May 20, 2023 • 44 mins
On a mundane level, a cauldron is nothing more than a great cooking pot, but it takes on supernatural dimensions in various myths and legends. In this classic episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss the history of cauldrons and their links to tales of witchcraft, rebirth and the mandate of heaven. (originally published 06/14/2022)
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
And I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. We're heading into
the vault for an older episode of the show. This one,
originally published June fourteenth, twenty twenty two, is part three
of our exploration of the Cauldron. Let's ladele some out here.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name
is Robert.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And Hey, we were out
for a little bit, but now we're back, and you
know what, we're back with more cauldrons. Our brains are
like pots, and those pots are full of pots, and
the pots have pots in them, and it never stops.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
I know, my wife is still teasing me about this.
It's like, you guys are still doing episodes about cauldrons
and soup, and I'm like, yeah, there's like we're probably
going to do three or four of these total, and
we're still not going to cover everything. And a lot
of it comes down to the fact, and certainly go
back and listen to those first two episodes if you
haven't It comes down to the fact that we're talking
(01:13):
about ancient technology, and since it we inevitably use technology
as a way of understanding ourselves, understanding the cosmos, et cetera.
It ends up becoming a part of our not only
are a discourse, but of course our religions and so forth.
And we see that with the cauldron for sure.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yes, though I have to say one of the big
examples we're going to talk about in this episode. I
don't know if the whole episode will end up focusing
on it, but it's a really interesting historical artifact that
is called a cauldron. Like it is called the Gunduestrup cauldron.
But I was reading a paper on it, and the
very first sentence of the paper, this author insists that
(01:56):
it is not a cauldron, it is a ceremonial container.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Yeah. I mean this is something that is kind of
under the surface of many of these discussions, right Like
obviously not all of these people would have called this
a cauldron, and then you get into discussions of Okay,
is it a cauldron or a pot, Is it a
cauldron or a bowl? Is it a cauldron or some
other kind you know, what exactly.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Is the sh will Daddy. Oh, Okay, this is a cauldron.
Come on, it's a big metal pot. I think we
can call it a cauldron.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah. So yeah. As we've discussed in previous episodes, we
wanted to get into European traditions with a cauldron, and
cauldrons in Europe are sometimes uncovered in bogs places, as
we've discussed in the show before, that had sacred connotations
to the ancient people who visited them. They were a
place between land and water, and so they were also
(02:49):
seen as a place between life and death. So various
funeral rites seem to have been conducted its various bogs
and peat bogs, and given the low oxygen city soil
of bog environments, we often gain a great deal more
insight into what occurred there, especially when it comes to
organic materials that would have otherwise decayed. So bodies were
(03:13):
left in these bogs and teared in these bogs, and
we also see examples of cauldrons and cauldron like artifacts.
One notable bog retrieved cauldron is the Gundestrap cauldron, an
incomplete but very stunning silver artifact discovered in a bog
in Himmelund, Denmark in eighteen ninety one. Now, while dating
(03:35):
has been a matter of some discussion here exact dating anyway,
it's suspected to date back to between one fifty BCE
and the dawn of the Common Era. It was evidently
given to the bog and an act of sacrifice, perhaps
to a god or god's, but its origins don't seem
to be quite Danish. It bears images that are generally
(03:57):
associated with more Southern cultures, lying d or griffins. There
seems to be a hornet or antlered god on there,
alongside other potential gods and goddesses. It contains scenes of
warriors falling in battle, and there is actually an image
of a magic cauldron that is on this cauldron with
(04:19):
a gigantic figure, perhaps a god or a goddess, about
to dunk a smaller man into its depths.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
That's right, we got cauldrons on our cauldrons and I
want to come back to more interpretation of this panel
later on.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Yeah, definitely, as we're talking about the Gundestrup cauldron, look
up images of it. That's spelled g U n d
E S t r u P. There are a lot
of images online that show the various panels here the
various the various images that we're going to be discussing here,
including this one of what is clearly a giant of
some sort taking a man and dunking him headfirst into
(04:58):
a bucket or cauldron or vessel of some sort adjacent
to this battle scene. So the exact origins of the
cauldron here are still a matter of debate, with some
pointing to the Thracians or what is in these would
have been people from what is now Bulgaria and Romania.
Yet there are also Celtic helmets and trumpets depicted on
(05:19):
the cauldron, suggesting it might have been made in a
place in the aforementioned region where Thracians and Celts coexisted,
though it's uncertain how this then wound up in Denmark.
Could have been a tribute, it could have been spoils
of war. Either way, it may be accurate to think
of the Gundestrap Cauldron as not a product of a
(05:41):
single culture, a single place, or even a single time,
but something that was created by mingling cultures on the move,
in part due to Roman expansion and conquest during this
time period, and ultimately constructed by different artisans over many years.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Oh, I didn't think about the Roman connection. But yeah,
so if this would have been in the first century BCE,
and the middle of that century was when Julius Caesar
himself was waging a war of conquest in Gaul against
Celtic tribes in that region, so yeah, that's an interesting possibility.
So yeah, Rob, you dug this thing up, not physically,
(06:17):
but yes, you had brought it into our outline. But
I got really obsessed with it, and I found I
find this artifact so interesting, specifically because of the different
mysteries about it its provenance, like you were just talking about,
but also about what it's depicting, because there are tons
of question you know, it clearly is showing scenes that
(06:39):
are part of a rich mythology that we apparently know
little to nothing about, and so there are a lot
of attempts to try to understand what the different panels
are depicting and if and if so, how they connect
to mythologies that we might know something about. But coming
back to that provenance question, Yeah, I think it's so
(07:01):
interesting that there are at least three different distinct regional inputs. Now,
as you already mentioned, based on physical characteristics of the cauldron,
like the silversmithing techniques that were used to create it,
it seems to be a product of Southeastern Europe. Yes,
but most scholars pointing to the metalworking techniques of the
(07:22):
Thracians who live in as you said, what is today
Bulgaria or Romania. And I was trying to figure out
what are some examples of this distinctive style that's so
strongly linked to Thracian culture. Well, I was reading about
this on the website for the National Museum of Denmark,
which has a lot of great materials about the Gundestrup cauldron,
(07:42):
and they compare the Gundestrup cauldron to the metalworking on
a gilded silver pitcher from Bulgaria from roughly three hundred BCE,
and looking at it, I would agree, Yeah, the techniques
and the artistic style look extremely similar, like the way
the animal figures are in embossed. Remember that this is
not just like an illustration or a carving, but this
(08:04):
is like hammered and punched metal. So it has raised
animal figures with like textures that you could feel with
your fingers running over them. And those textures are very
similar between the two works. So like the animal figures
are embossed and punched with patterns of texture that seem
to indicate hair or fur, and it's extremely distinctive. You
(08:27):
see some of the same patterns on the apparent herringbone
patterns on the clothing of the people on the Gunda
strip cauldron. So based on the techniques, it's pretty clear
that it was created by an artisan who had been
trained in the traditions of Southeastern Europe. But as you
also said, the imagery depicts objects and motifs associated with
(08:49):
the culture of the Celts who were in more kind
of western central Europe at the time, and a few
examples of this would be a Celtic musical instrument known
as the carnix, which we can discuss in more detail later,
certain types of Celtic ceremonial jewelry such as an object
(09:10):
called a torque, which I can also get to in
a minute, and things like that. So those are your
two inputs. It's like Celtic subject matter done in the
metal working style of the Thracians or of Southeastern Europe,
and then it's found in the territory of neither one.
It's found up in Jutland in modern day Denmark in
a bog. So yeah, you really have to wonder how
(09:32):
all this comes together. Did a Celtic person commission a
Southeastern European silversmith to make a pot containing images from
their culture and mythology? Or maybe did it somehow arise
from a border region where these cultures came into contact,
and then somehow this item ends up in the bogs
of Jutland.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
It would be like finding what a Bulgarian band that
only does covers of Celtic music in modern Denmark and
wondering how they came to be there.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Ah, yes, the thrash metal polka bands of Canada. Now
I wanted to mention just a little bit more about
the state that this cauldron, the so called cauldron was
in when it was discovered. So altogether this object weighs
about nine kilograms or about twenty pounds, and it appears
(10:21):
to have been deposited in the bog deliberately, especially because
it was disassembled when it was put into the bog.
So this cauldron has many detachable features, so the rim
can be taken off, and the silver image panels which
line the sides of the pot, those can be taken off,
and when it was found they were all removed and
(10:42):
placed inside the vessel, So I don't know, you see that,
and that makes it sound like this wasn't just sort
of like it wasn't like it fell off a wagon
or something. That sounds like somebody put it in there.
There is no text anywhere on it, so it's not
like a political cartoon where everything's labeled so you know
what it means. It's you just have to infer from
the imagery. So that makes it difficult to identify things.
