, and
Speaker 1: we do know that the entire Indus reverse civilization experienced
Speaker 1: a steep decline around that the sort of landmark year
Speaker 1: of nineteen hundred BC. Coming up, we will talk about
Speaker 1: the excavation that uncovered Mohanzo Daro after thousands of years
Speaker 1: uh shifting. Sands and soil had covered the site during
Speaker 1: that time. But first we will have a little sponsor break.
Speaker 1: As we mentioned before, we went to break over time,
Speaker 1: Mohenjo Daro was covered with soil and it wasn't until
Speaker 1: the early nineteen twenties that the city was rediscovered, and
Speaker 1: at this time the city was first identified among a
Speaker 1: series of mounds, again in the Indus River valley. The
Speaker 1: mounds were mostly covering the city and really the citadel
Speaker 1: was the part that was most apparent, and it wasn't
Speaker 1: until nineteen twenty two, as those mounds started to be excavated,
Speaker 1: that the significance and massiveness of this find was truly identified.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen twenties, multiple excavations were conducted on Mohenjo Daro.
Speaker 1: They were headed by the Archaeological Survey of India and
Speaker 1: they were conducted by both British and Indian archaeologists. Excavations
Speaker 1: continued up until the nineteen sixties when all the excavations
Speaker 1: were shut down due to concern over the structures being damaged.
Speaker 1: The weather was a factor, the that they had been
Speaker 1: uncovered also exposed them to the elements more. There have
Speaker 1: been approved excavations since that time. Those have been conducted
Speaker 1: under careful scrutiny and have used non invasive techniques. The
Speaker 1: Pakistani Antiquities Act ninety five put some protections in place
Speaker 1: making it illegal to steal from or to face protected antiquities,
Speaker 1: which included Mahenjo Daro, and the city actually became a
Speaker 1: UNESCO World Heritage Site in nineteen eighty. So throughout the
Speaker 1: many excavations that have gone on at Mohenjo Daro, thousands
Speaker 1: of small artifacts have been recovered from the ruins, and
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about two of the most famous
Speaker 1: ones and some ongoing examination and theorizing about what they
Speaker 1: mean and their origins and value. So the Dancing Girl
Speaker 1: is probably the most important, certainly the most well known
Speaker 1: artifact of those collected at the Mahenjo Daro site. It's
Speaker 1: a small bronze figure. It's about ten and a half
Speaker 1: inches tall, that's twenty six point seven cent meters, and
Speaker 1: it depicts a woman who is nude save her jewelry.
Speaker 1: And the figure has what appears to be curly hair
Speaker 1: pulled back and a necklace which looks almost like a
Speaker 1: shell on a chain or accord. On her right arm,
Speaker 1: which is quite long and lithes are two bracelets, ones
Speaker 1: it's just above the elbow and one at the wrist.
Speaker 1: And in contrast, the left arm of the figure is
Speaker 1: covered in what looked like bengals from just below the
Speaker 1: shoulder all the way down to the wrist, and if
Speaker 1: you count those little nubs that indicate Bengals, there twenty
Speaker 1: five of them at all. Whether the Dancing Girl depicts
Speaker 1: someone native to the Indus Valley or an African woman
Speaker 1: has been part of the debate about the piece. There
Speaker 1: are indications that there there may have been trade going
Speaker 1: on between Africa and and this valley inhabitants a lot
Speaker 1: of times when there was trade going on. There are
Speaker 1: also people from the different places living there. But the
Speaker 1: identity of the dancing girls inspirational woman is still an
Speaker 1: issue that people don't agree on. There has been a
Speaker 1: case made that her features, including her long limbs, more
Speaker 1: resemble an African woman, but her adornmant her adornments and
Speaker 1: her hairstyle echo more of Indian women throughout history. In
Speaker 1: two sixteen, a controversial paper was published in Itti Haas,
Speaker 1: which is the Hindi journal of the Indian Council of
Speaker 1: Historical Research, and that paper, authored by Dakur Prasad Verma,
Speaker 1: claims that the dancing girl is a representation of the
Speaker 1: Hindu goddess Parvati, the goddess of love, fertility and strength,
Speaker 1: and that is the first time that that idea has
Speaker 1: been floated and it garnered a lot of press, but
Speaker 1: it also got a lot of criticism. The primary driver
Speaker 1: for his conclusion is that Shiva is also represented in
Speaker 1: some pieces found at Mohenzo Daro, and that if images
Speaker 1: of Shiva are present, it only makes sense for his
Speaker 1: wife Parvati to also appear. But even that assertion that
Speaker 1: those other images or Shiva has been contested. But that's
Speaker 1: not the only recent controversy surrounding the Dancing Girl. The
Speaker 1: other is one of ownership. In Pakistani lawyer jeff ed
Speaker 1: Ikabal Jeffrey filed a motion insisting that the Dancing Girl
Speaker 1: should be returned to Pakistan's Lahore Museum, and according to
Speaker 1: this motion, the statue was on loan to the National
Speaker 1: Arts Council of India and was never returned to Pakistan.
