June 14, 2022 • 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 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.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert 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
(00:23):
brains are like pots, and those pots are full of pots,
and the pots have pots in them, and it's it
never stops. I know, my 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.
(00:44):
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, comes down to the fact that
we're talking about ancient technology and and since it in
we inevitably use technology as a way of understanding ourselves,
understand ending the cosmos, etcetera. It ends up becoming a
part of our not only a discourse, but of course
(01:05):
our religions and uh and so forth. And we see
that with the cauldron for sure. 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 Gunda Stroop cauldron. But I
(01:28):
was reading a paper on it, and the very first
sentence of the paper, this author insists that it is
not a cauldron, it is a ceremonial container. Yeah. I
mean this is something that is kind of under the
surface of many of these discussions, right, and like obviously
not all of these people would have called this a cauldron,
And then you get into discussions of Okay, is it
(01:49):
a cauldron or a pot? Is it a cauldron or
a bowl? Is it a cauldron or some other kind?
You know what exactly? Is the ship billed? Daddy? Oh okay,
this is a call and come on, it's it's a
it's a big metal pot. I think we can call
it a cauldron. Yeah. So you, as we've discussed in
previous episodes, we wanted to get into European traditions with
(02:11):
the cauldron, and uh, 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 seen as a place between life and death.
So various funeral rites seem to have been conducted at
(02:32):
various bogs and peat bogs, and given the low oxygen
acidic 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
you know, bodies were left in these bogs and teared
(02:52):
in these bogs, and we also see examples of cauldrons
and cauldron like artifacts. One notable bog retrieved cauldron is
the Gunda strap cauldron, an incomplete but very stunning silver
artifact discovered in a bog in Himmland, Denmark in eight now.
While dating has been a matter of some discussion here,
(03:14):
exact dating anyway, is suspected to date back to between
one fifty b c E And the dawn of the
Common Era. It was evidently given to the bog and
an act of sacrifice, perhaps to a god or gods,
but its origins don't seem to be quite Danish. It
It bears images that are generally associated with more Southern cultures, lions, deer,
(03:38):
griffin's um there. 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. Uh is
on this cauldron with a gigantic figure, perhaps a god
(03:58):
or a goddess, about to dunk a smaller man into
its depths. That's right, we got cauldrons on our cauldrons uh.
And I want to come back to more interpretation of
this panel later on. Yeah, definitely. As we're talking about
the gun distract cauldron, look up the images of it.
That's spelled g U n d E s t r
U p uh. There are a lot of images online
(04:21):
that show the various panels here, the various uh, the
various images that we're going to be discussing here, including
this one of what is clearly a giant of some
sort uh taking a man and dunking him head first
uh into a bucket or cauldron or vessel of some
sort adjacent to this battle scene. So the exact origins
(04:41):
of the cauldron here are still a matter of debate,
with some pointing to the Thracians or what is and
these would have been people from what is now Bulgaria
and Romania. Yet there are also Celtic helmets and trumpets
depicted on the cauldron, suggesting it might have been made
in a place in the aforementioned region where Thracians and
(05:04):
Celts coexisted, though it's uncertain how this then wound up
in Denmark. Could have been a tribute, could have been
spoils of war. Either way, it may be accurate to
think of the Goodness Drop cauldron and not a product
of a single culture, a single place, or even a
single time, but something that was created by mingling cultures
(05:24):
on the move, in part due to Roman expansion and
conquest during this time period, and ultimately constructed by different
artisans over many years. Oh, I didn't think about the
Roman connection, but yeah, so if this would have been
in the first century b c e. And the middle
of that century was when Julius Caesar himself was waging
a war of conquest in Gaul against Celtic tribes in
(05:46):
that region, So yeah, that's an interesting possibility. So yeah,
Rob you you you dug this thing up, not not physical,
you had throught it into our outline, but I got
really obsessed with it, um and I I find this
artifacts so interesting, specifically because of the different mysteries about
it's it's provenance, like you were just talking about, but
(06:08):
also about what it's depicting, because there there are tons
of what you know, it clearly is showing scenes that
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
(06:31):
to mythologies that we might know something about. But but
coming back to that provenance question, Yeah, I think it's
so interesting that there are at least three different distinct
sort of 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
(06:53):
a product of southeastern Europe. Yes, but most scholars pointing
to uh to the metal working techniques of the 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 uh, that's
so strongly linked to Thracian culture. Well, I was reading
about this on the website for the National Museum of Denmark,
(07:16):
which has a lot of great materials about the Gundistrict Cauldron,
and they compare the gun District Cauldron to the metal
working on a gilded silver pitcher from Bulgaria from roughly
three hundred b C. And looking at it, I would agree, Yeah,
the techniques and the artistic style look extremely similar. Like
the way the animal figures are embossed. Remember that this
(07:39):
is not just like an illustration or carving, but this
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 exture that seemed
(08:00):
to indicate hair or fur, and it's extremely distinctive. You
see some of the same patterns on the on the
apparent herring bone patterns on the clothing of the people
on the gun district 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
(08:24):
motifs associated with the culture of the Celts who were
in more kind of western Central Europe at the time. Uh.
And a few examples of this would be a Celtic
musical instrument known as the car nix, which we can
discuss in more detail later, certain types of Celtic ceremonial
jewelry such as an object called a torque, which I
(08:48):
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
(09:08):
have to wonder how all this comes together, Like 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. It would be
(09:28):
like finding what a Bulgarian band that only does covers
of Celtic music in modern Denmark and wondering like how
they came to be there. 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.