(11:05):
But the imagery, as you already said, Rob, is fascinating.
There are animals you would not expect to see. There
are lions, There are images of gods that we know
little or nothing about. In fact, there are even images
of elephants.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Ah, and yeah that should be surprising, especially like where
are these images of elephants coming from?
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yeah, exactly. So at this point, I just want to
pick out a few of the individual plates and focus
on what's going on on them, one at a time.
So the first one I wanted to look at, I've
got a picture for you to look at, Rob, but
of course we will describe it for you out there,
the listener. So it shows a god or a mythic
figure that's mostly human in form, except it has antlers
(11:50):
like a stag growing from its head. And this figure
is sitting cross legged right next to an actual stag.
And then on the other side of it, there are
a bunch of other animals. There are four legged, predatory
looking animals that might be dogs or maybe lions, I
can't tell for sure. And then I love this a
tiny dude riding on the back of a fish. Yes,
(12:13):
is it now compared to the god with the antlers,
the dude is much smaller, But I don't know if
it's a question of perspective. Maybe he's farther away, or
maybe maybe this is just separate imagery, or maybe the
god is supposed to be really big, or maybe the
dude's supposed to be really small. I can't tell what
the deal with the size difference is. But if it
is a regular sized man on the fish's back that
(12:35):
is a very big fish, it's got to be like
dolphin or shark sized.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah. And there's also kind of a different flavor to
these two images. So the hornet or antlered God or
whatever this being is supposed to be is in it
has a kind of a serene pose. His legs. His
or her legs are crossed, holding as what a serpent
in one hand and I'm not sure what the implement
(13:00):
is in the other hand.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Oh well, that is a Celtic object. Actually, I think
this is an object that is bigger than just Celtic culture,
but it was big in Celtic culture called a torque,
which is a type of metal ring worn around the
neck that seems to have had significance for multiple Iron
Age European cultures, symbolizing power. It's power or status or rank,
(13:24):
sort of like a crown. So if somebody's wearing a torque,
that would seem to indicate that they are a leader
or a high status person. So this figure with the
antlers has the torque in his right hand, and then
in the other hand he's grasping, like you said, the
neck of a giant snake. But I just wanted to
point out that the snake has features on its head,
(13:45):
which one scholar I was looking at identified as rams horns.
So it's a snake with ram horns.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Oh wow. So there's clearly a lot going on here,
as one often finds with depictions of powerful individuals or
da or demi gods and it's one of these images
that I think it speaks across the ages. When you
look at this, you get a sense of power and
divinity from it. Meanwhile, the individual writing the fish or dolphin,
(14:15):
it looks more comical to me, and it makes me
wonder if there is in fact it is supposed to
be comical on some level, like even if it is
a god of some sort, maybe it is a tricks
to God. Maybe it's something that is not supposed to
be interpreted with the same air of reverence as we
have with this central individual.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Yeah, I agree, fish boy looks very funny, and I
think it's partly in the way his knees are bent
and he's sort of reaching forward while riding the fish,
almost as if you can imagine him kind of rocking
and kicking back and forth and saying like, go faster,
come on.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Now. Obviously, another possible explanation for differences could also be
different authors over time. But as we alluded to earlier.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
But an interesting thing I wanted to point out again.
So there's a lot we don't know about what these
images are supposed to depict. But this antler headed god
who is holding a torque in one hand, is also
wearing a torque around his neck, so he appears to
be a leader or high status figure himself. But maybe
by holding a torque in one hand, I don't know,
(15:23):
just speculating, but maybe it means he can also make
a king. He can also give the crown to another.
But to go on to discuss another panel, Rob, I
wanted to come back to one you sort of mentioned earlier,
the panel that has the cauldron dunking on it, because
(15:45):
this panel's really interesting and there was some good interpretive
material on the National Museum of Denmark website about it.
So this is one of the interior wall panels. This
would be lining the inner wall of the cauldron, and
there's a lot going on on it, so let's try
to break it down piece by piece. So one thing
is that there is a row of soldiers on the
(16:07):
bottom and they are on foot, they're holding spears and shields,
and they are moving toward the left side of the panel.
And then above them is a straight horizontal tree branch
with little leaves forking off of it. And then above
the tree branch are soldiers on horseback moving in the
opposite direction of the procession. Below they are moving to
(16:30):
the right side of the panel, and then on the
lower right side of the panel, there are three warriors
playing instruments that are known as carnisses. When I first
looked at these things, I had no idea what they were,
but I looked them up, and these are a well
known type of artifact. Rob I've got a close up
for you to look at here. But the carnix was
(16:50):
a wind instrument used by the Celts of the Iron Age.
It is essentially a giant s shaped trumpet, but most
of the length of this trumpet is a vertical pipe
reaching far up above your head. So picture a kind
of long periscope tube, except it's not going to your eye,
(17:10):
it's connecting to your mouth, and you blow through it,
and then the sound comes out of this tube that
ends maybe a whole other person's height above your head.
And so the bell part of this instrument, the part
where the sound comes out, would often be shaped to
look like an open jawed head of an animal such
as a dragon or a serpent, or maybe sometimes a bore.
(17:34):
The carnax was identified in ancient literary sources as associated
with warfare, so you might play it on the battlefield
for a coordination of tactics or for intimidation of the enemy.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Ah, long distance communication.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
There you go. But what's going on with the warriors
on the bottom row of the panel, Well, they seem
to be moving toward the left side, where one by
one they will face a god of some kind depicted
as a giant who is you know, at least twice
as big as probably three times as big as the warriors,
and the god or the giant will grasp a warrior
(18:10):
with both hands, turn him upside down, and then dunk
him headfirst into a cauldron. Now, I think there's plenty
of room to question the interpretation of these panels. Again,
they don't come with words on them, so they don't explain,
and they don't super clearly connect to mythology that we
know about. Connections that would be established have to be
(18:32):
kind of inferred. They might be kind of tenuous. But
the curators of the National Museum of Denmark argue that
the warriors on foot in the bottom of this panel,
they are being represented as probably in the underworld, meaning
that they were just killed in battle, and so they
are being depicted as I don't know, the dead forms
(18:53):
of their former selves and you can tell they're in
the underworld because they are underneath this horizontal tree bring branch. Apparently,
the tree branch probably denotes the Earth itself and the
division between worlds. So if the tree branch is the earth,
what's below it is the underworld, and what's above it
is some kind of heavenly afterlife. And from here the
(19:15):
interpretation goes on to say that as these figures are
dunked into the cauldron by the God, their fate is decided,
and this fate might include being resurrected or reincarnated in
some exalted state, such as in this heavenly realm up
above on the top of the panel, and perhaps as
a person of higher status or rank. Remember that the
(19:37):
soldiers shown above the branch were on horseback, so maybe
this means a fallen warrior could be resurrected as an
officer or as a member of the equestrian classes higher
socioeconomic class. And I thought it was really interesting how
this recalls the imagery of cauldrons used in visions of
hell in multiple very different Asian cultures that we talked
(19:58):
about in the previous part of this where the cauldrons
were not only an instrument of torture in the realms
of hell, but they were secondarily a symbol of transformation
into something more honorable and refined, if you could be
reincarnated as a sort of better being after the stint
in hell. And it makes me think again, Like, seeing
(20:19):
this motif arise in multiple different cultures, separated greatly in
time and geography and language and all these different barriers,
makes one wonder if there's not a common, universal human
experience underlying that theme, which would seem to me to
be very likely the transformation of raw food into cooked food,
or of dirty clothing into clean clothing, as would be
(20:41):
just you know, natural things where we see transformed by
the work of the cauldron.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Yeah, like the basic nature of cauldron technology and the
idea that it enables transformation, It does seem to be
something you just see in culture after culture after culture,
just across vast distances on the planet. And the laundry
note God is important too. I've seen that pop up
in a few different sources, pointing to specific cauldrons of note,
(21:08):
and often discussions regarding that cauldron come back to cooking
and the preparation of food, the transformation of organic matter
into some sort of delicious or hearty dish. But also
sometimes laundry is discussed as a possibility as well, And
I mean that is a transformation. I think we tend
(21:29):
to totally take for granted that you can have foul
and soiled clothing, and yet here is this fabulous specialized
cauldron in your house or at the local laundry mat,
or in the basement of your building that you put
these items into, and you come back later and behold,
they have been refreshed. They are new again.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Yeah. Man, who doesn't love clean laundry, especially clean sheets.
It's a wonderful thing. Oh yeah, Okay, I got another
panel I want to focus on. This one's very special
and it may be the most important of all of
them due to its place within the cauldron, and that
is the panel that is in the bottom of the
cauldron bowl.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Now.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
I might not have even noticed this one just by
looking at pictures of the plates on the Internet, because
a lot of the photography that's out there focuses on
the side plates for good reason. But I actually saw
this one brought up in a curator's video feature from
the British Museum that was focused on the Gundestrup cauldron.
