January 25, 2024 • 38 mins
In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe explore various historical interpretations of the diamond, from divine tears to both a potent medicine and a deadly poison.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
name is Robert.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with the
fourth and final part in our series on diamonds. Now,
if you haven't heard the other three parts, you might
want to go back and listen to those first, though
I guess this series is probably okay if you do
them out of order. That we will refer to things
we've already talked about in previous episodes. Brief recap of
(00:36):
what we talked about in the parts that already aired.
We addressed in the first episode the widely held belief
that diamond fragments or diamond powder are poisonous if ingested,
and we talked about some alleged attempted diamond poisonings in history.
The short modern read on that is that it seems
(00:57):
like diamond powder is probably not actually reliably poisonous, but
just to be saved, we were still saying, you know,
I probably wouldn't need it. We talked a bit about
the conditions under which diamonds form. There's going to be
some more about that today. We talked about their physical properties,
and a bit about their use in ancient cultures in
ancient India, China, and the Roman Empire. In the last episode,
(01:20):
we talked about some strange ancient beliefs recorded in the
writings of Plenty of the Elder and some other sources
that in order to shatter a diamond, you must first
soften it in the blood of a he goat. That's
a good one. We also talked about the legend found
in multiple cultures that there is this so called valley
of Gems where diamonds litter the ground. But you can't
(01:43):
just go down there and get them because there are
I don't know, poisonous, venomous snakes or some kind of
monster or beast or something. Down there's some kind of danger,
so you've got to have clever ways of getting the
diamonds up to the cliffs above. Our favorite method that
we read about involved meat, getting them eat.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
That's right, And so in today's episode we have a
couple of other avenues we want to discuss. Later on
in the podcast, I'm going to talk a little bit
about diamond body modification, so we'll get back into this
idea of diamonds and human bodies coming together. But before
we get to that, Joe, I understand you want to
return to something we touched on in the last episode.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Well, that's right. So in the last episode I did
a bit on the question of whether diamonds can burn,
can they be fuel in a fire? The answer is yes,
they are carbon based, and you can have a diamond fire,
though they take higher temperature, they have higher ignition temperatures
and may require more oxygen supply than most normal fuels
(02:45):
you'd have, like wood or coal. But this raised the
question do diamonds actually come from coal?
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Now?
Speaker 3 (02:52):
As I said in the last episode, anecdotally, this seems
to be a common belief. Unfortunately, this is one of
those where I was reading about it before I actually
checked my pre existing knowledge, So I don't know if
I would have said that diamonds are formed out of
coal or not. Rob, was this a belief banging around
in your head?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yes, but only because that scene in Superman three? You know, yeah, okay,
Superman does it. Then I'm just assuming that he's correct,
and who's going to doubt the Man of Steel.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
I cannot argue with you there. So anecdotally it does
seem to be a common belief, and it's easy to
see why people would think this. Diamonds and coal are
both types of compressed carbon dug up from underground. So
you might just assume that when a coal formation undergoes
intense heat and pressure, it gets pressed and compressed and
(03:41):
compressed until it turns into diamonds, and that's where diamonds
come from. And even some old books and authorities on
diamonds do seem to suggest they believe this, that diamonds
come from coal, but more recent sources argue that this
is not the case, at least not for most diamonds.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
I should point out that this is something I'm sure
came up for you as well, Joe, and your diamond research,
is that diamonds. This is the subject of diamonds. This
is one other one of those areas where you have
a lot of websites, often associated with jewelers, that are
going after like search engine optimization, and so there's a
lot of like diamond content dump going on. You see
(04:24):
this with other businesses and areas as well. Occasionally turns
up that I kept encountering that in my research. It
sort of drove me out of the traditional search mode
into some of the like a Google scholar and so forth.
But there are a lot of websites out there that
are clearly the main idea is like, let's just move
(04:46):
up in the search for diamonds because we're trying to
sell them exactly.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Yeah, some jewel retailer who've got the pages on the
website like interesting diamond facts or something, you know, and
it's like they're not citing sources. You can't rely on this,
so you gotta trudge through all that to get to
something real.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Some of it might be good, some of it might
be good, but yeah, a lot of it is not
sourced and so forth.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
But anyway, I guess that does now that we're talking
about sources. So I found a number of books on
geology and gems making the simple claim that no, diamonds
do not come from coal, but usually without any further explanation.
So I was looking for somebody to really explained, like
how do we know they don't come from coal? And
the most extensive exploration of this that I turned up
(05:33):
was on the good old geology dot com website, which
I'm sure you've hit before, Rob, which does have solid
articles that are well sited and you know, listing sources
and all that. So it's one of these articles by
the geologist Hobart King, who I think is the author
of most of what's on geology dot com.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Or what does the King have to say about this?
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Well, King seems to be in line with the modern
consensus here that coal very rarely and possibly ever plays
a role in the formation of diamonds. How can we
know this? One reason he cites, and I mentioned this
briefly in the last episode, is that most diamonds that
can be dated are older than most coal. So we
(06:17):
can actually test the age of diamonds through radiometric dating,
though it's a little bit complicated because of course we
can't use carbon dating on them. The half life of
carbon fourteen that you use to you test the decay
of that in order to use carbon dating, that's too
short in time to accurately date materials that are on
(06:38):
the order of millions of years old or more. This
is why you can't use carbon dating for, you know,
anything from the Age of the dinosaurs or anything like that.
Carbon dating is useful for carbon based remains that are
on the scale of like thousands of years or tens
of thousands of years old.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, and as we discussed, diamonds are much older.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Right, So if carbon dating isn't act, you're for things
as old as diamonds, and diamonds are made of carbon.
How can we test their age? Well, you can use
different radioactive decay series tests on things such as mineral
inclusions in diamonds, meaning occasionally you can find a diamond
with bits of other minerals that are trapped inside it
(07:21):
or trapped along with it. And when scientists do these tests,
these radioactive decay series tests on diamond inclusions, it seems
that most diamonds are more than a billion years old.
The common range I've seen is that the youngest diamonds
are just shy of a billion years old and the
oldest are more than three billion years old, And that
(07:43):
means that natural diamonds can be the ones that can
be dated are pretty much all older than the evolution
of the first land plants. Plants first appeared in the
Cambrian era roughly five hundred million years ago, and they
didn't really flur shon land until later, with the big
coal forming period being more like three hundred million years
(08:06):
ago known as the Carboniferous period, which literally means like
the coal forming period. Since land plants are the source
of the carbon in most coal deposits, it is unlikely
that diamonds would have formed one to three billion years
ago out of a chain of metamorphosis that has to
start with a type of organism that didn't exist yet.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Wow, why isn't this in the diamond commercials.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
You'd think that would be an interesting selling point. Yeah, Like,
if this is a diamond that came out of the
Earth and wasn't like made in a lab or something,
it probably is billions of years old, is from a
time when the only life on Earth was like single
celled organisms. So that's one reason for thinking diamonds are
generally not formed from coal. Another reason is that coal
(08:55):
seams and diamonds are found in completely different geological contact.
Coal is found in sedimentary rocks formed by the deposition
of layers of material on Earth's surface. These layers of
material eventually get buried, they get horizontally compressed, and they
harden into rock strata, with the coal in traps there
(09:17):
in the sedimentary rocks. Meanwhile, diamonds are usually found in
vertical formations of igneous rocks. Igneous rocks are formed by fire.