(09:51):
Uh So, altogether this object weighs about nine kilograms or
about twenty pounds, and it appears to have been deposited
in the ball 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
(10:14):
the pot, those can be taken off, and when it
was found, they were all removed and 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.
(10:36):
It's you just have to infer from the imagery. Uh So,
so that makes it difficult to identify things. But the imagery,
as you already said, Rob, is is fascinating. There are
animals you would not expect to see. There are lions, uh,
there are images of gods that we know little or
nothing about. In fact, there are even images of elephants.
(10:59):
Ah and yeah that that should be surprising, especially like
where are these images of elephants coming from? 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 for you out there, the listener.
(11:19):
So it shows a god or a mythic figure that's
mostly human inform, except it has antlers 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, four legged, predatory looking animals that might
(11:41):
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 is it is 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
(12:03):
really big, or maybe the dude's supposed to be really small.
I can't tell what the deal with the size differences.
But if it is a regular sized man on the
fish is back, that is a very big fish. It's
got to be like dolphin or shark sized. Yeah. And
there's also a kind of a different flavor to these
two images. So they the hornet or ant alerd god
(12:23):
or whatever this being is supposed to be is in
it has has a kind of a serene pose. His
legs his or her legs are crossed, uh, holding us
what a serpent in one hand? Uh? And I'm not
sure what the implement is in the other hand. Oh, well,
that's Uh, that is a Celtic object. Actually, I think
this is an object that is bigger than just Celtic culture,
(12:45):
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 um for multiple
Iron Age European culture, symbolizing power. It's power status or rank,
sort of like a crown. So if somebody's wearing a torque,
that would seem to indicate that they are a leader
(13:07):
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,
which one scholar I was looking at identified as rams horns.
So that's a snake with ram horns. Oh wow. So
(13:30):
that there's clearly a lot going on here, as as
one often finds with depictions of powerful individuals or deities
or demigods. Uh. And 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,
(13:51):
I I it looks more comical to me, and I
makes me wonder if there is in fact it is
supposed to be comical on some level, like if even
if it is a god of some sort, maybe it
is a trickster god. Maybe it's something that is not
supposed to be interpreted with the same air of reverence
as we have with this this central individual. Yeah, I agree,
(14:13):
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 uh rocking and kicking
back and forth and saying like go faster, come on now. Obviously,
another possible explanation for differences could also be different authors
(14:36):
over time. But as we alluded to earlier, 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
(14:58):
a torque in one hand. Uh. I don't know, just speculating,
but maybe it means he can also make a king.
He can also give the crown to another thank But
to go on to discuss another panel, Rob, I wanted
to come back to one you sort of mentioned earlier,
(15:18):
the panel that has the cauldron dunking on it, because
this panel is 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 that
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
(15:41):
thing is that there is a row of soldiers on
the bottom and they are on foot, they're holding spears
and shields, and they are moving towards 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
(16:03):
moving in the opposite direction of the procession. Below they're
moving to 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 carnacs. 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
(16:24):
a close up for you to look at here. But
the car knicks was 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
(16:47):
not going to your eye, 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. Uh. And so the the
bell art 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
(17:08):
or a serpent, or maybe sometimes a bore. The carnyx
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 long
distance communication. There you go, but what's going on with
the warriors on the bottom row of the panel, Well,
(17:29):
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, a probably three times as big
as the warriors, and the god or the giant will
grasp a warrior with both hands, turn him upside down,
and then dunk him head first into a cauldron. Now,
(17:53):
I think there's plenty of room to question the 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 kind of inferred. They
might be kind of tenuous. But the curators of the
(18:15):
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're being depicted as I
don't know, the the dead forms of their former selves.
And you can tell they're in the underworld because they
are underneath this horizontal tree branch Apparently the tree branch
(18:39):
probably denotes the earth itself and the division between world.
So if the tree branches 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 the The
interpretation goes on to say that as these figures are
dunked into the cauldron by the God, their fate is decided,
(18:59):
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. I remember that
the soldiers shown above the branch were on horseback, so
maybe this means a fallen warrior could be resurrected as
(19:21):
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 and multiple very different Asian cultures that we
talked about in the previous part of this series, where
the cauldrons were not only an instrument of torture in
the realms of Hell, but they were secondarily a symbol
(19:45):
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 it makes me think again,
Like seeing this motif a rise in multiple different cultures,
separated rightly in time and geography and language and and
all these different barriers, makes one wonder if there's not
(20:06):
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 just you know, natural things
where we see transformed by the work of the cauldron. Yeah,
like the basic nature of of cauldron technology and the
(20:27):
idea that it 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 is is important too. I've seen that pop up
in a few different sources pointing to specific cauldrons of
note uh, And often discussions regarding that cauldron come back
(20:49):
to cooking and the preparation of food, the transformation of
of of of organic matter into some sort of delicious
or hearty dish, but also sometimes laundry is discussed as
a possibility as well, And uh, I mean that is
a transformation we I think we tend to totally take
for granted that you can have, you know, foul and
soiled clothing, and yet here is this fabulous specialized cauldron
(21:14):
in your house or at the local laundry map 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 they are new again. Yeah, man,
who doesn't love clean laundry, especially clean sheets, is a
wonderful thing. Okay, I got another panel I want to
focus on. This one's very special and it may be
(21:34):
the most important of all of them due to its
placement within the cauldron, and that is the panel that
is in the bottom of the cauldron bowl. Now 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
(21:55):
one brought up in a curator's video feature from the
British Museum that was focused on the District cauldron. I
think maybe when um, when they had it on loan
or something. But it was by an archaeologist named Julia Farley,
and this was really interesting, so that 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
(22:15):
very bottom, assuming the pots 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 sup probably not,
actually more more of a ceremonial vessel, but I don't know.