I think maybe when they had it on loan or something.
(22:28):
But it was by an archaeologist named Julia Farley, and
this was really interesting. So this panel is at the
bottom of the pot, so if you're looking down into
the pot, it's what you'd see at the very bottom,
assuming the pot's empty. And because of that feature, I
started to think about how if the pot had something
in it, like soup or whatever. I don't know if
this was ever used to serve soup, probably not, actually
(22:50):
more of a ceremonial vessel, but I don't know. I
guess I couldn't rule that out. If it had anything
in it, this panel would be hidden and then it
would be revealed as the contents were taken out of
the bowl. So what do you see in this panel, Well,
it depicts a gigantic bull reclining. When I first saw it,
(23:11):
it looked to me like it was kind of, I
don't know, lazily resting. But I've seen it written about
as if this bull is laying on the ground because
it has been wounded, but I couldn't tell that just
by looking at it. So for whatever reason, it's a
bull laying on its side, but then with its head
propped up, and the head of the bull is actually
(23:32):
a very prominently vertically raised three D feature. Technically, the
whole thing, like the other panels, is three D. It's
all hammered and stamped and embossed into three D textures,
but the head of the bull is sort of more
three D than the rest, like it really rises into
prominence off the base. And then behind the back of
the bull, we see a goddess or a female warrior
(23:54):
posed with sword raised and her legs are bent. They're
kind of tucked up under her as if she were jumping,
like as if she were in midair at the peak
of a great leap, and she's going to come down
with the sword and strike and slay this giant bull.
So it's an action shot. There are also three dogs
in the image. It seems two of them seem to
(24:16):
be alive and helping this warrior or goddess slay the bull,
and the other dog appears to be dead. But something
I noticed also about this bull. So it's got this
raised head coming up off of the body, turning at
an angle, and then the bull has what looked like
two holes behind its eyes exactly where the horns would
(24:38):
emerge from. And I wondered, does this mean that the
bull at some point had some kind of horns I
don't know, maybe made of a different material coming out
of these holes that may be known. And if so,
I just didn't find anything about it, so I don't know.
But if so, I wonder what those horns were. And
again I don't know if this is significant, but if
(24:59):
you had anything opaque in the pot, as the pot
was emptied, you would first see the bull's raised head
coming up out of that opaque material. But then as
more and more was taken out of the pot, as
the bottom was revealed, it would reveal the goddess or
the female warrior, this person with the sword and her
three hounds surrounding the bull, ready to strike. And I
(25:22):
thought that was a kind of interesting. It's almost like
by taking the contents out of this bowl, it would
be pulling back the curtain on the dramatic aspect of
the scene.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Wow. Yeah, that's a lot to unpack because on one hand,
there's just sort of the I guess, the basic pleasure
to be had, and this potential scene of the level
of soup lowering and revealing horns and then head and
then beast, not unlike some of the novelty mugs you'll
find today, where there's some sort of a like I
don't know, like a cartoon octopus on the bottom of
(25:52):
the mug. You drink half of your hot cocoa and oop,
there's an octopus peering up at you. And I mean
that alone is fun. That alone transcends time and space.
But yeah, on top of it, to have this dramatic
action scene playing out and then the question arise as well,
then is this a story that I mean? What did
(26:14):
it take place beneath a liquid? Did it take place
within a cauldron? You know? What is the exact connection?
How does having it at the bottom of the cauldron?
What does that illustrate? What does that do? What is
the function of that?
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Yeah? I love this, though I want to be clear,
I am not arguing that this was used to serve soup.
I don't know of any evidence of that, So I
guess we don't know what went into this bowl. If anything,
we don't know exactly how it was used. But another
question is what does the killing of this bowl symbolize?
So clearly this goddess is ready to bring the sword
(26:51):
down on its neck, but we don't know what that
act meant. And this is another one of the mysteries
of the cauldron. The National of Denmark page it has
an interpretation that the bull may symbolize chaos, and the
woman who is fighting and killing the bull is doing
so in order to protect the cosmic order, though I'm
(27:13):
not sure exactly what supports that speculation, but I don't know. Yeah, Personally,
I'm just intoxicated by the mysteries of like, what are
the stories that are being told in these little metal
comic strip panels with no words on them, Like we
don't know what the surrounding context is, and and I
really wish we could.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Yeah, yeah, because I mean the context would have been
clear to someone at least a privileged few within the
given culture, if not everyone within the given culture. So yeah,
it's it's fascinating, fascinating mystery.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Now. I was looking up to see if there were
any good papers that were using clues in the images
to try to understand better what stories were being told
or what the significance of these gods and mythic figures were.
One paper I found that caught my attention was by
a scholar named David Alexander Nance called Plate F on
the Gundestrup Cauldron Symbols of Spring and Fertility, published in
(28:17):
a journal called Anthropozoologica in twenty nineteen. Anthropozoologica is a
journal put out by the French Museum of Natural History
that seems to be focusing on the role of non
human animals in the history of humankind. And I looked
up Nance. He is a scholar at the University of Aberdeen.
Now specifically, this paper adds it tries to do a
(28:41):
zoological identification of a bird species on one of the
plates in order to help elucidate what the mythic significance
may have been. So Nance notes that on this plate
called Plate F, which broadly I mean so, first of all,
it shows this huge face of like a giant figure
with long hair, and then other depictions of what may
(29:05):
be the same figure in like smaller scenes around the
big head. And then the big figure with the long
hair is holding a bird in its hand. And then
there are also birds and I think cats and dogs
flanking it in different places. But Nance is specifically looking
at the birds and says, hey, wait a second, the
(29:25):
birds on this plate have a very distinctive morphological feature,
which is zygodactyly. Zygodactyly is a foot morphology where there
are two claws facing forward and two facing backward. And
given that characteristic, there are really only a few types
of birds that could be it's obviously not most of them.
(29:46):
So the only real candidate for this is the common
cuckoo or Cuculus canoris. And this is interesting because the
cuckoo connects to a whole other known nexus of mythological significance,
so Nance writes quote. This species is also identified on
a number of other widespread European artifacts where it was
(30:07):
previously thought to be a bird of prey. The plate
depicts a goddess in triplicate flanked by two cuckoos releasing
the first cuckoo of spring. The bird is an obligate
brood parasite, laying its eggs in other birds' nests, leading
to misconceptions of its life cycle, and the misconceptions about
cuckoos in antiquity were that there were no female cuckoos,
(30:30):
that there were only males, and the male birds mated
with the host females of all the other bird species.
Now that's not true, but Apparently, Nance argues that that
was believed in the ancient world, and for this reason,
the cuckoo's symbolized male fertility across many different cultures in
its summer range. So during the summer months all across Eurasia,
(30:55):
this bird would fly in and then it would be
associated with fertility, and sometimes with European fertility goddesses like
the bird might sort of be its implied consort.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Oh that's fascinating. I mean that reminds me of various
misinterpretations regarding spontaneous generation, or the idea that the scare
of beetle, you know, the dung beetle emerges from the dung.
That it is that it is a thing that is
borne out of the dirt and of the waste, as
(31:27):
opposed to enough of life form that's making use of
this material.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Oh yeah, that's interesting. So, but to be biologically precise,
what is happening with the cuckoos is that they are
depositing their own So cuckoos are mating with cuckoos, and
then they're laying cuckoo eggs. They're just laying in the
nests of other birds, and so that's known as brood parasitism.
But because of the confusion of like not seeing them
(31:53):
with their own nests, they were just like, yeah, they're
only male cuckoos, and they're just they essentially said that
they were cooked colding the male birds of other species.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Yeah, brute parasitism is a fascinating topic, and of course
we see this in the insect world as well. Yeah,
it's not certainly but not confined to just these birds.
Fascinating topic we could easily come back to because they're
also even with the cuckoo there, as I recall, there
are a lot of ins and outs regarding the enforcement
of this policy. Yes, both with actions that are sometimes
(32:27):
compared to almost mafia tactics, and also just like how
does the egg appear and how is there like a
physical deception or mimicry going on?