Speaker 1: It's currently in the collection of the National Museum in
Speaker 1: New Delhi. But the counter story is that the Dancing
Speaker 1: Girl was moved before British India was partitioned into India
Speaker 1: and Pakistan in the nineteen fifties. The partitioning is its
Speaker 1: own complicated story um but that that assertion means that
Speaker 1: Pakistan has no right to make the demand for its return.
Speaker 1: There's not really been a lot of movement in uh
Speaker 1: in this since that motion was originally filed. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: there has, it really hasn't been published anywhere that I
Speaker 1: could locate. The dancing girl was discovered in ninety six
Speaker 1: by Indian archaeologist D. R. Sanni and since then her
Speaker 1: meaning in terms of religious significance has been debated, and
Speaker 1: that discussion continues to present day. Most statue artifacts recovered
Speaker 1: from Mohenjo Daro are terra cotta and a handful or
Speaker 1: carved stone, but this bronze figure is a rarity. She's
Speaker 1: even more rare because while there are other cast metal
Speaker 1: pieces in the area, they tends to be tools and
Speaker 1: decorative adornments, so a cast sculpture stands out as significant.
Speaker 1: To create any cast metal object, the Harapans would carve
Speaker 1: it in wax and then place wet clay around the
Speaker 1: carving to dry and create a mold. And then they
Speaker 1: would heat the mold to melt the wax and pour
Speaker 1: it out through carefully drilled holes. This would leave a
Speaker 1: negative mold which would then be cast with an alloy,
Speaker 1: and this was a one time use mold. They would
Speaker 1: have to be broken to reveal the final piece. Another
Speaker 1: important artifact from the city is a stone sculpture, which
Speaker 1: was named the Priest King by archaeologists, even though there
Speaker 1: is nothing to indicate that he was either of those things,
Speaker 1: and this is a partial piece. It is just the
Speaker 1: upper portion of the torso and one broken arm, and
Speaker 1: the head is very stylized, featuring a face that is
Speaker 1: proportionately large for the head and a beard sculpted with
Speaker 1: deep vertical lines to create a representation of hair texture.
Speaker 1: His hair on his head is slicked back, and an
Speaker 1: ornamental headband encircles his head and then has a tiny
Speaker 1: circle at the forehead like an ornamental piece. Over one
Speaker 1: of the figures shoulders, there's a cloth drape and it's
Speaker 1: sculpted with ornamental circle and trifoil motifs. The top of
Speaker 1: the head appears to have been sliced flat, and the
Speaker 1: flat area is uncarved with no detail, so people have
Speaker 1: speculated that there may have been a head dress piece
Speaker 1: that sat on top of it. Similar larger sculptures have
Speaker 1: a bun that's on top of the head, so there's
Speaker 1: also been theories that a similar hairstyle might have been
Speaker 1: what was intended to sit on this flat portion of
Speaker 1: the head. It's also possible that the back of the
Speaker 1: head was intact initially and somehow it was sheared off
Speaker 1: by accident. Yeah, there are also some holes drilled into
Speaker 1: the uh the head on the sides that people have
Speaker 1: suggested might be to place like a necklace or some
Speaker 1: other type of like neck adornment. But I read one
Speaker 1: interesting analysis that positive that it was actually those holes
Speaker 1: were actually ways that whatever that ornamental piece that sat
Speaker 1: on top was hooked to the head so it would
Speaker 1: stay secure. It's an interesting piece. Like I said, not
Speaker 1: everybody agrees on what what any of these things are
Speaker 1: and what their their various details are about. The Priest King,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, is broken off just at the waist
Speaker 1: or just above the waist, so the intact section is
Speaker 1: just a little less than seven inches at seventeen point
Speaker 1: seven centimeters tall, and he is part of the collection
Speaker 1: of the National Museum of Pakistan at Karachi. We're about
Speaker 1: to get into an interesting part of the modern mythology
Speaker 1: around the Mohendo Daro sites, but first we will pause
Speaker 1: for another quick word from sponsors. We have certainly mentioned
Speaker 1: this already in this podcast, but in the case of
Speaker 1: a site like this one where archaeologists and researchers find themselves.