I guess I couldn't rule that out. Um, if it
had anything in it, this panel would be hidden and
then it would be revealed as the contents were taken
(22:38):
out of the bull. Um. So what what do you
see in this panel? Well, it depicts a gigantic bull reclining.
When I first saw it, 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
(22:59):
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 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
(23:20):
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 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
(23:42):
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 be alive and helping this
warrior or goddess slay the bull, and the other dog
appears to be dead. Um. But something I noticed also
(24:03):
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 emerge from. And
I wondered, does this mean that the bull uh at
some point had some kind of horns I don't know,
maybe made of a different material coming out of these holes. Uh,
(24:27):
that may be known. And if so, I just didn't
find anything about it. So so I don't know. But
if so, I like, I wonder what those horns were.
And again I don't know if this is significant, but
if you had anything opaque in the pot, as the
pot was emptied, you would first see the bulls raised
head coming up out of that opaque material. But then
(24:48):
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 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. Wow. Yeah, that's a lot to unpack
(25:10):
because on one hand, there's just sort of the I guess,
the basic pleasure to be had, and this potential scene
of like the level of super lowering and revealing horns
and then head and then beast. Uh Not unlike some
of the novelty mugs you'll find today, where there's some
sort of uh like I don't know, like a cartoon
octopus on the bottom of the mug. You drink half
(25:31):
of your hot cocoa and there's an octopus peering up
at you. Uh. I mean that alone is fun. That
they 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? What? Did it take
(25:51):
place beneath a liquid? Did it take place within a caldron?
You know? What is the exact connection? How does having
it at the bottom of the cauldron? Um? Well, what
does that illustrate? What does that do? What is the
function of that? Yeah? I love this, though I want
to be clear, I'm not I am not arguing that
this was used to serve soup. I don't know of
(26:12):
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 bull symbolize? So clearly this
goddess is is, you know, ready to bring the sword
down on its neck, but we don't know what that
act meant. And uh, this is another one of the
(26:34):
mysteries of the cauldron. The National Museum 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 not sure exactly what supports that speculation, but
I don't know. Yeah, personally, I'm just intoxicated by the
(26:56):
mysteries of of like what are the stories that are
be 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 uh and and I I
really wish we could. Yeah, yeah, because they I mean,
the context would have been clear to to to someone
at least a privileged few within the given culture, if
(27:18):
not everyone within the given culture. Uh So, yeah, it's
it's fascinating, fascinating mystery. Thank thank you, thank you. Now
I was looking up to see if there were any
good like papers that were using clues in the images
to try to understand better what stories were being told
(27:39):
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 Gun District Cauldron Symbols of Spring and Fertility, publishing
a journal called and thropo Zoologica in twenty nineteen. And
thropo Zoologica a journal put out by the French Museum
(28:02):
of Natural History, UH 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 zoological identification of a bird species
(28:22):
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 uh what maybe the same figure in
(28:44):
like smaller uh scenes around the big head. And then
the big figure with 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's specifically looking at the birds and says, hey,
wait a second. The birds on this plate have a
(29:05):
very distinctive morphological feature, which is zygo d Actually zygod
actually 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 it
could be. It's obviously not most of them, so so
the only real candidate for this is the common cuckoo
(29:27):
or Coculus canoris. And this is interesting because the cuckoo
connects to a whole other known nexus of of mythological significance,
so Nance writes quote. This species is also identified on
a number of other widespread European artifacts where it was
previously thought to be a bird of prey. The plate
depicts a goddess in triplicate flanked by two cuckoos releasing
(29:50):
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,
that there were only males, and the male birds mated
(30:11):
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 in in
all across Eurasia, this this bird would fly in and
(30:33):
then it would be associated with fertility and sometimes with
European fertility goddesses like the bird might sort of be
it's implied consort. Oh that's fascinating. I mean, that reminds
me of various misinterpretations regarding spontaneous generation or the idea
that the scara beetle, you know, the dung beetle, emerges
(30:57):
from the dong. That it is that it is the
thing that that is borne out of of of the
dirt and of the waist, as opposed to enufl life
form that's making use of this material. 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
(31:18):
are mating with cuckoos, and then they're laying cuckoo eggs,
they're just laying in the nests of other birds and uh,
and so that's known as brood parasitism. But because of
the confusion of like not seeing them with their own nests,
they were just like, yeah, they're only male cuckoos and
they're just uh, they essentially said that they were cook
holding the male birds of other species. Yeah, brood parasitism
(31:42):
is a is a fascinating topic, and of course we
see this in the insect world as well. Yeah, I
mean it's 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 m uh,
the enforcement of of this poll see yes, both with
actions that if sometimes are sometimes compared to almost mafia
(32:06):
tactics and uh. And also just like how does the
egg appear and how is there like a physical deception
or mimicry going on? 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
(32:27):
adapt to that and further blend in oh but sorry.