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, I think there's widely believed to be like just
an ongoing evolutionary arms race between the host species ability
to recognize cuckoo eggs and be like wait a minute, no,
and then the cuckoo's ability to adapt to that and
further blend in oh but sorry. The other thing about
the cuckoo that would make it probably associated with fertility
(32:58):
would be its seasonal migratory patterns, because this is one
of the migratory birds that would show up in northern
stretches of Europe and Asia in the summer months, and
so it might show up in spring you would say like, oh,
there's the there's the first cuckoo of the of the
warm season. And so it would thus be associated also
with the regeneration of plants and things like that, having
(33:20):
fertility associations for that reason. Anyway, I guess we'll call
it there for the Gundestrup Cauldron. But I find this
such an intriguing artifact. I don't know. I like every
time there's a new paper providing some interpretation of what's
going on in these panels. I want to know.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Yeah, yeah, And by all means, when you get a chance,
you're not driving a vehicle or something, look up images
of the Gundestrup cauldron. And certainly, if you have access
to the Gundestrup Cauldron, if you can go see it
at a museum now or in the future, please do so.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
If you can steal it, you know, tuck it into
the breeches and get it out of there, and not.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Steal the Gundestripe cauldron now cauldrons are are also found
in rivers, which is interesting. Rivers also have of course
have divine importance in many cultures, and one example is
the Battersea cauldron that was found in the River Thames
at Battersea in South London. It's a large riveted bronze
(34:18):
vessel with signs of maintenance over many years. Originally crafted
an estimated three thousand years ago, so this would have
been a highly advanced example of metalwork from this time period. Now.
This cauldron is mentioned in a blog entry on the
British Museum website by Jennifer Wexler and Neil Wilkin titled
Cauldrons and flesh Hooks between the Living and the Dead
(34:41):
in Ancient Britain and Ireland and Yeah. They also point
out an example of a three thousand year old flesh
hook found in a bog in Northern Ireland, and when complete,
when one piece, it would have been a long metal
and wood rod decorated with bronze birds. The hook would
have been used in ritual feasting for the purpose of
(35:03):
pulling cooked meat from a cauldron, and such tools were
also used when working with hides and tanning pits and
so forth. But this particular artifact also had birds on it,
which is pretty interesting. I'm going to read just a
quote from that British Museum blog post quote. The two
sets of birds may have represented opposing forces in the
(35:26):
world of ancient people. Swans are white birds of the water,
but also associated with the sun and light, and the
family group suggests fertility because they're depicted in a family
group here. The ravens, on the other hand, are blackbirds
of the air and divine communication, connected with wild uplands.
(35:47):
Their dark color and gruesome dietary habits were connected with
war and death. These differences may have represented the competing
forces of good and evil in the world.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
But both of them will help get your meat out
of the pot.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Yeah, but again, remember the pot is no mere pot.
There's no you know, there are no technologies. This is
central to human existence that don't take on all these
other meanings and metaphors and so forth. So the cauldron
is it's where you're cooking your meat, it's where you
may be doing your laundry. But that cauldron is also
(36:23):
the universe. That cauldron is also life itself. It is
the whole experience of humanity.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Wow, that's some profound fondue.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Yeah, we didn't even get into fondue. There you go,
another miniature cauldron.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Well wait, yeah we did. Come on flesh you this
is basically fondue.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
You're talking, Oh, that's right, get any I guess with fondue.
I have so little experience with it. I just instantly
think of only cheese and bread, and yeah, I forget
sometimes that there's a richer tradition of of fondue. I
mean there are also other, you know, wonderful traditions of
you know, communal feasting from heated bowls, you know, Chinese
(37:01):
hot pot traditions and all so and and certainly that's
a that's a fun experience if you get a chance
to partake of that.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
I don't think I've ever actually done that. But that's
usually with a not with like like an oil like
you might use to cook in fondu, but that's like
a highly flavored broth, broth.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
And you can find you know, plenty of modern restaurants.
In fact, I went to one, I want to say
this was in Florida, where not only were was there
a hot pot at your table, but there was also
a conveyor belt going through like a little sushi conveyor belt,
except instead of sushi, it contained various plated ingredients that
you could add to the hot pot.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Oh that sounds awesome.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Yeah it was. It was quite a parade of meats
and vegetables. But that's another thing worth worth keeping in
mind too with these with these cauldrons, you know, it's like,
this is the pot, is this this thing at the center,
It is this thing on the fire. It is the
thing that is then communally you, so you can you
can easily imagine how it just becomes this hyper magnet
(38:04):
for meaning, especially in the ancient world. You know.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
I keep thinking back to this plate on the Gundestrup cauldron,
the one where the giant god is dunking the warriors
in from the underworld into the cauldron. And one thing
I can't tell from the image is the warrior scared
to be dunked or is the warrior excited like he's
going in head first. You can see he's got one
arm sort of raised up, but that it could be
(38:29):
like a oh no, oh no, please don't dunk, or
it could be like a wee arms up thing. It's
hard to tell.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Well, I think if you're being manhandled by a god
like this, and you're about to be dunked into a
cauldron or a vat of some sort like you should
be afraid. I think a certain amount of fear is ideal.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
But then again, if the interpretation is right, this warrior
is about to maybe be transformed into a higher state
of existence.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Yeah maybe so maybe so. Now one thing that sort
of capping off our serious discussion here, And to be clear,
we will be back in another episode on cauldrons. We
have a number of wonderful cauldron mythologies to discuss. We'll
also get into at least a little bit of Dante's Inferno.
But this also brings me back to a recent film
(39:17):
we looked at on Weird House Cinema, Jason Takes Manhattan.
There is a scene where Jason, who again can be
at least loosely compared to various divine and semi divine
beings in history, he dunks somebody in this vat of
like nasty New York water possible. I guess it's not
(39:38):
actually toxic sludge, but it looks gross. Kill somebody by
drowning them, holding them by the feet and dunking them.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
I think it's supposed to be toxic waste, and I
think that is part of the mythology of Jason Takes
Manhattan is that New York is full of open steel
drums of toxic waste.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
But don't lease lie on the street later that is
clearly labeled toxic waste. That confuse this is the matter.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
I think it's one of the flavors of the soda
fountain machines.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
And you know, you you.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Make you a mix, so you get some new grape
and then you get some some diet Fanta, and then
you get some some toxic waste manga.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Fair enough now to be clear that individual in this
movie does not re emerge from the cauldron changed. He's
just killed in the the the vat or the bucket
or whatever it was, the barrel.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
But well, now hold on a second. I would say
that the fact that they are in a Friday the
Thirteenth movie, and that we will later see another Friday
the thirteenth movie with an almost exactly the same stock
character may in fact mean that these characters are reincarnated
throughout each film and sort of attain new forms. You know,
(40:50):
you've always got your your jock hunk, You've always got
your nerd. You've always got your u you know, strict
older gentleman. You know, they show up again and again.
So this may in fact be a well I guess
it wouldn't be a transformation.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Well I guess you could argue that. I don't know.
So first of all, I do have to ask, is
this a widely discussed theory or is it?
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Okay, I'm just riffing here, No, I see. Okay, maybe
a bad character gets dunked and then in the next
movie they're reincarnated as a final girl.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Okay, yeah, so they're moving up. There is a transformation. Yeah,
and so you get it's that hierarchy of kill order
where you're going to either fall down or you ascend upwards.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Possibly.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Okay, all right, interesting. Interesting. You know, it's also interesting
if you take this just context of immersion and rebirth,
which we'll get into some more in our next episode.
Like you see this in all sorts of films, Like
I was just thinking of the Star Wars films, like
what happens when a character is is terribly injured They
go into the Bacta tank And what is the Bacta
(41:55):
tank but a kind of magical space cauldron that heals
your wound and allows you to re emerge.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
I thought that scene was weird. Luke's all cut up
and he's in that like weird white diaper.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Yeah, yeah, that I remember as a kid thinking that
was funny. It really and it is still funny. But yeah,
I mean, obviously there's a lot of a lot of
this comes from also baptismal imagery, and we'll discuss that
a little bit in the future. I'm also in this
also reminded of a scene, particularly in the film adaptation,
(42:28):
the nineteen eighty six adaptation of Umbertawecos and Name of
the Rose, in which I believe the second murder has
been committed and the body is found immersed in a
that of pigs blood, that the blood that is going
to be processed into sausage. And of course that's a
that's a wonderfully terrifying image I remember, especially from the
movie trailer that I watched as a child, because here's
this cauldron of blood and two legs sticking out of it,
(42:53):
and even that there's so much, so much going on there,
because here's the cauldron as a vessel of life and death,
of food and transformation. But also just here an instrument
of murder for some deranged individual who's causing chaos at
the abbey.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Okay, I think we must cease cauldroning for today, but
there will be one more cauldron.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
Yes, and like I say, it should be a fun one.
We'll get into some more mythologies, we'll discuss a little
bit of Dante and who knows what else. All right
in the meantime, Again, if you didn't listen to those
first two episodes on the Cauldron, go back and listen
to those. A lot of good, good content there. Join
us for the next episode. Core episodes of Stuff to
Blow Your Mind published on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the
(43:35):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed on Mondays. We
usually do listener mail. On Wednesdays, we usually do a
Monster Factor Artifact episode that's a short form episode, and
then on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns and
we just talk about a strange film.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
to suggest topic for the future, or us to say hello,
you can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow
Your Mind dot com.