These are rocks that are created when magma cools and
hardens into a solid. So coal and diamonds, you're going
to find them in totally different geological settings. King goes
(09:39):
on to list the four known natural sources of diamonds,
and he says that these are formation in the Earth's mantle,
formation in subduction zones, formation at impact sites, and formation
in space. Now, we talked in the last episode about
diamonds that are formed in space and occasionally found in meteorites,
(09:59):
and we also talk about diamonds that are created by
the incredible heat and pressure of space impacts. So, for example,
if you have like a ten kilometer asteroid traveling at
twenty kilometers per second, it enters Earth's atmosphere, it hits
or explodes, there's going to it does that over an
area with rocks bearing carbon, maybe rocks that have graphite
(10:23):
in them, which is a form of carbon based mineral
that's less dense than a diamond, that impact, and that
the heat and pressure there could turn the graphite in
the rocks into diamonds. Now King says, in this case,
technically the carbon could also come from coal. So like
the asteroid maybe hits an area with exposed or near
(10:43):
surface coal seams, but most diamonds are not formed by
space impacts, so that could happen, but most of the
diamonds you come across are not going to be from
this source. Instead, King says, basically, all the diamonds that
are commercially mined on Earth are the kind that are
created deep down in the forge of the Earth's mantle. Now,
(11:04):
we already mentioned a bit about diamond formation in the
mantle in a previous episode, but just to refresh, scientists
generally believe that the conditions of heat and pressure that
you need in order to create a diamond only occur
in certain areas, usually at a depth of about one
hundred and fifty kilometers or greater from the surface, which
(11:24):
is well below the crust deep into the mantle, and
usually this would be around the interior of continental plates.
That is of course way too deep to mind. We
do not have any mines that go down one hundred
and fifty kilometers underground, so we can only mine diamonds
that are brought closer to the surface somehow. And as
(11:47):
we mentioned in I think part two, maybe we find
these diamonds in and around these vertical pipes of igneous
rock known as kimber light or lamprote pipes, and these
are vertical columns of rock that were formed long ago
by incredibly explosive volcanic eruptions from deep in the mantle.
(12:07):
So magma from below flows up to the surface rapidly,
and sometimes it breaks off pieces of the mantle, and
these flows bring diamonds up to the surface with them.
And one sort of cool and creepy thing that King
mentions offhand is that no one in human history, as
far as we know, has ever witnessed the kind of
(12:29):
deep source volcanic eruption that brings diamonds to the surface.
These are known as kimber light eruptions. They are rare
compared to normal volcanic eruptions. They're very energetic and explosive,
and most of the ones we know about took place
long ago, so there are no historical records, like since
the dawn of writing, of anybody ever describing or seeing
(12:50):
one of these, And it seems like most of the
ones that have taken place took place long, long ago.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Again, why isn't this in the diamond commercials? Doesn't you
love deserve a diamond forged? Or not forged, but brought
to the surface towards the surface in a volcanic eruption
so terrifyingly powerful that we've never seen its like in
human history.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
You'd think that would be a selling point. You could
combine them. Actually, you could have that. You could have
like the real science facts on one hand, and then
like we said in the other episode that you know,
the valley of the gem's legend, so like you you know,
you've got to show using the meat to retrieve the diamonds.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Yeah, yeah, like dig into all that the content is there,
use it.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
So we know that most diamonds that come from Earth
are formed deep in the mantle, So why should we
not think coal is the source of the carbon in
these diamonds. Based on I did some quick research on this,
it seems to me that coal deposits are mostly in
the top three kilometers of the Earth's crust. And remember,
diamonds are formed one hundred and fifty or more kilometers
(13:55):
down within the mantle. So the coal would have to
somehow get from these locations in the top layer of
the crust down to like fifty times their normal depth
or more underneath a continental plate to supply the carbon
to make the diamonds, and that seems kind of unlikely
or at least rare. King thinks a more likely origin
(14:17):
for the carbon in diamonds is just carbon that has
been present in Earth rocks since early in the planet's formation,
and there are sources of carbon that you can find
within the rocks of the Earth. Like I was reading
another article about these incredibly explosive kimber light eruptions, and
one thing that seems to happen when these eruptions kick
(14:37):
off is that there is like an expansion of CO
two gas deep down in the mantle. Like CO two
there's an area where there's a lot of carbon in
the mantle, and the CO two gas starts to come
out of solution, much like what happens when you pop
the top on a carbonated soda. It starts to come
(14:57):
out of solution and turn into a gas want to
rise quickly to the surface, and this of course is
extremely explosive and violent. However, to come back in the
other direction and talk about an analogy to coal being
the source of diamond formation, an analogy that is quite possible.
King does acknowledge that very small diamonds are sometimes formed
(15:21):
in what are called subduction zones, and this is where
so you have different plates of the Earth's crust meeting.
You have maybe an oceanic plate that is the part
of the crust sitting underneath an ocean, and then a
continental plate that's where you have a continent, and they
meet at a sort of joint, and where they meet,
(15:42):
the oceanic plate is pushed down underneath the continental plate
at this joint where they meet. So in the case
of subduction, sedimentary rocks formed on the ocean floor can
indeed be shoved down into the mantle. And it does
seem that the carbon in these rocks may sometimes form
diamonds in extreme heat and pressure in this subduction zone.
(16:06):
But the rocks in question here would probably not be coal,
But King says instead other kinds of carbon bearing sediment
based rocks that form mostly on the ocean floor, things
like limestone and dolomite.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Now, as we get into the final stretch here, I
want to get back into this area of diamonds and
the human body coming together again. We discussed various past
beliefs about the dangers of ingesting diamonds, and this inspired
me to look a little closer at Diamonds and the Flesh,
(16:50):
and I wanted to start with one of the more recent,
and by some perspectives, more extreme examples of diamond at
flesh unity. That is, of course, the forehead diamond implant
of American hip hop performer lil uzi Vert born nineteen
ninety five. Joe, are you familiar with the lil Uzivert?
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Only a little bit? I think maybe the main thing
I know is from articles about the diamond implant.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Yeah, this definitely made a splash. I think there are
plenty of people who have not heard lil Uzivert's music,
but they are familiar with the story of the diamond implant.
I have not heard any of their music. My knowledge
of mainstream hip hop is like fifteen to twenty years behind.
I know some indie stuff here and there, but I
(17:40):
don't know most of the current trends and acts. But
it's hard to ignore this particular story. This all went
down in twenty twenty one, got a lot of media coverage.
You might have heard something on late night comedy shows
about this. In the way that it was described, I
think the way I initially picked up on it too,
it sounded red. I kind of got the impression that
(18:02):
was something impulsive, you know, like here's a hip hop
artist and maybe on the spur of the moment, they're like,
I like that diamond, I want it in my forehead,
and then they did it, you know, kind of like
anybody else in the world might say, you know, get
a drunken tattoo or something like that.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
But no, you're going to say, this is a more
thought out diamond implant than that would suggest.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Yeah, I had no idea, but I was reading about
it on Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone has a really nice
ride up on it. This is by Jeff Haza, and
it gets into not only the case with littl Uzivert,
but other hip hop stars who have had implants similar.
But the way it's described in this article, this all
(18:47):
began like in twenty seventeen, they had to purchase the
reported twenty four million dollar diamond, had to pay that off.