The other thing about the cuckoo that would make it
probably associated with fertility would be its seasonal migratory patterns,
because this is one of the migratory birds that would
show up in UH in northern stretches of Europe and
Asia in the summer months, and it was so it
might show up in spring. You would say like, oh,
(32:48):
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
fertility associations for that reason. Anyway, I guess we'll call
it there for the Gun District cauldron. But I find
this such an intriguing artifact. I don't know, like, every
time there's a new paper UH providing some some interpretation
(33:11):
of of what's going on in these panels, I want
to know, yeah, yeah, And and by all means, when
you get a chance, you're not driving a vehicle or something,
look up images of the Gun District cauldron. And certainly
if you have access to the Gun District cauldron. If
you can go see it at a museum uh now
or in the future, please do so. If you can
steal it, you know, tuck it into the bridges and
get it out of there and not steal the Gun
(33:32):
District cauldron. Um Now. Cauldrons are also found in rivers,
which 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 River Thames
at Battersea in South London. It's a large riveted bronze
(33:55):
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 Wilkins titled
Cauldrons and flesh Hooks between the Living and the Dead
(34:18):
in Ancient Britain and Ireland. And yeah they they've 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
(34:39):
purpose of pulling cooked meat from a cauldron, and such
tools were also used when working with 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
(35:02):
opposing forces in the 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. Their dark color and gruesome dietary
(35:27):
habits were connected with war and death. These differences may
have represented the competing forces of good and evil in
the world. But both of them will help you get
your meat out of the pot. Yeah, but again, remember
the pot is no mere pot. Uh, there's no you know,
there are no technologies this central to to human existence
(35:48):
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 the universe. That cauldron is
also life itself. It is the whole experience of humanity. Wow,
that's some profound fond Yeah, we didn't even get into
(36:10):
fond There you go, another miniature cauldron. Well yeah we did.
Come on, flash, this is basically fond talking. You can
get any kind of I guess with fond I have
so little experience with it. I just instantly think of
only cheese and bread, and yeah, it's I I for
I forget sometimes that there's a richer tradition of of fond.
I mean there are also other, you know, wonderful traditions
(36:33):
of you know, communal feasting from heated bowls uh, you know,
Chinese hot pot traditions and also um uh and uh
and and certainly that's a that's a fun experience if
you get a chance to partake of that. I don't
think I've ever actually done that. But that's usually with
a not with like um, like an oil like you
might use to cook and fondu. But that's like a
(36:55):
highly flavored broth. Yeah, yeah, broth. And they you can
find you plenty of modern restaurants. In fact, I went
to one, I want to say this was in Florida,
where not only were there 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
(37:17):
add to the hot pot. Oh that sounds awesome. 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 this thing at the center,
It is this thing on the fire. It is the
thing that is then communally used. So it you can
(37:38):
you can easily imagine how it just becomes this hyper
magnet for meaning, especially in the ancient world. You know,
I keep thinking back to this, uh, this plate on
the Gun District cauldron, the one where the giant god
is dunking the warriors in the 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
(37:59):
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 like oh no, oh no,
please don't dunk, or it could be like a wee
arms up thing. It's hard to tell. Well, I think
if 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.
(38:21):
I think a certain amount of fear is is ideal.
But then again, if the interpretation is right, this warrior
is about to maybe be transformed into a higher state
of existence. Yeah maybe so maybe so. Now one thing
the sort of capping off our serious discussion here, and
to be clear, we will be back in another episode
on Cauldron's We have a number of of wonderful cauldron
(38:44):
mythologies to discuss. Uh. We'll also get into at least
a little bit of Dante's Inferno. But uh, this also
brings me back to a recent film we looked at
on Weird How 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 and in history. Um,
(39:08):
he dunked somebody in this vat of like nasty New
York water. Uh, possible time. I guess it's not actually
toxic sludge, but it looks gross. Kill somebody by drowning them,
holding them by the feet, and dunking them. 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
(39:30):
toxic waste. But the street later that is clearly labeled
toxic waste. That confuses the matter. I think it's one
of the flavors of the soda fountain machines. And and
you know, you you 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.
(39:50):
Fair fair enough. Um. Now, to be clear, the individual
in this movie does not re emerge from the cauldron changed.
He's just killed in the bad the bend and the
vat or the bucket or whatever it was, the barrel.
But well, now hold on a second, I would say
that the fact that they are in a Friday movie
(40:14):
and that we will later see another Friday movie with
an almost exactly the same stock character may in fact
me and that these characters are reincarnated throughout each film
and sort of attained new forms. You know, you've always
got your your jock hunk, you've always got your nerd,
you've always got your you know, strict older gentleman um.
(40:36):
You know that they show up again and again. So
this may in fact be a well I guess it
wouldn't be a transformation. 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 I'm just riffing here? No, I say, Okay, maybe
maybe a bad character gets dunked and then in the
next movie they're reincarnated as a final girl. Okay, yeah,
(40:59):
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 you either fall down or you ascend upwards. Possibly. Okay, alright, interesting, interesting,
you know it's it's also interesting if you take this
just context of of immersion and rebirth, which we'll get
(41:19):
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
box to tank? Um, And what is the box to
tank but a kind of magical space cauldron that heals
your wounds and allows you to re emerge. I thought
(41:39):
that scene was weird. Loops Lukes all cut up and
he's in that like weird white diaper. Yeah, that I
remember as a kid thinking that was funny, and 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 we'll discuss that a
little bit in a few sure. I'm also and this
(42:01):
is also reminded of a scene, particularly in the film
adaptation adaptation of Umberto Echoes The Name of the Rose,
in which I believe the second murder has been committed
and the body is found immersed in a vat of
pigs blood. That the blood that is going to be
processed into sausage. Uh. And of course that's a that's
a wonderfully terrifying image. I remember, especially from the movie
(42:23):
trailer that I watched as a child, because here's this
cauldron of blood and two legs sticking out of it. Uh.