Speaker 3 (44:12):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.
Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
And I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. We're heading into
the vault for an older episode of the show. This one,
originally published June fourteenth, twenty twenty two, is part three
of our exploration of the Cauldron. Let's ladele some out here.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name
is Robert.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And Hey, we were out
for a little bit, but now we're back, and you
know what, we're back with more cauldrons. Our brains are
like pots, and those pots are full of pots, and
the pots have pots in them, and it never stops.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
I know, my wife is still teasing me about this.
It's like, you guys are still doing episodes about cauldrons
and soup, and I'm like, yeah, there's like we're probably
going to do three or four of these total, and
we're still not going to cover everything. And a lot
of it comes down to the fact, and certainly go
back and listen to those first two episodes if you
haven't It comes down to the fact that we're talking
(01:13):
about ancient technology, and since it we inevitably use technology
as a way of understanding ourselves, understanding the cosmos, et cetera.
It ends up becoming a part of our not only
are a discourse, but of course our religions and so forth.
And we see that with the cauldron for sure.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yes, though I have to say one of the big
examples we're going to talk about in this episode. I
don't know if the whole episode will end up focusing
on it, but it's a really interesting historical artifact that
is called a cauldron. Like it is called the Gunduestrup cauldron.
But I was reading a paper on it, and the
very first sentence of the paper, this author insists that
(01:56):
it is not a cauldron, it is a ceremonial container.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Yeah. I mean this is something that is kind of
under the surface of many of these discussions, right Like
obviously not all of these people would have called this
a cauldron, and then you get into discussions of Okay,
is it a cauldron or a pot, Is it a
cauldron or a bowl? Is it a cauldron or some
other kind you know, what exactly.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Is the sh will Daddy. Oh, Okay, this is a cauldron.
Come on, it's a big metal pot. I think we
can call it a cauldron.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah. So yeah. As we've discussed in previous episodes, we
wanted to get into European traditions with a cauldron, and
cauldrons in Europe are sometimes uncovered in bogs places, as
we've discussed in the show before, that had sacred connotations
to the ancient people who visited them. They were a
place between land and water, and so they were also
(02:49):
seen as a place between life and death. So various
funeral rites seem to have been conducted its various bogs
and peat bogs, and given the low oxygen city soil
of bog environments, we often gain a great deal more
insight into what occurred there, especially when it comes to
organic materials that would have otherwise decayed. So bodies were
(03:13):
left in these bogs and teared in these bogs, and
we also see examples of cauldrons and cauldron like artifacts.
One notable bog retrieved cauldron is the Gundestrap cauldron, an
incomplete but very stunning silver artifact discovered in a bog
in Himmelund, Denmark in eighteen ninety one. Now, while dating
(03:35):
has been a matter of some discussion here exact dating anyway,
it's suspected to date back to between one fifty BCE
and the dawn of the Common Era. It was evidently
given to the bog and an act of sacrifice, perhaps
to a god or god's, but its origins don't seem
to be quite Danish. It bears images that are generally
(03:57):
associated with more Southern cultures, lying d or griffins. There
seems to be a hornet or antlered god on there,
alongside other potential gods and goddesses. It contains scenes of
warriors falling in battle, and there is actually an image
of a magic cauldron that is on this cauldron with
(04:19):
a gigantic figure, perhaps a god or a goddess, about
to dunk a smaller man into its depths.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
That's right, we got cauldrons on our cauldrons and I
want to come back to more interpretation of this panel
later on.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Yeah, definitely, as we're talking about the Gundestrup cauldron, look
up images of it. That's spelled g U n d
E S t r u P. There are a lot
of images online that show the various panels here the
various the various images that we're going to be discussing here,
including this one of what is clearly a giant of
some sort taking a man and dunking him headfirst into
(04:58):
a bucket or cauldron or vessel of some sort adjacent
to this battle scene. So the exact origins of the
cauldron here are still a matter of debate, with some
pointing to the Thracians or what is in these would
have been people from what is now Bulgaria and Romania.
Yet there are also Celtic helmets and trumpets depicted on
(05:19):
the cauldron, suggesting it might have been made in a
place in the aforementioned region where Thracians and Celts coexisted,
though it's uncertain how this then wound up in Denmark.
Could have been a tribute, it could have been spoils
of war. Either way, it may be accurate to think
of the Gundestrap Cauldron as not a product of a
(05:41):
single culture, a single place, or even a single time,
but something that was created by mingling cultures on the move,
in part due to Roman expansion and conquest during this
time period, and ultimately constructed by different artisans over many years.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Oh, I didn't think about the Roman connection. But yeah,
so if this would have been in the first century BCE,
and the middle of that century was when Julius Caesar
himself was waging a war of conquest in Gaul against
Celtic tribes in that region, so yeah, that's an interesting possibility.
So yeah, Rob, you dug this thing up, not physically,
(06:17):
but yes, you had brought it into our outline. But
I got really obsessed with it, and I found I
find this artifact so interesting, specifically because of the different
mysteries about it its provenance, like you were just talking about,
but also about what it's depicting, because there are tons
of question you know, it clearly is showing scenes that
(06:39):
are part of a rich mythology that we apparently know
little to nothing about, and so there are a lot
of attempts to try to understand what the different panels
are depicting and if and if so, how they connect
to mythologies that we might know something about. But coming
back to that provenance question, Yeah, I think it's so
(07:01):
interesting that there are at least three different distinct regional inputs. Now,
as you already mentioned, based on physical characteristics of the cauldron,
like the silversmithing techniques that were used to create it,
it seems to be a product of Southeastern Europe. Yes,
but most scholars pointing to the metalworking techniques of the
(07:22):
Thracians who live in as you said, what is today
Bulgaria or Romania. And I was trying to figure out
what are some examples of this distinctive style that's so
strongly linked to Thracian culture. Well, I was reading about
this on the website for the National Museum of Denmark,
which has a lot of great materials about the Gundestrup cauldron,
(07:42):
and they compare the Gundestrup cauldron to the metalworking on
a gilded silver pitcher from Bulgaria from roughly three hundred BCE,
and looking at it, I would agree, Yeah, the techniques
and the artistic style look extremely similar, like the way
the animal figures are in embossed. Remember that this is
not just like an illustration or a carving, but this
(08:04):
is like hammered and punched metal. So it has raised
animal figures with like textures that you could feel with
your fingers running over them. And those textures are very
similar between the two works. So like the animal figures
are embossed and punched with patterns of texture that seem
to indicate hair or fur, and it's extremely distinctive. You
(08:27):
see some of the same patterns on the apparent herringbone
patterns on the clothing of the people on the Gunda
strip cauldron. So based on the techniques, it's pretty clear
that it was created by an artisan who had been
trained in the traditions of Southeastern Europe. But as you
also said, the imagery depicts objects and motifs associated with
(08:49):
the culture of the Celts who were in more kind
of western central Europe at the time, and a few
examples of this would be a Celtic musical instrument known
as the carnix, which we can discuss in more detail later,
certain types of Celtic ceremonial jewelry such as an object
(09:10):
called a torque, which I can also get to in
a minute, and things like that. So those are your
two inputs. It's like Celtic subject matter done in the
metal working style of the Thracians or of Southeastern Europe,
and then it's found in the territory of neither one.
It's found up in Jutland in modern day Denmark in
a bog. So yeah, you really have to wonder how
(09:32):
all this comes together. Did a Celtic person commission a
Southeastern European silversmith to make a pot containing images from
their culture and mythology? Or maybe did it somehow arise
from a border region where these cultures came into contact,
and then somehow this item ends up in the bogs
of Jutland.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
It would be like finding what a Bulgarian band that
only does covers of Celtic music in modern Denmark and
wondering how they came to be there.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Ah, yes, the thrash metal polka bands of Canada. Now
I wanted to mention just a little bit more about
the state that this cauldron, the so called cauldron was
in when it was discovered. So altogether this object weighs
about nine kilograms or about twenty pounds, and it appears
(10:21):
to have been deposited in the bog deliberately, especially because
it was disassembled when it was put into the bog.
So this cauldron has many detachable features, so the rim
can be taken off, and the silver image panels which
line the sides of the pot, those can be taken off,
and when it was found they were all removed and
(10:42):
placed inside the vessel, So I don't know, you see that,
and that makes it sound like this wasn't just sort
of like it wasn't like it fell off a wagon
or something. That sounds like somebody put it in there.
There is no text anywhere on it, so it's not
like a political cartoon where everything's labeled so you know
what it means. It's you just have to infer from
the imagery. So that makes it difficult to identify things.
(11:05):
But the imagery, as you already said, Rob, is fascinating.