Speaker 1: Having to guess at the history of a civilization and
Speaker 1: culture is pretty natural for competing theories to emerge. As
Speaker 1: a side note, if you're wondering whether a system of
Speaker 1: writing might help figure out the many issues of confusion
Speaker 1: over Mohends history, the Harappan civilization did have one. We
Speaker 1: think there are symbols on various excavated artifacts that do
Speaker 1: look like they might represent a language. But this in
Speaker 1: this script or Harappan script as it's known, has not
Speaker 1: ever been deciphered. Yeah, there is again debate over whether
Speaker 1: or not that's actually what it is, even if it
Speaker 1: is a language. So the massacre myth of Mahenjo Daro
Speaker 1: is one that began in its early excavations and it
Speaker 1: persists to this day. It's kind of sensational, so people
Speaker 1: like to keep it going. In the nineteen thirties, it
Speaker 1: was widely publicized that something terrible had happened at Mahenjo
Speaker 1: Daro because a number of skeletal remains were found that
Speaker 1: appeared to have died gruesomely. The narrative put forth in
Speaker 1: the first half of the twentieth century was at the
Speaker 1: city of Mohenjo Daro was wiped out by Indo Aryan invaders.
Speaker 1: There's not really evidence to support that idea. For one thing,
Speaker 1: all of the bodies found during the early excavations were
Speaker 1: in the lower city, not in the citadel, and it
Speaker 1: seems like if people were running for cover or help,
Speaker 1: they would have run to the citadel, not into the
Speaker 1: lower city protection. There were no bodies at all found
Speaker 1: in the citadel. No weapons of any kind have been
Speaker 1: found to indicate that there was any sort of conflict. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you uh grow up almost anywhere in
Speaker 1: the United States, like there are people always finding things
Speaker 1: like arrowheads and like they're just if there is a battle,
Speaker 1: stuff gets dropped. That's how it goes. Nothing of that
Speaker 1: kind has been found in Mahenjo daro Uh. And there
Speaker 1: is also a high likelihood that not all of these
Speaker 1: remains are from the same time, and that was actually
Speaker 1: debated even among the archaeologists who first uncovered these remains.
Speaker 1: As you recall, we mentioned earlier that the city Stupa
Speaker 1: was built long after the Harrabin civilization is believed to
Speaker 1: have ended, so there were people making use of the
Speaker 1: city even after it was largely abandoned, and all of
Speaker 1: those time periods maybe coming into play here. Later theories
Speaker 1: about the bodies that diverged from the idea of an
Speaker 1: attack or a mask her put forth the idea that
Speaker 1: the few people who remained after most of the city
Speaker 1: was empty may have been caught in a flood or
Speaker 1: a drought that was brought on by the shifting of
Speaker 1: the Indus River, or some kind of pestilence. So later
Speaker 1: theories about these bodies that diverged from the idea of
Speaker 1: an attack or a massacre put forth the idea that
Speaker 1: the few people who remained after most of the city
Speaker 1: was empty might have been caught up in some kind
Speaker 1: of flood or drought that was brought about by the
Speaker 1: shifting of the Indus River, or maybe some kind of pestilence.