And and even that, there's so much, so much going
on there, because here's the cauldron as a vessel of
of 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. Okay, I think
(42:46):
we must cease cauldron ing for today. But there will
be one more cauldron, yes, and like I said, 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 mean time, again, if
you didn't listen to those first two episodes on the
cauld and go back and listen to those, a lot
of good, good content there. Uh, join us for the
(43:08):
next episode. Core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind
published on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the Stuff to Blow
your Mind podcast feed on Monday's. We usually do listener mail.
On Wednesdays, we usually do a monster fact or artifact episode.
That's a short form episode. Amount of fridays. We set
aside most serious concerns and we just talk about a
strange film. Huge thanks, as always to our excellent audio
(43:28):
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 just
to say hello, you can email us at contact at
Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com Stuff to Blow
(43:50):
your Mind. It's production of I Heart Radio. For more
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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.
The masts four Foo
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert 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
(00:23):
brains are like pots, and those pots are full of pots,
and the pots have pots in them, and it's it
never stops. I know, my 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.
(00:44):
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, comes down to the fact that
we're talking about ancient technology and and since it in
we inevitably use technology as a way of understanding ourselves,
understand ending the cosmos, etcetera. It ends up becoming a
part of our not only a discourse, but of course
(01:05):
our religions and uh and so forth. And we see
that with the cauldron for sure. 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 Gunda Stroop cauldron. But I
(01:28):
was reading a paper on it, and the very first
sentence of the paper, this author insists that it is
not a cauldron, it is a ceremonial container. Yeah. I
mean this is something that is kind of under the
surface of many of these discussions, right, and like obviously
not all of these people would have called this a cauldron,
And then you get into discussions of Okay, is it
(01:49):
a cauldron or a pot? Is it a cauldron or
a bowl? Is it a cauldron or some other kind?
You know what exactly? Is the ship billed? Daddy? Oh okay,
this is a call and come on, it's it's a
it's a big metal pot. I think we can call
it a cauldron. Yeah. So you, as we've discussed in
previous episodes, we wanted to get into European traditions with
(02:11):
the cauldron, and uh, 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 seen as a place between life and death.
So various funeral rites seem to have been conducted at
(02:32):
various bogs and peat bogs, and given the low oxygen
acidic 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
you know, bodies were left in these bogs and teared
(02:52):
in these bogs, and we also see examples of cauldrons
and cauldron like artifacts. One notable bog retrieved cauldron is
the Gunda strap cauldron, an incomplete but very stunning silver
artifact discovered in a bog in Himmland, Denmark in eight now.
While dating has been a matter of some discussion here,
(03:14):
exact dating anyway, is suspected to date back to between
one fifty b c E And the dawn of the
Common Era. It was evidently given to the bog and
an act of sacrifice, perhaps to a god or gods,
but its origins don't seem to be quite Danish. It
It bears images that are generally associated with more Southern cultures, lions, deer,
(03:38):
griffin's um there. 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. Uh is
on this cauldron with a gigantic figure, perhaps a god
(03:58):
or a goddess, about to dunk a smaller man into
its depths. That's right, we got cauldrons on our cauldrons uh.
And I want to come back to more interpretation of
this panel later on. Yeah, definitely. As we're talking about
the gun distract cauldron, look up the images of it.
That's spelled g U n d E s t r
U p uh. There are a lot of images online
(04:21):
that show the various panels here, the various uh, the
various images that we're going to be discussing here, including
this one of what is clearly a giant of some
sort uh taking a man and dunking him head first
uh into a bucket or cauldron or vessel of some
sort adjacent to this battle scene. So the exact origins
(04:41):
of the cauldron here are still a matter of debate,
with some pointing to the Thracians or what is and
these would have been people from what is now Bulgaria
and Romania. Yet there are also Celtic helmets and trumpets
depicted on the cauldron, suggesting it might have been made
in a place in the aforementioned region where Thracians and
(05:04):
Celts coexisted, though it's uncertain how this then wound up
in Denmark. Could have been a tribute, could have been
spoils of war. Either way, it may be accurate to
think of the Goodness Drop cauldron and not a product
of a single culture, a single place, or even a
single time, but something that was created by mingling cultures
(05:24):
on the move, in part due to Roman expansion and
conquest during this time period, and ultimately constructed by different
artisans over many years. Oh, I didn't think about the
Roman connection, but yeah, so if this would have been
in the first century b c e. And the middle
of that century was when Julius Caesar himself was waging
a war of conquest in Gaul against Celtic tribes in
(05:46):
that region, So yeah, that's an interesting possibility. So yeah,
Rob you you you dug this thing up, not not physical,
you had throught it into our outline, but I got
really obsessed with it, um and I I find this
artifacts so interesting, specifically because of the different mysteries about
it's it's provenance, like you were just talking about, but
(06:08):
also about what it's depicting, because there there are tons
of what you know, it clearly is showing scenes that
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
(06:31):
to mythologies that we might know something about. But but
coming back to that provenance question, Yeah, I think it's
so interesting that there are at least three different distinct
sort of 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
(06:53):
a product of southeastern Europe. Yes, but most scholars pointing
to uh to the metal working techniques of the 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 uh, that's
so strongly linked to Thracian culture. Well, I was reading
about this on the website for the National Museum of Denmark,
(07:16):
which has a lot of great materials about the Gundistrict Cauldron,
and they compare the gun District Cauldron to the metal
working on a gilded silver pitcher from Bulgaria from roughly
three hundred b C. And looking at it, I would agree, Yeah,
the techniques and the artistic style look extremely similar. Like
the way the animal figures are embossed. Remember that this
(07:39):
is not just like an illustration or carving, but this
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 exture that seemed
(08:00):
to indicate hair or fur, and it's extremely distinctive. You
see some of the same patterns on the on the
apparent herring bone patterns on the clothing of the people
on the gun district 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
(08:24):
motifs associated with the culture of the Celts who were
in more kind of western Central Europe at the time. Uh.