There are animals you would not expect to see. There
are lions, There are images of gods that we know
little or nothing about. In fact, there are even images
of elephants.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Ah, and yeah that should be surprising, especially like where
are these images of elephants coming from?
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yeah, exactly. So at this point, I just want to
pick out a few of the individual plates and focus
on what's going on on them, one at a time.
So the first one I wanted to look at, I've
got a picture for you to look at, Rob, but
of course we will describe it for you out there,
the listener. So it shows a god or a mythic
figure that's mostly human in form, except it has antlers
(11:50):
like a stag growing from its head. And this figure
is sitting cross legged right next to an actual stag.
And then on the other side of it, there are
a bunch of other animals. There are four legged, predatory
looking animals that might be dogs or maybe lions, I
can't tell for sure. And then I love this a
tiny dude riding on the back of a fish. Yes,
(12:13):
is it now compared to the god with the antlers,
the dude is much smaller, But I don't know if
it's a question of perspective. Maybe he's farther away, or
maybe maybe this is just separate imagery, or maybe the
god is supposed to be really big, or maybe the
dude's supposed to be really small. I can't tell what
the deal with the size difference is. But if it
is a regular sized man on the fish's back that
(12:35):
is a very big fish, it's got to be like
dolphin or shark sized.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah. And there's also kind of a different flavor to
these two images. So the hornet or antlered God or
whatever this being is supposed to be is in it
has a kind of a serene pose. His legs. His
or her legs are crossed, holding as what a serpent
in one hand and I'm not sure what the implement
(13:00):
is in the other hand.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Oh well, that is a Celtic object. Actually, I think
this is an object that is bigger than just Celtic culture,
but it was big in Celtic culture called a torque,
which is a type of metal ring worn around the
neck that seems to have had significance for multiple Iron
Age European cultures, symbolizing power. It's power or status or rank,
(13:24):
sort of like a crown. So if somebody's wearing a torque,
that would seem to indicate that they are a leader
or a high status person. So this figure with the
antlers has the torque in his right hand, and then
in the other hand he's grasping, like you said, the
neck of a giant snake. But I just wanted to
point out that the snake has features on its head,
(13:45):
which one scholar I was looking at identified as rams horns.
So it's a snake with ram horns.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Oh wow. So there's clearly a lot going on here,
as one often finds with depictions of powerful individuals or
da or demi gods and it's one of these images
that I think it speaks across the ages. When you
look at this, you get a sense of power and
divinity from it. Meanwhile, the individual writing the fish or dolphin,
(14:15):
it looks more comical to me, and it makes me
wonder if there is in fact it is supposed to
be comical on some level, like even if it is
a god of some sort, maybe it is a tricks
to God. Maybe it's something that is not supposed to
be interpreted with the same air of reverence as we
have with this central individual.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Yeah, I agree, fish boy looks very funny, and I
think it's partly in the way his knees are bent
and he's sort of reaching forward while riding the fish,
almost as if you can imagine him kind of rocking
and kicking back and forth and saying like, go faster,
come on.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Now. Obviously, another possible explanation for differences could also be
different authors over time. But as we alluded to earlier.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
But an interesting thing I wanted to point out again.
So there's a lot we don't know about what these
images are supposed to depict. But this antler headed god
who is holding a torque in one hand, is also
wearing a torque around his neck, so he appears to
be a leader or high status figure himself. But maybe
by holding a torque in one hand, I don't know,
(15:23):
just speculating, but maybe it means he can also make
a king. He can also give the crown to another.
But to go on to discuss another panel, Rob, I
wanted to come back to one you sort of mentioned earlier,
the panel that has the cauldron dunking on it, because
(15:45):
this panel's really interesting and there was some good interpretive
material on the National Museum of Denmark website about it.
So this is one of the interior wall panels. This
would be lining the inner wall of the cauldron, and
there's a lot going on on it, so let's try
to break it down piece by piece. So one thing
is that there is a row of soldiers on the
(16:07):
bottom and they are on foot, they're holding spears and shields,
and they are moving toward the left side of the panel.
And then above them is a straight horizontal tree branch
with little leaves forking off of it. And then above
the tree branch are soldiers on horseback moving in the
opposite direction of the procession. Below they are moving to
(16:30):
the right side of the panel, and then on the
lower right side of the panel, there are three warriors
playing instruments that are known as carnisses. When I first
looked at these things, I had no idea what they were,
but I looked them up, and these are a well
known type of artifact. Rob I've got a close up
for you to look at here. But the carnix was
(16:50):
a wind instrument used by the Celts of the Iron Age.
It is essentially a giant s shaped trumpet, but most
of the length of this trumpet is a vertical pipe
reaching far up above your head. So picture a kind
of long periscope tube, except it's not going to your eye,
(17:10):
it's connecting to your mouth, and you blow through it,
and then the sound comes out of this tube that
ends maybe a whole other person's height above your head.
And so the bell part of this instrument, the part
where the sound comes out, would often be shaped to
look like an open jawed head of an animal such
as a dragon or a serpent, or maybe sometimes a bore.
(17:34):
The carnax was identified in ancient literary sources as associated
with warfare, so you might play it on the battlefield
for a coordination of tactics or for intimidation of the enemy.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Ah, long distance communication.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
There you go. But what's going on with the warriors
on the bottom row of the panel, Well, they seem
to be moving toward the left side, where one by
one they will face a god of some kind depicted
as a giant who is you know, at least twice
as big as probably three times as big as the warriors,
and the god or the giant will grasp a warrior
(18:10):
with both hands, turn him upside down, and then dunk
him headfirst into a cauldron. Now, I think there's plenty
of room to question the interpretation of these panels. Again,
they don't come with words on them, so they don't explain,
and they don't super clearly connect to mythology that we
know about. Connections that would be established have to be
(18:32):
kind of inferred. They might be kind of tenuous. But
the curators of the National Museum of Denmark argue that
the warriors on foot in the bottom of this panel,
they are being represented as probably in the underworld, meaning
that they were just killed in battle, and so they
are being depicted as I don't know, the dead forms
(18:53):
of their former selves and you can tell they're in
the underworld because they are underneath this horizontal tree bring branch. Apparently,
the tree branch probably denotes the Earth itself and the
division between worlds. So if the tree branch is the earth,
what's below it is the underworld, and what's above it
is some kind of heavenly afterlife. And from here the
(19:15):
interpretation goes on to say that as these figures are
dunked into the cauldron by the God, their fate is decided,
and this fate might include being resurrected or reincarnated in
some exalted state, such as in this heavenly realm up
above on the top of the panel, and perhaps as
a person of higher status or rank. Remember that the
(19:37):
soldiers shown above the branch were on horseback, so maybe
this means a fallen warrior could be resurrected as an
officer or as a member of the equestrian classes higher
socioeconomic class. And I thought it was really interesting how
this recalls the imagery of cauldrons used in visions of
hell in multiple very different Asian cultures that we talked
(19:58):
about in the previous part of this where the cauldrons
were not only an instrument of torture in the realms
of hell, but they were secondarily a symbol of transformation
into something more honorable and refined, if you could be
reincarnated as a sort of better being after the stint
in hell. And it makes me think again, Like, seeing
(20:19):
this motif arise in multiple different cultures, separated greatly in
time and geography and language and all these different barriers,
makes one wonder if there's not a common, universal human
experience underlying that theme, which would seem to me to
be very likely the transformation of raw food into cooked food,
or of dirty clothing into clean clothing, as would be
(20:41):
just you know, natural things where we see transformed by
the work of the cauldron.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Yeah, like the basic nature of cauldron technology and the
idea that it enables transformation, It does seem to be
something you just see in culture after culture after culture,
just across vast distances on the planet. And the laundry
note God is important too. I've seen that pop up
in a few different sources, pointing to specific cauldrons of note,
(21:08):
and often discussions regarding that cauldron come back to cooking
and the preparation of food, the transformation of organic matter
into some sort of delicious or hearty dish. But also
sometimes laundry is discussed as a possibility as well, And
I mean that is a transformation. I think we tend
(21:29):
to totally take for granted that you can have foul
and soiled clothing, and yet here is this fabulous specialized
cauldron in your house or at the local laundry mat,
or in the basement of your building that you put
these items into, and you come back later and behold,
they have been refreshed. They are new again.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Yeah. Man, who doesn't love clean laundry, especially clean sheets.
It's a wonderful thing. Oh yeah, Okay, I got another
panel I want to focus on. This one's very special
and it may be the most important of all of
them due to its place within the cauldron, and that
is the panel that is in the bottom of the
cauldron bowl.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Now.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
I might not have even noticed this one just by
looking at pictures of the plates on the Internet, because
a lot of the photography that's out there focuses on
the side plates for good reason. But I actually saw
this one brought up in a curator's video feature from
the British Museum that was focused on the Gundestrup cauldron.