Then the implantation was handled by professional jewelers. And I
think they're referring to to a consult by an expert
piercer or an expert in body modification. So it sounds
like it was rather an ordeal to get to the
(19:09):
point where the diamond was actually put in the forehead,
but it was successfully implanted, and now reportedly Liluzivert didn't
keep the diamond implant. It came out during some crowdsurfing
at a concert, but then they put it back in
for a later concert, but then ultimately replaced it with
(19:29):
a piercing. They still have the diamond though, so the
way it was reported, A lot of late night shows
had some fun with this idea too, that the diamond
came out or was quote ripped out during a concert,
then maybe made it sound like it was stolen, but
that doesn't seem to be the case. I was also
impressed that and again this is just based on some
articles looking up, but they said that that Vert is
(19:51):
a huge fan of the animated series Stephen Universe, and
this was an influence on the choice in getting a
pink forehead diamond. So I am familiar with Steven Universe.
Great show, so I would I got to say, great choice.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
I know nothing about that show except I know it
has big fans. So is there a character with a
diamond in their forehead on the show?
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Yeah, yeah, there are some like there's some gemstone powers
going on in that shows. It's good it's a family
you know Slash Kids animated series on cartoon has some great,
you know, feel good energy to it. Highly recommend it nice. Now.
While Lilos Evert probably got the most attention for their
diamond implant, they were not the first. The Rolling Stone
(20:39):
article points out that rapper Young Thug had a diamond
tear drop implanted on his face in twenty sixteen. I
couldn't find out much else about that one. Also, there
was a rapper with the name of Sauce Walka who
had a diamond facial implant, and another rapper, Little Pumped,
also had or has a diamond facial implant. So this
seems to be a This is not a trend that's
(21:01):
isolated to a single individual. We have multiple individuals out
there in the world who have or have had this procedure. Now.
That Rolling Stone article includes some comments from Simon Babev
speaking on behalf of the New York based jewelers Aliante
and Company that were involved with this particular forehead diamond
(21:24):
the pink diamond of litl loozy Vert, and he says
the following quote. In the body modification world, they usually
do everything in stainless steel or surgical grade steel. But
in our case, we did everything with precious metals. We
engineered a specific mounting that clips and locks in place.
There's a whole mechanism involved. It's not a standard piercing,
(21:46):
a specific piece and part. We're both engineered with millimeter
precision to get this put on little loosey vert. So again,
I think an important takeaway from this is the diamond
does not set directly in the fore It's not certainly
not set in the skull or anything like that. When
it came out, a lot of people made jokes referring
to a scene in one of the Avengers films in
(22:10):
which like an Android character's gym stone is ripped out
of their forehead, and you know, it's not quite the same.
And then so it's ultimately mounted in metal, and then
that metal is implanted in the flesh, much like a
diamond is mounted in a ring, and like a diamond
(22:31):
is mounted in an ear ring, which of course is
then mounted in the flesh. Okay, so you know, obviously,
given the price tag on some of these diamonds, this
is all extravagant, though in the end perhaps not all
that weirder than any other form of body modification, including
more mainstream forms that we take for granted and don't
even necessarily think of as body modification, Like a standard
(22:53):
ear piercing is so mainstream that you don't necessarily think
of it as body modification. But coming back to the
idea of a diamond ear ring in comparison, a diamond
mounted in a piece of metal jewelry that is then
secured to the human ear by one of several traditional methods,
but most often via a hole punched in the ear lobe.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Right, I mean that absolutely is body modification. I guess
for some reason this phrase evokes associations of less common
body modifications.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Yeah, And of course a lot of that just has
to do with like what culture one is in. You know,
there's so many forms of piercing and body modification that
are thought of as new and counterculture today, and they,
you know, they are generally perhaps counter to the mainstream culture,
at least at least in western nations, but they are
often based on older traditions in other cultures, you know,
(23:47):
traditions that were more standard and would not have been
thought of as counterculture in those specific cultures. So humans
have engaged in ear piercing since very ancient times, I
mean the origins of the practice are ultimate lost to
the mists of prehistory. Let's see the Iceman, for instance,
who lived between thirty three fifty and thirty one oh
(24:08):
five BCE. This is we've talked about before, with his
well preserved body and articles on his body that have
provided a great deal of evidence about what life was
like or may have been like for individuals during this
time period. There is also evidence that he had a
pierced ear and an ear ring. We also have Sumerian
(24:30):
graves from Earth that give us evidence of pierced ears
from around twenty five hundred BCE. We have Egyptian ear piercings.
This pushes the evidence in this case back to sixteen
hundred BCE. We have Chinese examples that go back to
one thousand BCE. South American examples date back to between
eighteen hundred BC and three thousand BCE. Plus just a
(24:53):
lot of the literature of the ancient world makes at
least passing mention of the ear rings of the air piercings.
Uh So, you know, there's there's a there's a rich
and varied history here of poking a hole through part
of the ear lobe or parts of the ear lobe
and inserting things for decorative purposes. But of course we're
not just talking about piercings and earrings in general. Here,
(25:15):
we're talking about diamonds. We're talking about ultimately mounting a
diamond in your flesh. And when we get back into diamonds,
you can probably guess where some of the oldest evidence
of diamond ear rings is going to take us. It's
of course going to take us to India.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Right, So, as we discussed in previous episodes in the series,
it seems that in the ancient world, India was a
real hot spot of diamond mining and diamond use in culture.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Yeah. Yeah, and definitely a place where, yeah, they had
diamonds the longest, and a place where diamonds were upgraded
to gym status earlier than you know, than other places.
So yeah, and again to drive home, like for the
for the longest, like diamonds in the world came from India.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
So Jack Ogden in Diamonds in Early History of the
King of Gems, which referenced in the earlier episodes as well,
he points out a couple of examples of these old
diamond ear rings He includes in his book an ear
decoration from the tenth to eleventh century c. This is
(26:17):
diamond and pink sapphire to be specific, set in gold,
and Ogen adds that it's probably an ear ring, but
similar artifacts from Java were actually vervals. These are decorative
rings that went on a hawk or a pet bird's
leg whoa. So it's interesting ambiguity regarding some of these things.
(26:38):
But he also includes an example of a golden ear
ring from the first century BCE from India classified as
an early ear ring fragment. So suffice to say that
we've been combining diamonds with our anatomy for more than
two thousand years, but how long have we been using
them for our teeth? Because you know, I've already mentioned
musical performers, but also you have athletes, you have other
(27:01):
celebrities who sometimes show up with diamond implants on their teeth,
some sort of diamond dental work going on grills and
so forth. Hell I was looking into this a little bit.
We talked about, like, you know, some of these older
ideas about you know, don't put a diamond in your
mouth because like the venom of the snakes from the
Valley of gems will kill you, and other ideas health wise,
(27:27):
the main concerns, and there don't seem to be a
lot of like overt health concerns with grills, for example,
most of the health concerns at all seem to relate
to things like prolonged usage, like these are not things
that are seemingly designed to just be worn day in
day out. These are for special occasions, These are for concerts,
these are for media appearances or what have you. And
(27:49):
on top of that, potential allergic reactions to base metals
and if they're actually used and said grill, and also
just the responsibility of keeping something that goes into your
mouth clean and so forth. But I didn't run across
any concerns related specifically to the presence of diamonds themselves. Now,
(28:17):
it's worth noting that while a lot of you know,
current of the current popularity of elaborate grills has its
roots seemingly in like nineteen eighties hip hop culture, I
think a lot of it coming out of New York.