And a few examples of this would be a Celtic
musical instrument known as the car nix, which we can
discuss in more detail later, certain types of Celtic ceremonial
jewelry such as an object called a torque, which I
(08:48):
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
(09:08):
have to wonder how all this comes together, Like 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. It would be
(09:28):
like finding what a Bulgarian band that only does covers
of Celtic music in modern Denmark and wondering like how
they came to be there. 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.
(09:51):
Uh So, altogether this object weighs about nine kilograms or
about twenty pounds, and it appears to have been deposited
in the ball 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
(10:14):
the pot, those can be taken off, and when it
was found, they were all removed and 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.
(10:36):
It's you just have to infer from the imagery. Uh So,
so that makes it difficult to identify things. But the imagery,
as you already said, Rob, is is fascinating. There are
animals you would not expect to see. There are lions, uh,
there are images of gods that we know little or
nothing about. In fact, there are even images of elephants.
(10:59):
Ah and yeah that that should be surprising, especially like
where are these images of elephants coming from? 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 for you out there, the listener.
(11:19):
So it shows a god or a mythic figure that's
mostly human inform, except it has antlers 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, four legged, predatory looking animals that might
(11:41):
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 is it is 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
(12:03):
really big, or maybe the dude's supposed to be really small.
I can't tell what the deal with the size differences.
But if it is a regular sized man on the
fish is back, that is a very big fish. It's
got to be like dolphin or shark sized. Yeah. And
there's also a kind of a different flavor to these
two images. So they the hornet or ant alerd god
(12:23):
or whatever this being is supposed to be is in
it has has a kind of a serene pose. His
legs his or her legs are crossed, uh, holding us
what a serpent in one hand? Uh? And I'm not
sure what the implement is in the other hand. Oh, well,
that's Uh, that is a Celtic object. Actually, I think
this is an object that is bigger than just Celtic culture,
(12:45):
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 um for multiple
Iron Age European culture, symbolizing power. It's power status or rank,
sort of like a crown. So if somebody's wearing a torque,
that would seem to indicate that they are a leader
(13:07):
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,
which one scholar I was looking at identified as rams horns.
So that's a snake with ram horns. Oh wow. So
(13:30):
that there's clearly a lot going on here, as as
one often finds with depictions of powerful individuals or deities
or demigods. Uh. And 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,
(13:51):
I I it looks more comical to me, and I
makes me wonder if there is in fact it is
supposed to be comical on some level, like if even
if it is a god of some sort, maybe it
is a trickster god. Maybe it's something that is not
supposed to be interpreted with the same air of reverence
as we have with this this central individual. Yeah, I agree,
(14:13):
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 uh rocking and kicking
back and forth and saying like go faster, come on now. Obviously,
another possible explanation for differences could also be different authors
(14:36):
over time. But as we alluded to earlier, 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
(14:58):
a torque in one hand. Uh. I don't know, just speculating,
but maybe it means he can also make a king.
He can also give the crown to another thank But
to go on to discuss another panel, Rob, I wanted
to come back to one you sort of mentioned earlier,
(15:18):
the panel that has the cauldron dunking on it, because
this panel is 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 that
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
(15:41):
thing is that there is a row of soldiers on
the bottom and they are on foot, they're holding spears
and shields, and they are moving towards 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
(16:03):
moving in the opposite direction of the procession. Below they're
moving to 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 carnacs. 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
(16:24):
a close up for you to look at here. But
the car knicks was 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
(16:47):
not going to your eye, 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. Uh. And so the the
bell art 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
(17:08):
or a serpent, or maybe sometimes a bore. The carnyx
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 long
distance communication. There you go, but what's going on with
the warriors on the bottom row of the panel, Well,
(17:29):
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, a probably three times as big
as the warriors, and the god or the giant will
grasp a warrior with both hands, turn him upside down,
and then dunk him head first into a cauldron. Now,
(17:53):
I think there's plenty of room to question the 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 kind of inferred. They
might be kind of tenuous. But the curators of the
(18:15):
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're being depicted as I
don't know, the the dead forms of their former selves.
And you can tell they're in the underworld because they
are underneath this horizontal tree branch Apparently the tree branch
(18:39):
probably denotes the earth itself and the division between world.