I think maybe when they had it on loan or something.
(22:28):
But it was by an archaeologist named Julia Farley, and
this was really interesting. So this panel is at the
bottom of the pot, so if you're looking down into
the pot, it's what you'd see at the very bottom,
assuming the pot's empty. And because of that feature, I
started to think about how if the pot had something
in it, like soup or whatever. I don't know if
this was ever used to serve soup, probably not, actually
(22:50):
more of a ceremonial vessel, but I don't know. I
guess I couldn't rule that out. If it had anything
in it, this panel would be hidden and then it
would be revealed as the contents were taken out of
the bowl. So what do you see in this panel, Well,
it depicts a gigantic bull reclining. When I first saw it,
(23:11):
it looked to me like it was kind of, I
don't know, lazily resting. But I've seen it written about
as if this bull is laying on the ground because
it has been wounded, but I couldn't tell that just
by looking at it. So for whatever reason, it's a
bull laying on its side, but then with its head
propped up, and the head of the bull is actually
(23:32):
a very prominently vertically raised three D feature. Technically, the
whole thing, like the other panels, is three D. It's
all hammered and stamped and embossed into three D textures,
but the head of the bull is sort of more
three D than the rest, like it really rises into
prominence off the base. And then behind the back of
the bull, we see a goddess or a female warrior
(23:54):
posed with sword raised and her legs are bent. They're
kind of tucked up under her as if she were jumping,
like as if she were in midair at the peak
of a great leap, and she's going to come down
with the sword and strike and slay this giant bull.
So it's an action shot. There are also three dogs
in the image. It seems two of them seem to
(24:16):
be alive and helping this warrior or goddess slay the bull,
and the other dog appears to be dead. But something
I noticed also about this bull. So it's got this
raised head coming up off of the body, turning at
an angle, and then the bull has what looked like
two holes behind its eyes exactly where the horns would
(24:38):
emerge from. And I wondered, does this mean that the
bull at some point had some kind of horns I
don't know, maybe made of a different material coming out
of these holes that may be known. And if so,
I just didn't find anything about it, so I don't know.
But if so, I wonder what those horns were. And
again I don't know if this is significant, but if
(24:59):
you had anything opaque in the pot, as the pot
was emptied, you would first see the bull's raised head
coming up out of that opaque material. But then as
more and more was taken out of the pot, as
the bottom was revealed, it would reveal the goddess or
the female warrior, this person with the sword and her
three hounds surrounding the bull, ready to strike. And I
(25:22):
thought that was a kind of interesting. It's almost like
by taking the contents out of this bowl, it would
be pulling back the curtain on the dramatic aspect of
the scene.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Wow. Yeah, that's a lot to unpack because on one hand,
there's just sort of the I guess, the basic pleasure
to be had, and this potential scene of the level
of soup lowering and revealing horns and then head and
then beast, not unlike some of the novelty mugs you'll
find today, where there's some sort of a like I
don't know, like a cartoon octopus on the bottom of
(25:52):
the mug. You drink half of your hot cocoa and oop,
there's an octopus peering up at you. And I mean
that alone is fun. That alone transcends time and space.
But yeah, on top of it, to have this dramatic
action scene playing out and then the question arise as well,
then is this a story that I mean? What did
(26:14):
it take place beneath a liquid? Did it take place
within a cauldron? You know? What is the exact connection?
How does having it at the bottom of the cauldron?
What does that illustrate? What does that do? What is
the function of that?
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Yeah? I love this, though I want to be clear,
I am not arguing that this was used to serve soup.
I don't know of any evidence of that, So I
guess we don't know what went into this bowl. If anything,
we don't know exactly how it was used. But another
question is what does the killing of this bowl symbolize?
So clearly this goddess is ready to bring the sword
(26:51):
down on its neck, but we don't know what that
act meant. And this is another one of the mysteries
of the cauldron. The National of Denmark page it has
an interpretation that the bull may symbolize chaos, and the
woman who is fighting and killing the bull is doing
so in order to protect the cosmic order, though I'm
(27:13):
not sure exactly what supports that speculation, but I don't know. Yeah, Personally,
I'm just intoxicated by the mysteries of like, what are
the stories that are being told in these little metal
comic strip panels with no words on them, Like we
don't know what the surrounding context is, and and I
really wish we could.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Yeah, yeah, because I mean the context would have been
clear to someone at least a privileged few within the
given culture, if not everyone within the given culture. So yeah,
it's it's fascinating, fascinating mystery.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Now. I was looking up to see if there were
any good papers that were using clues in the images
to try to understand better what stories were being told
or what the significance of these gods and mythic figures were.
One paper I found that caught my attention was by
a scholar named David Alexander Nance called Plate F on
the Gundestrup Cauldron Symbols of Spring and Fertility, published in
(28:17):
a journal called Anthropozoologica in twenty nineteen. Anthropozoologica is a
journal put out by the French Museum of Natural History
that seems to be focusing on the role of non
human animals in the history of humankind. And I looked
up Nance. He is a scholar at the University of Aberdeen.
Now specifically, this paper adds it tries to do a
(28:41):
zoological identification of a bird species on one of the
plates in order to help elucidate what the mythic significance
may have been. So Nance notes that on this plate
called Plate F, which broadly I mean so, first of all,
it shows this huge face of like a giant figure
with long hair, and then other depictions of what may
(29:05):
be the same figure in like smaller scenes around the
big head. And then the big figure with the long
hair is holding a bird in its hand. And then
there are also birds and I think cats and dogs
flanking it in different places. But Nance is specifically looking
at the birds and says, hey, wait a second, the
(29:25):
birds on this plate have a very distinctive morphological feature,
which is zygodactyly. Zygodactyly is a foot morphology where there
are two claws facing forward and two facing backward. And
given that characteristic, there are really only a few types
of birds that could be it's obviously not most of them.
(29:46):
So the only real candidate for this is the common
cuckoo or Cuculus canoris. And this is interesting because the
cuckoo connects to a whole other known nexus of mythological significance,
so Nance writes quote. This species is also identified on
a number of other widespread European artifacts where it was
(30:07):
previously thought to be a bird of prey. The plate
depicts a goddess in triplicate flanked by two cuckoos releasing
the first cuckoo of spring. The bird is an obligate
brood parasite, laying its eggs in other birds' nests, leading
to misconceptions of its life cycle, and the misconceptions about
cuckoos in antiquity were that there were no female cuckoos,
(30:30):
that there were only males, and the male birds mated
with the host females of all the other bird species.
Now that's not true, but Apparently, Nance argues that that
was believed in the ancient world, and for this reason,
the cuckoo's symbolized male fertility across many different cultures in
its summer range. So during the summer months all across Eurasia,
(30:55):
this bird would fly in and then it would be
associated with fertility, and sometimes with European fertility goddesses like
the bird might sort of be its implied consort.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Oh that's fascinating. I mean that reminds me of various
misinterpretations regarding spontaneous generation, or the idea that the scare
of beetle, you know, the dung beetle emerges from the dung.
That it is that it is a thing that is
borne out of the dirt and of the waste, as
(31:27):
opposed to enough of life form that's making use of
this material.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Oh yeah, that's interesting. So, but to be biologically precise,
what is happening with the cuckoos is that they are
depositing their own So cuckoos are mating with cuckoos, and
then they're laying cuckoo eggs. They're just laying in the
nests of other birds, and so that's known as brood parasitism.
But because of the confusion of like not seeing them
(31:53):
with their own nests, they were just like, yeah, they're
only male cuckoos, and they're just they essentially said that
they were cooked colding the male birds of other species.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Yeah, brute parasitism is a fascinating topic, and of course
we see this in the insect world as well. Yeah,
it's not certainly but not confined to just these birds.
Fascinating topic we could easily come back to because they're
also even with the cuckoo there, as I recall, there
are a lot of ins and outs regarding the enforcement
of this policy. Yes, both with actions that are sometimes
(32:27):
compared to almost mafia tactics, and also just like how
does the egg appear and how is there like a
physical deception or mimicry going on?