And there's of course a strong connection here to dental
procedures that replace teeth or portions of teeth with precious
metals and or jewelry, but the use of gold dental
appliances goes back centuries and one of the most fascinating
(28:40):
examples are the dental appliances of the etruscans. These go
back as far as six thirty PCE. There is a
really good article this is This was published on Vice
back in twenty fourteen called the title The Ancient History
of Grills by Lauren Schwarzburg. I highly recommend given this
a read. It goes into a lot more depth than
(29:01):
I'm going to cover here, but just to hit on
some of the main points that the author brings out
that relate to what we're talking about. First of all,
there's a pervasive idea that grill's originated in ancient Egypt,
and I think this is something you can probably find
like repeated on certain websites. Like we were saying, but
this was apparently due to an early twentieth century archaeological
(29:22):
find that consisted of two teeth, two human teeth, actual
teeth woven together with a gold wire and this was
dated to twenty five hundred BCE, and this was in Giza.
Early interpretations of this artifact were that this wire work
was done while the individual was still alive that this
was some sort of a dental procedure. But the more
(29:43):
popular interpretation, the more recent interpretation, is that these teeth
probably came out, you know, fell out or had to
be pulled out, and were kept as a pendant, you know,
worn around the neck or something, and then the individual
was buried with them. So, as short Bird points out,
there does not seem to be strong evidence for ancient
Egyptian gold or metal teeth.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Okay, so this would just be that the gold wire
is used to hold together the teeth that the person
is perhaps keeping after they've come out of their mouth
for whatever reason magical or otherwise.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Right. But indeed, as Schwarzberg points out, the Etruscans of
ancient Italy from around eight hundred BCE to two hundred
BCE did have gold dental appliances teeth woven with delicate
golden wire, and apparently this would have been the domain
of high status women that apparently would actually have some
(30:37):
front teeth removed in order to make room for like
this gold band appliance that would be inserted with either
replacement or reused teeth. So, to be clear, though this
was not functional, this is not something that you could
they could have apparently eaten with, but it was decorative
and it was a status symbol.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
So you would be, am I understanding this right? Then
this would be you're sort of giving up some of
your your mouth's eating power in order to have this
decorative item.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Yeah. Yeah, So the author here cites Gene McIntosh Turfa,
who wrote a book called The Golden Smile, The Etruscans
and the History of Dentistry cited in this article, and yeah,
apparently this it was a mark of freedom and power.
Like so this wasn't something I mean, you can get
into probably complex analysis of societal pressure for various beauty
(31:31):
trends and so forth, but for the most part, it
sounds like this was something that the women in question
did because it established their status and it said, Hey,
I don't need functional front teeth like I have. I
have cooks that will cook food for me that I
that I can eat regardless of what the functionality of
my teeth. This is about, you know, showing that I
(31:54):
have this heightened status. You know, I have wealth, I
have power, and I do not have to live like
common people.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Yeah, now we've we've mentioned etruscans before. Because a lot
of there are a number of ideas that the Romans
ran with that they got from the Etruscans. I mean
the Romans, as we've discussed many times, they were not
shy about taking technologies as well as beliefs and fads
from the cultures that they conquered and absorbed. But the
grills did not transfer and then they and they did
(32:24):
not remain a popular aspect of Etruscan culture under the Romans,
or they were and they were also not absorbed into
Roman culture either. Now in terms of putting gems in teeth,
and we see this today again with diamond dental implants.
I'm not going to run through all the very you
can find lists online of all the various musical artists
(32:45):
and celebrities who have diamonds and other gems in their
mouth of one designer another. But Schwarzberg does point out
that we have an example from Mayan civilization during the
Classic period three hundred and nine hundred CE. Mayan royalty
would often have these small holes drilled into their upper teeth,
(33:08):
and then they would have round pieces of jade implanted
into those teeth, again as a status symbol. The article
goes into again more depth, more ancient history, but also
a lot more recent history of dental augmentations like this.
The author does point out that in the Philippines there
were also traditions that go back I think around the
(33:30):
thirteen hundred CE, in which you would have gold wrappings
and gold pegs in teeth as another form of dental augmentation,
again to announce one's status more than anything else. All Right,
I have one final area to touch on here on
the fusion of the human body with diamond, and that
(33:51):
concerns the proposition of diamond hip replacements. So I ran
across this. I was looking at articles about this that
date back to at least the late nineteen nineties, and
then a more recent paper published in a twenty twenty
two issue of ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces that continues
to discuss the possibility.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Of diamond hip replacements. So what would be the advantage
of using diamond in an artificial hip.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Well, traditional hip replacements tend to be made out of titanium,
and yes, titanium's great. It almost has that status of
fictional adamantium, at least in casual usage. Right, But the
idea here is that there are still limitations to titanium,
but you could enhance the titanium or some other traditional
(34:39):
metal by covering it with a kind of diamond coating
that would even better, be even better. This would provide
lower friction, higher wear and corrosion resistance, as well as
an improved bonding surface to the bone. So you know,
in not only making it more durable, but also just
like letting it interface with bone a little easier. Hmm okay, yeah,
(35:04):
So according to Zealicas at All in the twenty twenty
two ACS paper quote, despite the excellent biocompatibility and superior
mechanical properties, the major challenge of using diamond for implants
such as those used in hip hip arthroplasty is the
limitation of microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition or CVD techniques
(35:29):
to synthesize diamond on complex shaped objects. So what they're
talking about here, this is a process that involves depositing
a solid material from a gaseous phase, and they go
in to present a new CVD technique to apply diamond coating.
I'm not going to get into all the technical details
of this. Some of it kind of washed over me,
(35:50):
to be honest, But like The general idea is that
there seem to be a lot of experts out there
who think, like this could be the way that we
enhance and improve the functionality of hip replacements of these
hip implants. But we're just not quite there, it seems,
when it comes to figuring out the best way to
(36:10):
apply said diamonds. H And again, it don't if you're
imagining like a sort of blinged out human hip ry
hip replacement, I don't think that's quite what it would
look like. We're again talking more in the world of
like you know, micro and nanodiamonds that are suspended and
so forth. It's like a coating. But I think it's
(36:31):
interesting how these ideas kind of come back to some
of the ideas we were discussing earlier. You know, diamonds
implanted in the body, but not as mere decoration in
this case, but as a functional coating for a metal implant.
And it also gets us close, maybe a little bit,
to that fictional idea of Wolverine and his adamantium coated
bones or diamond patch and his presumably diamond based skeleton.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
If only ben Venudo Cellini could know that, we'd have
medical science talking about diamond based codings for implants in
the human body. Yeah, after his soliloquy on how they
cut your guts apart.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Yeah, yeah, And in this case, diamonds essentially put inside
the human body as a way to improve the functionality
of medical implants. It's pretty amazing.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
All right. Should recap our exploration of diamonds there.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
I believe you know, it's possible some other stuff's going
to come up in listener mail, in which case, you know,
write in tell us about it. We'd love to hear
from you. A lot of you have certainly a more
experience with diamonds than we do. You might be aware
of some other nuggets from diamond culture around the world,
from diamond mythologies around the world. We're always game to
(37:48):
learn more. As we close out here, just a reminder
that Stuff to Blow your Mind is primarily a science
podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Mondays
we do listener mail. On Wednesdays we do a short
form episode and I'm Fredies. We set us out most
serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on
Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
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 listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
name is Robert.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with the
fourth and final part in our series on diamonds. Now,
if you haven't heard the other three parts, you might
want to go back and listen to those first, though
I guess this series is probably okay if you do
them out of order. That we will refer to things
we've already talked about in previous episodes. Brief recap of
(00:36):
what we talked about in the parts that already aired.