So if the tree branches 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 the The
interpretation goes on to say that as these figures are
dunked into the cauldron by the God, their fate is decided,
(18:59):
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. I remember that
the soldiers shown above the branch were on horseback, so
maybe this means a fallen warrior could be resurrected as
(19:21):
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 and multiple very different Asian cultures that we
talked about in the previous part of this series, where
the cauldrons were not only an instrument of torture in
the realms of Hell, but they were secondarily a symbol
(19:45):
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 it makes me think again,
Like seeing this motif a rise in multiple different cultures,
separated rightly in time and geography and language and and
all these different barriers, makes one wonder if there's not
(20:06):
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 just you know, natural things
where we see transformed by the work of the cauldron. Yeah,
like the basic nature of of cauldron technology and the
(20:27):
idea that it 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 is is important too. I've seen that pop up
in a few different sources pointing to specific cauldrons of
note uh, And often discussions regarding that cauldron come back
(20:49):
to cooking and the preparation of food, the transformation of
of of of organic matter into some sort of delicious
or hearty dish, but also sometimes laundry is discussed as
a possibility as well, And uh, I mean that is
a transformation we I think we tend to totally take
for granted that you can have, you know, foul and
soiled clothing, and yet here is this fabulous specialized cauldron
(21:14):
in your house or at the local laundry map 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 they are new again. Yeah, man,
who doesn't love clean laundry, especially clean sheets, is a
wonderful thing. Okay, I got another panel I want to
focus on. This one's very special and it may be
(21:34):
the most important of all of them due to its
placement within the cauldron, and that is the panel that
is in the bottom of the cauldron bowl. Now 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
(21:55):
one brought up in a curator's video feature from the
British Museum that was focused on the District cauldron. I
think maybe when um, when they had it on loan
or something. But it was by an archaeologist named Julia Farley,
and this was really interesting, so that 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
(22:15):
very bottom, assuming the pots 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 sup probably not,
actually more more of a ceremonial vessel, but I don't know.
I guess I couldn't rule that out. Um, if it
had anything in it, this panel would be hidden and
then it would be revealed as the contents were taken
(22:38):
out of the bull. Um. So what what do you
see in this panel? Well, it depicts a gigantic bull reclining.
When I first saw it, 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
(22:59):
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 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
(23:20):
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 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
(23:42):
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 be alive and helping this
warrior or goddess slay the bull, and the other dog
appears to be dead. Um. But something I noticed also
(24:03):
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 emerge from. And
I wondered, does this mean that the bull uh at
some point had some kind of horns I don't know,
maybe made of a different material coming out of these holes. Uh,
(24:27):
that may be known. And if so, I just didn't
find anything about it. So so I don't know. But
if so, I like, I wonder what those horns were.
And again I don't know if this is significant, but
if you had anything opaque in the pot, as the
pot was emptied, you would first see the bulls raised
head coming up out of that opaque material. But then
(24:48):
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 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. Wow. Yeah, that's a lot to unpack
(25:10):
because on one hand, there's just sort of the I guess,
the basic pleasure to be had, and this potential scene
of like the level of super lowering and revealing horns
and then head and then beast. Uh Not unlike some
of the novelty mugs you'll find today, where there's some
sort of uh like I don't know, like a cartoon
octopus on the bottom of the mug. You drink half
(25:31):
of your hot cocoa and there's an octopus peering up
at you. Uh. I mean that alone is fun. That
they 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? What? Did it take
(25:51):
place beneath a liquid? Did it take place within a caldron?
You know? What is the exact connection? How does having
it at the bottom of the cauldron? Um? Well, what
does that illustrate? What does that do? What is the
function of that? Yeah? I love this, though I want
to be clear, I'm not I am not arguing that
this was used to serve soup. I don't know of
(26:12):
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 bull symbolize? So clearly this
goddess is is, you know, ready to bring the sword
down on its neck, but we don't know what that
act meant. And uh, this is another one of the
(26:34):
mysteries of the cauldron. The National Museum 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 not sure exactly what supports that speculation, but
I don't know. Yeah, personally, I'm just intoxicated by the
(26:56):
mysteries of of like what are the stories that are
be 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 uh and and I I
really wish we could. Yeah, yeah, because they I mean,
the context would have been clear to to to someone
at least a privileged few within the given culture, if
(27:18):
not everyone within the given culture. Uh So, yeah, it's
it's fascinating, fascinating mystery. Thank thank you, thank you. Now
I was looking up to see if there were any
good like papers that were using clues in the images
to try to understand better what stories were being told
(27:39):
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 Gun District Cauldron Symbols of Spring and Fertility, publishing
a journal called and thropo Zoologica in twenty nineteen. And
thropo Zoologica a journal put out by the French Museum
(28:02):
of Natural History, UH 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 zoological identification of a bird species
(28:22):
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 uh what maybe the same figure in
(28:44):
like smaller uh scenes around the big head. And then
the big figure with 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's specifically looking at the birds and says, hey,
wait a second. The birds on this plate have a
(29:05):
very distinctive morphological feature, which is zygo d Actually zygod
actually 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 it
could be. It's obviously not most of them, so so
the only real candidate for this is the common cuckoo
(29:27):
or Coculus canoris. And this is interesting because the cuckoo
connects to a whole other known nexus of of mythological significance,
so Nance writes quote. This species is also identified on
a number of other widespread European artifacts where it was
previously thought to be a bird of prey. The plate
depicts a goddess in triplicate flanked by two cuckoos releasing
(29:50):
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,
that there were only males, and the male birds mated
(30:11):
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 in in
all across Eurasia, this this bird would fly in and
(30:33):
then it would be associated with fertility and sometimes with
European fertility goddesses like the bird might sort of be
it's implied consort. Oh that's fascinating. I mean, that reminds
me of various misinterpretations regarding spontaneous generation or the idea
that the scara beetle, you know, the dung beetle, emerges
(30:57):
from the dong. That it is that it is the
thing that that is borne out of of of the
dirt and of the waist, as opposed to enufl life
form that's making use of this material. 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
(31:18):
are mating with cuckoos, and then they're laying cuckoo eggs,
they're just laying in the nests of other birds and uh,
and so that's known as brood parasitism. But because of
the confusion of like not seeing them with their own nests,
they were just like, yeah, they're only male cuckoos and
they're just uh, they essentially said that they were cook
holding the male birds of other species. Yeah, brood parasitism
(31:42):
is a is a fascinating topic, and of course we
see this in the insect world as well. Yeah, I
mean it's 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 m uh,
the enforcement of of this poll see yes, both with
actions that if sometimes are sometimes compared to almost mafia
(32:06):
tactics and uh. And also just like how does the
egg appear and how is there like a physical deception
or mimicry going on? 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
(32:27):
adapt to that and further blend in oh but sorry.