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, I think there's widely believed to be like just
an ongoing evolutionary arms race between the host species ability
to recognize cuckoo eggs and be like wait a minute, no,
and then the cuckoo's ability to adapt to that and
further blend in oh but sorry. The other thing about
the cuckoo that would make it probably associated with fertility
(32:58):
would be its seasonal migratory patterns, because this is one
of the migratory birds that would show up in northern
stretches of Europe and Asia in the summer months, and
so it might show up in spring you would say like, oh,
there's the there's the first cuckoo of the of the
warm season. And so it would thus be associated also
with the regeneration of plants and things like that, having
(33:20):
fertility associations for that reason. Anyway, I guess we'll call
it there for the Gundestrup Cauldron. But I find this
such an intriguing artifact. I don't know. I like every
time there's a new paper providing some interpretation of what's
going on in these panels. I want to know.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Yeah, yeah, And by all means, when you get a chance,
you're not driving a vehicle or something, look up images
of the Gundestrup cauldron. And certainly, if you have access
to the Gundestrup Cauldron, if you can go see it
at a museum now or in the future, please do so.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
If you can steal it, you know, tuck it into
the breeches and get it out of there, and not.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Steal the Gundestripe cauldron now cauldrons are are also found
in rivers, which is interesting. Rivers also have of course
have divine importance in many cultures, and one example is
the Battersea cauldron that was found in the River Thames
at Battersea in South London. It's a large riveted bronze
(34:18):
vessel with signs of maintenance over many years. Originally crafted
an estimated three thousand years ago, so this would have
been a highly advanced example of metalwork from this time period. Now.
This cauldron is mentioned in a blog entry on the
British Museum website by Jennifer Wexler and Neil Wilkin titled
Cauldrons and flesh Hooks between the Living and the Dead
(34:41):
in Ancient Britain and Ireland and Yeah. They also point
out an example of a three thousand year old flesh
hook found in a bog in Northern Ireland, and when complete,
when one piece, it would have been a long metal
and wood rod decorated with bronze birds. The hook would
have been used in ritual feasting for the purpose of
(35:03):
pulling cooked meat from a cauldron, and such tools were
also used when working with hides and tanning pits and
so forth. But this particular artifact also had birds on it,
which is pretty interesting. I'm going to read just a
quote from that British Museum blog post quote. The two
sets of birds may have represented opposing forces in the
(35:26):
world of ancient people. Swans are white birds of the water,
but also associated with the sun and light, and the
family group suggests fertility because they're depicted in a family
group here. The ravens, on the other hand, are blackbirds
of the air and divine communication, connected with wild uplands.
(35:47):
Their dark color and gruesome dietary habits were connected with
war and death. These differences may have represented the competing
forces of good and evil in the world.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
But both of them will help get your meat out
of the pot.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Yeah, but again, remember the pot is no mere pot.
There's no you know, there are no technologies. This is
central to human existence that don't take on all these
other meanings and metaphors and so forth. So the cauldron
is it's where you're cooking your meat, it's where you
may be doing your laundry. But that cauldron is also
(36:23):
the universe. That cauldron is also life itself. It is
the whole experience of humanity.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Wow, that's some profound fondue.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Yeah, we didn't even get into fondue. There you go,
another miniature cauldron.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Well wait, yeah we did. Come on flesh you this
is basically fondue.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
You're talking, Oh, that's right, get any I guess with fondue.
I have so little experience with it. I just instantly
think of only cheese and bread, and yeah, I forget
sometimes that there's a richer tradition of of fondue. I
mean there are also other, you know, wonderful traditions of
you know, communal feasting from heated bowls, you know, Chinese
(37:01):
hot pot traditions and all so and and certainly that's
a that's a fun experience if you get a chance
to partake of that.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
I don't think I've ever actually done that. But that's
usually with a not with like like an oil like
you might use to cook in fondu, but that's like
a highly flavored broth, broth.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
And you can find you know, plenty of modern restaurants.
In fact, I went to one, I want to say
this was in Florida, where not only were was there
a hot pot at your table, but there was also
a conveyor belt going through like a little sushi conveyor belt,
except instead of sushi, it contained various plated ingredients that
you could add to the hot pot.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Oh that sounds awesome.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Yeah it was. It was quite a parade of meats
and vegetables. But that's another thing worth worth keeping in
mind too with these with these cauldrons, you know, it's like,
this is the pot, is this this thing at the center,
It is this thing on the fire. It is the
thing that is then communally you, so you can you
can easily imagine how it just becomes this hyper magnet
(38:04):
for meaning, especially in the ancient world. You know.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
I keep thinking back to this plate on the Gundestrup cauldron,
the one where the giant god is dunking the warriors
in from the underworld into the cauldron. And one thing
I can't tell from the image is the warrior scared
to be dunked or is the warrior excited like he's
going in head first. You can see he's got one
arm sort of raised up, but that it could be
(38:29):
like a oh no, oh no, please don't dunk, or
it could be like a wee arms up thing. It's
hard to tell.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Well, I think if you're being manhandled by a god
like this, and you're about to be dunked into a
cauldron or a vat of some sort like you should
be afraid. I think a certain amount of fear is ideal.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
But then again, if the interpretation is right, this warrior
is about to maybe be transformed into a higher state
of existence.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Yeah maybe so maybe so. Now one thing that sort
of capping off our serious discussion here, And to be clear,
we will be back in another episode on cauldrons. We
have a number of wonderful cauldron mythologies to discuss. We'll
also get into at least a little bit of Dante's Inferno.
But this also brings me back to a recent film
(39:17):
we looked at on Weird House Cinema, Jason Takes Manhattan.
There is a scene where Jason, who again can be
at least loosely compared to various divine and semi divine
beings in history, he dunks somebody in this vat of
like nasty New York water possible. I guess it's not
(39:38):
actually toxic sludge, but it looks gross. Kill somebody by
drowning them, holding them by the feet and dunking them.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
I think it's supposed to be toxic waste, and I
think that is part of the mythology of Jason Takes
Manhattan is that New York is full of open steel
drums of toxic waste.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
But don't lease lie on the street later that is
clearly labeled toxic waste. That confuse this is the matter.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
I think it's one of the flavors of the soda
fountain machines.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
And you know, you you.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Make you a mix, so you get some new grape
and then you get some some diet Fanta, and then
you get some some toxic waste manga.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Fair enough now to be clear that individual in this
movie does not re emerge from the cauldron changed. He's
just killed in the the the vat or the bucket
or whatever it was, the barrel.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
But well, now hold on a second. I would say
that the fact that they are in a Friday the
Thirteenth movie, and that we will later see another Friday
the thirteenth movie with an almost exactly the same stock
character may in fact mean that these characters are reincarnated
throughout each film and sort of attain new forms. You know,
(40:50):
you've always got your your jock hunk, You've always got
your nerd. You've always got your u you know, strict
older gentleman. You know, they show up again and again.
So this may in fact be a well I guess
it wouldn't be a transformation.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Well I guess you could argue that. I don't know.
So first of all, I do have to ask, is
this a widely discussed theory or is it?
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Okay, I'm just riffing here, No, I see. Okay, maybe
a bad character gets dunked and then in the next
movie they're reincarnated as a final girl.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Okay, yeah, so they're moving up. There is a transformation. Yeah,
and so you get it's that hierarchy of kill order
where you're going to either fall down or you ascend upwards.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Possibly.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Okay, all right, interesting. Interesting. You know, it's also interesting
if you take this just context of immersion and rebirth,
which we'll get into some more in our next episode.
Like you see this in all sorts of films, Like
I was just thinking of the Star Wars films, like
what happens when a character is is terribly injured They
go into the Bacta tank And what is the Bacta
(41:55):
tank but a kind of magical space cauldron that heals
your wound and allows you to re emerge.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
I thought that scene was weird. Luke's all cut up
and he's in that like weird white diaper.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Yeah, yeah, that I remember as a kid thinking that
was funny. It really and it is still funny. But yeah,
I mean, obviously there's a lot of a lot of
this comes from also baptismal imagery, and we'll discuss that
a little bit in the future. I'm also in this
also reminded of a scene, particularly in the film adaptation,
(42:28):
the nineteen eighty six adaptation of Umbertawecos and Name of
the Rose, in which I believe the second murder has
been committed and the body is found immersed in a
that of pigs blood, that the blood that is going
to be processed into sausage. And of course that's a
that's a wonderfully terrifying image I remember, especially from the
movie trailer that I watched as a child, because here's
this cauldron of blood and two legs sticking out of it,
(42:53):
and even that there's so much, so much going on there,
because here's the cauldron as a vessel of life and death,
of food and transformation. But also just here an instrument
of murder for some deranged individual who's causing chaos at
the abbey.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Okay, I think we must cease cauldroning for today, but
there will be one more cauldron.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
Yes, and like I say, it should be a fun one.
We'll get into some more mythologies, we'll discuss a little
bit of Dante and who knows what else. All right
in the meantime, Again, if you didn't listen to those
first two episodes on the Cauldron, go back and listen
to those. A lot of good, good content there. Join
us for the next episode. Core episodes of Stuff to
Blow Your Mind published on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the
(43:35):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed on Mondays. We
usually do listener mail. On Wednesdays, we usually do a
Monster Factor Artifact episode that's a short form episode, and
then on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns and
we just talk about a strange film.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
to suggest topic for the future, or us to say hello,
you can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow
Your Mind dot com.
Speaker 3 (44:12):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.
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Robert Lamb
Joe McCormick
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