We addressed in the first episode the widely held belief
that diamond fragments or diamond powder are poisonous if ingested,
and we talked about some alleged attempted diamond poisonings in history.
The short modern read on that is that it seems
(00:57):
like diamond powder is probably not actually reliably poisonous, but
just to be saved, we were still saying, you know,
I probably wouldn't need it. We talked a bit about
the conditions under which diamonds form. There's going to be
some more about that today. We talked about their physical properties,
and a bit about their use in ancient cultures in
ancient India, China, and the Roman Empire. In the last episode,
(01:20):
we talked about some strange ancient beliefs recorded in the
writings of Plenty of the Elder and some other sources
that in order to shatter a diamond, you must first
soften it in the blood of a he goat. That's
a good one. We also talked about the legend found
in multiple cultures that there is this so called valley
of Gems where diamonds litter the ground. But you can't
(01:43):
just go down there and get them because there are
I don't know, poisonous, venomous snakes or some kind of
monster or beast or something. Down there's some kind of danger,
so you've got to have clever ways of getting the
diamonds up to the cliffs above. Our favorite method that
we read about involved meat, getting them eat.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
That's right, And so in today's episode we have a
couple of other avenues we want to discuss. Later on
in the podcast, I'm going to talk a little bit
about diamond body modification, so we'll get back into this
idea of diamonds and human bodies coming together. But before
we get to that, Joe, I understand you want to
return to something we touched on in the last episode.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Well, that's right. So in the last episode I did
a bit on the question of whether diamonds can burn,
can they be fuel in a fire? The answer is yes,
they are carbon based, and you can have a diamond fire,
though they take higher temperature, they have higher ignition temperatures
and may require more oxygen supply than most normal fuels
(02:45):
you'd have, like wood or coal. But this raised the
question do diamonds actually come from coal?
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Now?
Speaker 3 (02:52):
As I said in the last episode, anecdotally, this seems
to be a common belief. Unfortunately, this is one of
those where I was reading about it before I actually
checked my pre existing knowledge, So I don't know if
I would have said that diamonds are formed out of
coal or not. Rob, was this a belief banging around
in your head?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yes, but only because that scene in Superman three? You know, yeah, okay,
Superman does it. Then I'm just assuming that he's correct,
and who's going to doubt the Man of Steel.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
I cannot argue with you there. So anecdotally it does
seem to be a common belief, and it's easy to
see why people would think this. Diamonds and coal are
both types of compressed carbon dug up from underground. So
you might just assume that when a coal formation undergoes
intense heat and pressure, it gets pressed and compressed and
(03:41):
compressed until it turns into diamonds, and that's where diamonds
come from. And even some old books and authorities on
diamonds do seem to suggest they believe this, that diamonds
come from coal, but more recent sources argue that this
is not the case, at least not for most diamonds.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
I should point out that this is something I'm sure
came up for you as well, Joe, and your diamond research,
is that diamonds. This is the subject of diamonds. This
is one other one of those areas where you have
a lot of websites, often associated with jewelers, that are
going after like search engine optimization, and so there's a
lot of like diamond content dump going on. You see
(04:24):
this with other businesses and areas as well. Occasionally turns
up that I kept encountering that in my research. It
sort of drove me out of the traditional search mode
into some of the like a Google scholar and so forth.
But there are a lot of websites out there that
are clearly the main idea is like, let's just move
(04:46):
up in the search for diamonds because we're trying to
sell them exactly.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Yeah, some jewel retailer who've got the pages on the
website like interesting diamond facts or something, you know, and
it's like they're not citing sources. You can't rely on this,
so you gotta trudge through all that to get to
something real.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Some of it might be good, some of it might
be good, but yeah, a lot of it is not
sourced and so forth.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
But anyway, I guess that does now that we're talking
about sources. So I found a number of books on
geology and gems making the simple claim that no, diamonds
do not come from coal, but usually without any further explanation.
So I was looking for somebody to really explained, like
how do we know they don't come from coal? And
the most extensive exploration of this that I turned up
(05:33):
was on the good old geology dot com website, which
I'm sure you've hit before, Rob, which does have solid
articles that are well sited and you know, listing sources
and all that. So it's one of these articles by
the geologist Hobart King, who I think is the author
of most of what's on geology dot com.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Or what does the King have to say about this?
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Well, King seems to be in line with the modern
consensus here that coal very rarely and possibly ever plays
a role in the formation of diamonds. How can we
know this? One reason he cites, and I mentioned this
briefly in the last episode, is that most diamonds that
can be dated are older than most coal. So we
(06:17):
can actually test the age of diamonds through radiometric dating,
though it's a little bit complicated because of course we
can't use carbon dating on them. The half life of
carbon fourteen that you use to you test the decay
of that in order to use carbon dating, that's too
short in time to accurately date materials that are on
(06:38):
the order of millions of years old or more. This
is why you can't use carbon dating for, you know,
anything from the Age of the dinosaurs or anything like that.
Carbon dating is useful for carbon based remains that are
on the scale of like thousands of years or tens
of thousands of years old.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, and as we discussed, diamonds are much older.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Right, So if carbon dating isn't act, you're for things
as old as diamonds, and diamonds are made of carbon.
How can we test their age? Well, you can use
different radioactive decay series tests on things such as mineral
inclusions in diamonds, meaning occasionally you can find a diamond
with bits of other minerals that are trapped inside it
(07:21):
or trapped along with it. And when scientists do these tests,
these radioactive decay series tests on diamond inclusions, it seems
that most diamonds are more than a billion years old.
The common range I've seen is that the youngest diamonds
are just shy of a billion years old and the
oldest are more than three billion years old, And that
(07:43):
means that natural diamonds can be the ones that can
be dated are pretty much all older than the evolution
of the first land plants. Plants first appeared in the
Cambrian era roughly five hundred million years ago, and they
didn't really flur shon land until later, with the big
coal forming period being more like three hundred million years
(08:06):
ago known as the Carboniferous period, which literally means like
the coal forming period. Since land plants are the source
of the carbon in most coal deposits, it is unlikely
that diamonds would have formed one to three billion years
ago out of a chain of metamorphosis that has to
start with a type of organism that didn't exist yet.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Wow, why isn't this in the diamond commercials.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
You'd think that would be an interesting selling point. Yeah, Like,
if this is a diamond that came out of the
Earth and wasn't like made in a lab or something,
it probably is billions of years old, is from a
time when the only life on Earth was like single
celled organisms. So that's one reason for thinking diamonds are
generally not formed from coal. Another reason is that coal
(08:55):
seams and diamonds are found in completely different geological contact.
Coal is found in sedimentary rocks formed by the deposition
of layers of material on Earth's surface. These layers of
material eventually get buried, they get horizontally compressed, and they
harden into rock strata, with the coal in traps there
(09:17):
in the sedimentary rocks. Meanwhile, diamonds are usually found in
vertical formations of igneous rocks. Igneous rocks are formed by fire.