Speaker 1: It's also possible that a series of floods overtook the
Speaker 1: city over a prolonged period of decline. There's a high
Speaker 1: likelihood that not all of the remains are even from
Speaker 1: the same period, So it's also likely that there's no
Speaker 1: one cause of death for all of these bodies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sometimes you'll see on kind of sensational sites the secrets
Speaker 1: of the massacre at Mohenjo Daro, and they kind of
Speaker 1: suggest there's some cover up of something nefarious, but really
Speaker 1: it's it's just kind of one of those cases where
Speaker 1: it's probably not as dramatic as we maybe think. In
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixty four article titled the Mythical Massacre at
Speaker 1: Mohenjo Daro, archaeologist George F. Dale's wrote, quote, the enemy
Speaker 1: of the Hora Pans was nature, aided and embedded by
Speaker 1: the hora Pans themselves, who accelerated the spoiliation of the
Speaker 1: landscapes through improper irrigation practices and by denuding the watersheds
Speaker 1: through overgrazing and deforestation. Just less glamorous and exciting than
Speaker 1: a massacrer, but also makes a lot more sense given
Speaker 1: the evidence we have. So there probably wasn't any sort
Speaker 1: of mass attack on Mahenzo Daro. And the present day, though,
Speaker 1: the site is in real danger and the threat once
Speaker 1: again comes from the elements. Salt in the groundwater is
Speaker 1: causing the bricks, which are really fragile, to erode very rapidly.
Speaker 1: There are very wide shifts in the temperature that are
Speaker 1: similarly robbing the masonry of its strength, and a lot
Speaker 1: of the walls that were uncovered in the early party
Speaker 1: the twentieth century are crumbling. The ongoing problem of water
Speaker 1: has long been an irritant to researchers. Because of the
Speaker 1: water table in the area, digging has always had challenges.
Speaker 1: But water is a very real threat to the very
Speaker 1: existence of the Mahenjo Daro site because, in addition to
Speaker 1: the salinity issue uh and the water table, rainfall is
Speaker 1: also breaking apart. The fragile brickwork in late monstones flooded Pakistan,
Speaker 1: and Mohenjo Daro was severely impacted by those The stupid
Speaker 1: developed cracks and the base of the citadel mound near
Speaker 1: the Great Bath had several structural structural failures yeah it
Speaker 1: started to collapse in a couple of places. One conservation
Speaker 1: effort that has been attempted to save the city's ruins
Speaker 1: involved the use of a mud slurry that was applied
Speaker 1: to the delicate brickwork in the hopes that it would
Speaker 1: protect it. But when that fresh mud dried and fell away,
Speaker 1: it was often taking parts of the original structure with it.
Speaker 1: In some cases, modern bricks have been slotted into spaces
Speaker 1: where old ones have crumbled, creating a weird mishmash of
Speaker 1: structural strength that is simply not up to conservation standards.
Speaker 1: In recent years, it has even been suggested that the
Speaker 1: whole site should be reburied to protect it from the elements.
Speaker 1: After years of falling out of the Pakistani government's jurisdiction,
Speaker 1: conservation and care for Mohenjo Daro is now in the
Speaker 1: hands of sind provincial authorities and then under that stewardship,
Speaker 1: a committee has been established to address the technical needs
Speaker 1: of trying to preserve the site. Yeah, there was also
Speaker 1: an instance in fourteen where as part of a cultural
Speaker 1: um celebration, there were a lot of people there at
Speaker 1: the site and it was really not good for it.
Speaker 1: So even though they were trying to celebrate the long
Speaker 1: history of it, the care was not taken to make
Speaker 1: sure that that celebration did not have ramifications of damage. Uh.
Speaker 1: And as we close out this look at Mohenjo Daro
Speaker 1: and its ongoing mysteries, I wanted to include another passage
Speaker 1: written by George F. Dales, and this time it's from
Speaker 1: an article written the year after the previous one we quoted.
Speaker 1: So this one is from nineteen sixty five and he
Speaker 1: wrote quote one of the most intriguing aspects of archaeological
Speaker 1: research is the constant ebb and flow of our knowledge
Speaker 1: between fact and fiction. There is an ever present need
Speaker 1: to re examine and reevaluate the scattered bits of evidence
Speaker 1: with which we try to reconstruct the cultural framework of
Speaker 1: mankind's climb to the modern world. It is not uncommon
Speaker 1: to find that yesterday's fact is one of today's discarded theories,
Speaker 1: or that what is merely a calculated guest today maybe
Speaker 1: a verified historical maximum tomorrow. And I wanted to include
Speaker 1: that because it's a good reminder that all of this
Speaker 1: is uh based on the knowledge that we have, but
Speaker 1: that knowledge can always change, particularly when you're dealing with
Speaker 1: very ancient things, which, again, as He's put it, as
Speaker 1: part of the excitement of it, also sometimes the frustration.