These are rocks that are created when magma cools and
hardens into a solid. So coal and diamonds, you're going
to find them in totally different geological settings. King goes
(09:39):
on to list the four known natural sources of diamonds,
and he says that these are formation in the Earth's mantle,
formation in subduction zones, formation at impact sites, and formation
in space. Now, we talked in the last episode about
diamonds that are formed in space and occasionally found in meteorites,
(09:59):
and we also talk about diamonds that are created by
the incredible heat and pressure of space impacts. So, for example,
if you have like a ten kilometer asteroid traveling at
twenty kilometers per second, it enters Earth's atmosphere, it hits
or explodes, there's going to it does that over an
area with rocks bearing carbon, maybe rocks that have graphite
(10:23):
in them, which is a form of carbon based mineral
that's less dense than a diamond, that impact, and that
the heat and pressure there could turn the graphite in
the rocks into diamonds. Now King says, in this case,
technically the carbon could also come from coal. So like
the asteroid maybe hits an area with exposed or near
(10:43):
surface coal seams, but most diamonds are not formed by
space impacts, so that could happen, but most of the
diamonds you come across are not going to be from
this source. Instead, King says, basically, all the diamonds that
are commercially mined on Earth are the kind that are
created deep down in the forge of the Earth's mantle. Now,
(11:04):
we already mentioned a bit about diamond formation in the
mantle in a previous episode, but just to refresh, scientists
generally believe that the conditions of heat and pressure that
you need in order to create a diamond only occur
in certain areas, usually at a depth of about one
hundred and fifty kilometers or greater from the surface, which
(11:24):
is well below the crust deep into the mantle, and
usually this would be around the interior of continental plates.
That is of course way too deep to mind. We
do not have any mines that go down one hundred
and fifty kilometers underground, so we can only mine diamonds
that are brought closer to the surface somehow. And as
(11:47):
we mentioned in I think part two, maybe we find
these diamonds in and around these vertical pipes of igneous
rock known as kimber light or lamprote pipes, and these
are vertical columns of rock that were formed long ago
by incredibly explosive volcanic eruptions from deep in the mantle.
(12:07):
So magma from below flows up to the surface rapidly,
and sometimes it breaks off pieces of the mantle, and
these flows bring diamonds up to the surface with them.
And one sort of cool and creepy thing that King
mentions offhand is that no one in human history, as
far as we know, has ever witnessed the kind of
(12:29):
deep source volcanic eruption that brings diamonds to the surface.
These are known as kimber light eruptions. They are rare
compared to normal volcanic eruptions. They're very energetic and explosive,
and most of the ones we know about took place
long ago, so there are no historical records, like since
the dawn of writing, of anybody ever describing or seeing
(12:50):
one of these, And it seems like most of the
ones that have taken place took place long, long ago.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Again, why isn't this in the diamond commercials? Doesn't you
love deserve a diamond forged? Or not forged, but brought
to the surface towards the surface in a volcanic eruption
so terrifyingly powerful that we've never seen its like in
human history.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
You'd think that would be a selling point. You could
combine them. Actually, you could have that. You could have
like the real science facts on one hand, and then
like we said in the other episode that you know,
the valley of the gem's legend, so like you you know,
you've got to show using the meat to retrieve the diamonds.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Yeah, yeah, like dig into all that the content is there,
use it.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
So we know that most diamonds that come from Earth
are formed deep in the mantle, So why should we
not think coal is the source of the carbon in
these diamonds. Based on I did some quick research on this,
it seems to me that coal deposits are mostly in
the top three kilometers of the Earth's crust. And remember,
diamonds are formed one hundred and fifty or more kilometers
(13:55):
down within the mantle. So the coal would have to
somehow get from these locations in the top layer of
the crust down to like fifty times their normal depth
or more underneath a continental plate to supply the carbon
to make the diamonds, and that seems kind of unlikely
or at least rare. King thinks a more likely origin
(14:17):
for the carbon in diamonds is just carbon that has
been present in Earth rocks since early in the planet's formation,
and there are sources of carbon that you can find
within the rocks of the Earth. Like I was reading
another article about these incredibly explosive kimber light eruptions, and
one thing that seems to happen when these eruptions kick
(14:37):
off is that there is like an expansion of CO
two gas deep down in the mantle. Like CO two
there's an area where there's a lot of carbon in
the mantle, and the CO two gas starts to come
out of solution, much like what happens when you pop
the top on a carbonated soda. It starts to come
(14:57):
out of solution and turn into a gas want to
rise quickly to the surface, and this of course is
extremely explosive and violent. However, to come back in the
other direction and talk about an analogy to coal being
the source of diamond formation, an analogy that is quite possible.
King does acknowledge that very small diamonds are sometimes formed
(15:21):
in what are called subduction zones, and this is where
so you have different plates of the Earth's crust meeting.
You have maybe an oceanic plate that is the part
of the crust sitting underneath an ocean, and then a
continental plate that's where you have a continent, and they
meet at a sort of joint, and where they meet,
(15:42):
the oceanic plate is pushed down underneath the continental plate
at this joint where they meet. So in the case
of subduction, sedimentary rocks formed on the ocean floor can
indeed be shoved down into the mantle. And it does
seem that the carbon in these rocks may sometimes form
diamonds in extreme heat and pressure in this subduction zone.
(16:06):
But the rocks in question here would probably not be coal,
But King says instead other kinds of carbon bearing sediment
based rocks that form mostly on the ocean floor, things
like limestone and dolomite.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Now, as we get into the final stretch here, I
want to get back into this area of diamonds and
the human body coming together again. We discussed various past
beliefs about the dangers of ingesting diamonds, and this inspired
me to look a little closer at Diamonds and the Flesh,
(16:50):
and I wanted to start with one of the more recent,
and by some perspectives, more extreme examples of diamond at
flesh unity. That is, of course, the forehead diamond implant
of American hip hop performer lil uzi Vert born nineteen
ninety five. Joe, are you familiar with the lil Uzivert?
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Only a little bit? I think maybe the main thing
I know is from articles about the diamond implant.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Yeah, this definitely made a splash. I think there are
plenty of people who have not heard lil Uzivert's music,
but they are familiar with the story of the diamond implant.
I have not heard any of their music. My knowledge
of mainstream hip hop is like fifteen to twenty years behind.
I know some indie stuff here and there, but I
(17:40):
don't know most of the current trends and acts. But
it's hard to ignore this particular story. This all went
down in twenty twenty one, got a lot of media coverage.
You might have heard something on late night comedy shows
about this. In the way that it was described, I
think the way I initially picked up on it too,
it sounded red. I kind of got the impression that
(18:02):
was something impulsive, you know, like here's a hip hop
artist and maybe on the spur of the moment, they're like,
I like that diamond, I want it in my forehead,
and then they did it, you know, kind of like
anybody else in the world might say, you know, get
a drunken tattoo or something like that.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
But no, you're going to say, this is a more
thought out diamond implant than that would suggest.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Yeah, I had no idea, but I was reading about
it on Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone has a really nice
ride up on it. This is by Jeff Haza, and
it gets into not only the case with littl Uzivert,
but other hip hop stars who have had implants similar.
But the way it's described in this article, this all
(18:47):
began like in twenty seventeen, they had to purchase the
reported twenty four million dollar diamond, had to pay that off.