Speaker 1: Do you also have listener mail for us? I do,
Speaker 1: and this is another ancient city related one because it
Speaker 1: is about our our ephesis episode. This is from our
Speaker 1: listener Margaret, and she writes, greetings and salutations, History buffs.
Speaker 1: I quite enjoyed your episode on emphasis because I have
Speaker 1: personally been there and could imagine the sites while you
Speaker 1: spoke of them. My husband and I got quite lucky
Speaker 1: in timing our visit to Turkey in the summer of
Speaker 1: there were terrorists attacks in Istanbul two days before we landed,
Speaker 1: another one three days after we left, and two weeks
Speaker 1: after we got home they had their military coup. The
Speaker 1: group we traveled with has understandably suspended service in that country,
Speaker 1: which is really unfortunate, both of the people who live
Speaker 1: there because tourism augments their economy, and every tour guide
Speaker 1: we spoke to emphasize their belief that you cannot let
Speaker 1: the terrorists affect the way you live or else they
Speaker 1: are winning, and more selfishly because it was my favorite
Speaker 1: stop in the Mediterranean. Our visit in Ephesus started with
Speaker 1: docking in the port of Kusadasi and taking a bus
Speaker 1: up into the hills. We passed the original location of
Speaker 1: the town and marveled at how the river Delta had
Speaker 1: accumulated enough sediment to move the coastline almost three miles.
Speaker 1: We disembarked at the ruins of the Basilica of St. John,
Speaker 1: where our tour guide let us lead us to the
Speaker 1: edge of the hill and asked, can you see that
Speaker 1: column down there? That is all that remains of the
Speaker 1: Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the
Speaker 1: ancient world? And she talked a bit about the history
Speaker 1: and significance, and then said, but then there was an
Speaker 1: earth another earthquake, and things changed, so people took the
Speaker 1: stones from the ruins and built the basilica. She talked
Speaker 1: a little bit about the Basilica and then said, but
Speaker 1: then there was another earthquake and things changed, so people
Speaker 1: took the stones from the ruins and built that mosque,
Speaker 1: which she indicated down on the other side of the hill.
Speaker 1: I love the continuity of it. Your research indicated that
Speaker 1: it is hard to be sure what really happened, but
Speaker 1: I quite liked our guide's version of events. I do too,
Speaker 1: That's quite charming. From there, we went to the House
Speaker 1: of the Virgin Mary and then onto Ephesis proper, which
Speaker 1: is amazing. It really is. You should keep it on
Speaker 1: your bucket list. Ironically, it had not been on mine.
Speaker 1: I was actually more excited to go to Istanbul and
Speaker 1: the Hojia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. But Ephesus is
Speaker 1: really lovely and much more pleasant and impressive to go
Speaker 1: through than some other ruins I visited, including the Parthenon
Speaker 1: and Pompeii. I'm not even kidding, uh. And she offers
Speaker 1: to send us pictures, which of course I always love,
Speaker 1: but I really like that firsthand account of what it
Speaker 1: is like to go as a tourist to a place
Speaker 1: like this, because we talk about them and how it's
Speaker 1: important to remember history and and engage with it when
Speaker 1: you can, but not everybody has the opportunity to travel
Speaker 1: everywhere and and see all these great things. She seems
Speaker 1: very well traveled and really has a grasp of the
Speaker 1: importance of visiting historical sites. So thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you, Margaret. That was awesome. Uh. If you would
Speaker 1: like to email us, you can do so at History
Speaker 1: Podcast at House of Works dot com. You can also
Speaker 1: find us online at missed in History dot com, where
Speaker 1: you will find all of the shows that have ever
Speaker 1: existed of this podcast, including those way before Tracy and
Speaker 1: I were ever on the scene, but for the ones
Speaker 1: that Tracy and I worked on. You will also find
Speaker 1: some show notes included, and we encourage you come and
Speaker 1: visit us at missed in history dot com and we'll
Speaker 1: all play in the History Fund zone together for more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Isn't how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. M