Then the implantation was handled by professional jewelers. And I
think they're referring to to a consult by an expert
piercer or an expert in body modification. So it sounds
like it was rather an ordeal to get to the
(19:09):
point where the diamond was actually put in the forehead,
but it was successfully implanted, and now reportedly Liluzivert didn't
keep the diamond implant. It came out during some crowdsurfing
at a concert, but then they put it back in
for a later concert, but then ultimately replaced it with
(19:29):
a piercing. They still have the diamond though, so the
way it was reported, A lot of late night shows
had some fun with this idea too, that the diamond
came out or was quote ripped out during a concert,
then maybe made it sound like it was stolen, but
that doesn't seem to be the case. I was also
impressed that and again this is just based on some
articles looking up, but they said that that Vert is
(19:51):
a huge fan of the animated series Stephen Universe, and
this was an influence on the choice in getting a
pink forehead diamond. So I am familiar with Steven Universe.
Great show, so I would I got to say, great choice.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
I know nothing about that show except I know it
has big fans. So is there a character with a
diamond in their forehead on the show?
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Yeah, yeah, there are some like there's some gemstone powers
going on in that shows. It's good it's a family
you know Slash Kids animated series on cartoon has some great,
you know, feel good energy to it. Highly recommend it nice. Now.
While Lilos Evert probably got the most attention for their
diamond implant, they were not the first. The Rolling Stone
(20:39):
article points out that rapper Young Thug had a diamond
tear drop implanted on his face in twenty sixteen. I
couldn't find out much else about that one. Also, there
was a rapper with the name of Sauce Walka who
had a diamond facial implant, and another rapper, Little Pumped,
also had or has a diamond facial implant. So this
seems to be a This is not a trend that's
(21:01):
isolated to a single individual. We have multiple individuals out
there in the world who have or have had this procedure. Now.
That Rolling Stone article includes some comments from Simon Babev
speaking on behalf of the New York based jewelers Aliante
and Company that were involved with this particular forehead diamond
(21:24):
the pink diamond of litl loozy Vert, and he says
the following quote. In the body modification world, they usually
do everything in stainless steel or surgical grade steel. But
in our case, we did everything with precious metals. We
engineered a specific mounting that clips and locks in place.
There's a whole mechanism involved. It's not a standard piercing,
(21:46):
a specific piece and part. We're both engineered with millimeter
precision to get this put on little loosey vert. So again,
I think an important takeaway from this is the diamond
does not set directly in the fore It's not certainly
not set in the skull or anything like that. When
it came out, a lot of people made jokes referring
to a scene in one of the Avengers films in
(22:10):
which like an Android character's gym stone is ripped out
of their forehead, and you know, it's not quite the same.
And then so it's ultimately mounted in metal, and then
that metal is implanted in the flesh, much like a
diamond is mounted in a ring, and like a diamond
(22:31):
is mounted in an ear ring, which of course is
then mounted in the flesh. Okay, so you know, obviously,
given the price tag on some of these diamonds, this
is all extravagant, though in the end perhaps not all
that weirder than any other form of body modification, including
more mainstream forms that we take for granted and don't
even necessarily think of as body modification, Like a standard
(22:53):
ear piercing is so mainstream that you don't necessarily think
of it as body modification. But coming back to the
idea of a diamond ear ring in comparison, a diamond
mounted in a piece of metal jewelry that is then
secured to the human ear by one of several traditional methods,
but most often via a hole punched in the ear lobe.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Right, I mean that absolutely is body modification. I guess
for some reason this phrase evokes associations of less common
body modifications.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Yeah, And of course a lot of that just has
to do with like what culture one is in. You know,
there's so many forms of piercing and body modification that
are thought of as new and counterculture today, and they,
you know, they are generally perhaps counter to the mainstream culture,
at least at least in western nations, but they are
often based on older traditions in other cultures, you know,
(23:47):
traditions that were more standard and would not have been
thought of as counterculture in those specific cultures. So humans
have engaged in ear piercing since very ancient times, I
mean the origins of the practice are ultimate lost to
the mists of prehistory. Let's see the Iceman, for instance,
who lived between thirty three fifty and thirty one oh
(24:08):
five BCE. This is we've talked about before, with his
well preserved body and articles on his body that have
provided a great deal of evidence about what life was
like or may have been like for individuals during this
time period. There is also evidence that he had a
pierced ear and an ear ring. We also have Sumerian
(24:30):
graves from Earth that give us evidence of pierced ears
from around twenty five hundred BCE. We have Egyptian ear piercings.
This pushes the evidence in this case back to sixteen
hundred BCE. We have Chinese examples that go back to
one thousand BCE. South American examples date back to between
eighteen hundred BC and three thousand BCE. Plus just a
(24:53):
lot of the literature of the ancient world makes at
least passing mention of the ear rings of the air piercings.
Uh So, you know, there's there's a there's a rich
and varied history here of poking a hole through part
of the ear lobe or parts of the ear lobe
and inserting things for decorative purposes. But of course we're
not just talking about piercings and earrings in general. Here,
(25:15):
we're talking about diamonds. We're talking about ultimately mounting a
diamond in your flesh. And when we get back into diamonds,
you can probably guess where some of the oldest evidence
of diamond ear rings is going to take us. It's
of course going to take us to India.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Right, So, as we discussed in previous episodes in the series,
it seems that in the ancient world, India was a
real hot spot of diamond mining and diamond use in culture.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Yeah. Yeah, and definitely a place where, yeah, they had
diamonds the longest, and a place where diamonds were upgraded
to gym status earlier than you know, than other places.
So yeah, and again to drive home, like for the
for the longest, like diamonds in the world came from India.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
So Jack Ogden in Diamonds in Early History of the
King of Gems, which referenced in the earlier episodes as well,
he points out a couple of examples of these old
diamond ear rings He includes in his book an ear
decoration from the tenth to eleventh century c. This is
(26:17):
diamond and pink sapphire to be specific, set in gold,
and Ogen adds that it's probably an ear ring, but
similar artifacts from Java were actually vervals. These are decorative
rings that went on a hawk or a pet bird's
leg whoa. So it's interesting ambiguity regarding some of these things.
(26:38):
But he also includes an example of a golden ear
ring from the first century BCE from India classified as
an early ear ring fragment. So suffice to say that
we've been combining diamonds with our anatomy for more than
two thousand years, but how long have we been using
them for our teeth? Because you know, I've already mentioned
musical performers, but also you have athletes, you have other
(27:01):
celebrities who sometimes show up with diamond implants on their teeth,
some sort of diamond dental work going on grills and
so forth. Hell I was looking into this a little bit.
We talked about, like, you know, some of these older
ideas about you know, don't put a diamond in your
mouth because like the venom of the snakes from the
Valley of gems will kill you, and other ideas health wise,
(27:27):
the main concerns, and there don't seem to be a
lot of like overt health concerns with grills, for example,
most of the health concerns at all seem to relate
to things like prolonged usage, like these are not things
that are seemingly designed to just be worn day in
day out. These are for special occasions, These are for concerts,
these are for media appearances or what have you. And
(27:49):
on top of that, potential allergic reactions to base metals
and if they're actually used and said grill, and also
just the responsibility of keeping something that goes into your
mouth clean and so forth. But I didn't run across
any concerns related specifically to the presence of diamonds themselves. Now,
(28:17):
it's worth noting that while a lot of you know,
current of the current popularity of elaborate grills has its
roots seemingly in like nineteen eighties hip hop culture, I
think a lot of it coming out of New York.
And there's of course a strong connection here to dental
procedures that replace teeth or portions of teeth with precious
metals and or jewelry, but the use of gold dental
appliances goes back centuries and one of the most fascinating
(28:40):
examples are the dental appliances of the etruscans. These go
back as far as six thirty PCE. There is a
really good article this is This was published on Vice
back in twenty fourteen called the title The Ancient History
of Grills by Lauren Schwarzburg. I highly recommend given this
a read. It goes into a lot more depth than
(29:01):
I'm going to cover here, but just to hit on
some of the main points that the author brings out
that relate to what we're talking about. First of all,
there's a pervasive idea that grill's originated in ancient Egypt,
and I think this is something you can probably find
like repeated on certain websites. Like we were saying, but
this was apparently due to an early twentieth century archaeological
(29:22):
find that consisted of two teeth, two human teeth, actual
teeth woven together with a gold wire and this was
dated to twenty five hundred BCE, and this was in Giza.
Early interpretations of this artifact were that this wire work
was done while the individual was still alive that this
was some sort of a dental procedure. But the more
(29:43):
popular interpretation, the more recent interpretation, is that these teeth
probably came out, you know, fell out or had to
be pulled out, and were kept as a pendant, you know,
worn around the neck or something, and then the individual
was buried with them. So, as short Bird points out,
there does not seem to be strong evidence for ancient
Egyptian gold or metal teeth.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Okay, so this would just be that the gold wire
is used to hold together the teeth that the person
is perhaps keeping after they've come out of their mouth
for whatever reason magical or otherwise.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Right. But indeed, as Schwarzberg points out, the Etruscans of
ancient Italy from around eight hundred BCE to two hundred
BCE did have gold dental appliances teeth woven with delicate
golden wire, and apparently this would have been the domain
of high status women that apparently would actually have some
(30:37):
front teeth removed in order to make room for like
this gold band appliance that would be inserted with either
replacement or reused teeth. So, to be clear, though this
was not functional, this is not something that you could
they could have apparently eaten with, but it was decorative
and it was a status symbol.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
So you would be, am I understanding this right? Then
this would be you're sort of giving up some of
your your mouth's eating power in order to have this
decorative item.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Yeah. Yeah, So the author here cites Gene McIntosh Turfa,
who wrote a book called The Golden Smile, The Etruscans
and the History of Dentistry cited in this article, and yeah,
apparently this it was a mark of freedom and power.
Like so this wasn't something I mean, you can get
into probably complex analysis of societal pressure for various beauty
(31:31):
trends and so forth, but for the most part, it
sounds like this was something that the women in question
did because it established their status and it said, Hey,
I don't need functional front teeth like I have. I
have cooks that will cook food for me that I
that I can eat regardless of what the functionality of
my teeth. This is about, you know, showing that I
(31:54):
have this heightened status. You know, I have wealth, I
have power, and I do not have to live like
common people.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Yeah, now we've we've mentioned etruscans before. Because a lot
of there are a number of ideas that the Romans
ran with that they got from the Etruscans. I mean
the Romans, as we've discussed many times, they were not
shy about taking technologies as well as beliefs and fads
from the cultures that they conquered and absorbed. But the
grills did not transfer and then they and they did
(32:24):
not remain a popular aspect of Etruscan culture under the Romans,
or they were and they were also not absorbed into
Roman culture either. Now in terms of putting gems in teeth,
and we see this today again with diamond dental implants.
I'm not going to run through all the very you
can find lists online of all the various musical artists
(32:45):
and celebrities who have diamonds and other gems in their
mouth of one designer another. But Schwarzberg does point out
that we have an example from Mayan civilization during the
Classic period three hundred and nine hundred CE. Mayan royalty
would often have these small holes drilled into their upper teeth,
(33:08):
and then they would have round pieces of jade implanted
into those teeth, again as a status symbol. The article
goes into again more depth, more ancient history, but also
a lot more recent history of dental augmentations like this.
The author does point out that in the Philippines there
were also traditions that go back I think around the
(33:30):
thirteen hundred CE, in which you would have gold wrappings
and gold pegs in teeth as another form of dental augmentation,
again to announce one's status more than anything else. All Right,
I have one final area to touch on here on
the fusion of the human body with diamond, and that
(33:51):
concerns the proposition of diamond hip replacements. So I ran
across this. I was looking at articles about this that
date back to at least the late nineteen nineties, and
then a more recent paper published in a twenty twenty
two issue of ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces that continues
to discuss the possibility.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Of diamond hip replacements. So what would be the advantage
of using diamond in an artificial hip.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Well, traditional hip replacements tend to be made out of titanium,
and yes, titanium's great. It almost has that status of
fictional adamantium, at least in casual usage. Right, But the
idea here is that there are still limitations to titanium,
but you could enhance the titanium or some other traditional
(34:39):
metal by covering it with a kind of diamond coating
that would even better, be even better. This would provide
lower friction, higher wear and corrosion resistance, as well as
an improved bonding surface to the bone. So you know,
in not only making it more durable, but also just
like letting it interface with bone a little easier. Hmm okay, yeah,
(35:04):
So according to Zealicas at All in the twenty twenty
two ACS paper quote, despite the excellent biocompatibility and superior
mechanical properties, the major challenge of using diamond for implants
such as those used in hip hip arthroplasty is the
limitation of microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition or CVD techniques
(35:29):
to synthesize diamond on complex shaped objects. So what they're
talking about here, this is a process that involves depositing
a solid material from a gaseous phase, and they go
in to present a new CVD technique to apply diamond coating.
I'm not going to get into all the technical details
of this. Some of it kind of washed over me,
(35:50):
to be honest, But like The general idea is that
there seem to be a lot of experts out there
who think, like this could be the way that we
enhance and improve the functionality of hip replacements of these
hip implants. But we're just not quite there, it seems,
when it comes to figuring out the best way to
(36:10):
apply said diamonds. H And again, it don't if you're
imagining like a sort of blinged out human hip ry
hip replacement, I don't think that's quite what it would
look like. We're again talking more in the world of
like you know, micro and nanodiamonds that are suspended and
so forth. It's like a coating. But I think it's
(36:31):
interesting how these ideas kind of come back to some
of the ideas we were discussing earlier. You know, diamonds
implanted in the body, but not as mere decoration in
this case, but as a functional coating for a metal implant.
And it also gets us close, maybe a little bit,
to that fictional idea of Wolverine and his adamantium coated
bones or diamond patch and his presumably diamond based skeleton.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
If only ben Venudo Cellini could know that, we'd have
medical science talking about diamond based codings for implants in
the human body. Yeah, after his soliloquy on how they
cut your guts apart.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Yeah, yeah, And in this case, diamonds essentially put inside
the human body as a way to improve the functionality
of medical implants. It's pretty amazing.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
All right. Should recap our exploration of diamonds there.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
I believe you know, it's possible some other stuff's going
to come up in listener mail, in which case, you know,
write in tell us about it. We'd love to hear
from you. A lot of you have certainly a more
experience with diamonds than we do. You might be aware
of some other nuggets from diamond culture around the world,
from diamond mythologies around the world. We're always game to
(37:48):
learn more. As we close out here, just a reminder
that Stuff to Blow your Mind is primarily a science
podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Mondays
we do listener mail. On Wednesdays we do a short
form episode and I'm Fredies. We set us out most
serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on
Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
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 listen to your favorite shows.
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