The other thing about the cuckoo that would make it
probably associated with fertility would be its seasonal migratory patterns,
because this is one of the migratory birds that would
show up in UH in northern stretches of Europe and
Asia in the summer months, and it was so it
might show up in spring. You would say like, oh,
(32:48):
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
fertility associations for that reason. Anyway, I guess we'll call
it there for the Gun District cauldron. But I find
this such an intriguing artifact. I don't know, like, every
time there's a new paper UH providing some some interpretation
(33:11):
of of what's going on in these panels, I want
to know, yeah, yeah, And and by all means, when
you get a chance, you're not driving a vehicle or something,
look up images of the Gun District cauldron. And certainly
if you have access to the Gun District cauldron. If
you can go see it at a museum uh now
or in the future, please do so. If you can
steal it, you know, tuck it into the bridges and
get it out of there and not steal the Gun
(33:32):
District cauldron. Um Now. Cauldrons are also found in rivers,
which 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 River Thames
at Battersea in South London. It's a large riveted bronze
(33:55):
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 Wilkins titled
Cauldrons and flesh Hooks between the Living and the Dead
(34:18):
in Ancient Britain and Ireland. And yeah they they've 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
(34:39):
purpose of pulling cooked meat from a cauldron, and such
tools were also used when working with 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
(35:02):
opposing forces in the 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. Their dark color and gruesome dietary
(35:27):
habits were connected with war and death. These differences may
have represented the competing forces of good and evil in
the world. But both of them will help you get
your meat out of the pot. Yeah, but again, remember
the pot is no mere pot. Uh, there's no you know,
there are no technologies this central to to human existence
(35:48):
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 the universe. That cauldron is
also life itself. It is the whole experience of humanity. Wow,
that's some profound fond Yeah, we didn't even get into
(36:10):
fond There you go, another miniature cauldron. Well yeah we did.
Come on, flash, this is basically fond talking. You can
get any kind of I guess with fond I have
so little experience with it. I just instantly think of
only cheese and bread, and yeah, it's I I for
I forget sometimes that there's a richer tradition of of fond.
I mean there are also other, you know, wonderful traditions
(36:33):
of you know, communal feasting from heated bowls uh, you know,
Chinese hot pot traditions and also um uh and uh
and and certainly that's a that's a fun experience if
you get a chance to partake of that. I don't
think I've ever actually done that. But that's usually with
a not with like um, like an oil like you
might use to cook and fondu. But that's like a
(36:55):
highly flavored broth. Yeah, yeah, broth. And they you can
find you plenty of modern restaurants. In fact, I went
to one, I want to say this was in Florida,
where not only were there 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
(37:17):
add to the hot pot. Oh that sounds awesome. 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 this thing at the center,
It is this thing on the fire. It is the
thing that is then communally used. So it you can
(37:38):
you can easily imagine how it just becomes this hyper
magnet for meaning, especially in the ancient world. You know,
I keep thinking back to this, uh, this plate on
the Gun District cauldron, the one where the giant god
is dunking the warriors in the 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
(37:59):
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 like oh no, oh no,
please don't dunk, or it could be like a wee
arms up thing. It's hard to tell. Well, I think
if 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.
(38:21):
I think a certain amount of fear is is ideal.
But then again, if the interpretation is right, this warrior
is about to maybe be transformed into a higher state
of existence. Yeah maybe so maybe so. Now one thing
the sort of capping off our serious discussion here, and
to be clear, we will be back in another episode
on Cauldron's We have a number of of wonderful cauldron
(38:44):
mythologies to discuss. Uh. We'll also get into at least
a little bit of Dante's Inferno. But uh, this also
brings me back to a recent film we looked at
on Weird How 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 and in history. Um,
(39:08):
he dunked somebody in this vat of like nasty New
York water. Uh, possible time. I guess it's not actually
toxic sludge, but it looks gross. Kill somebody by drowning them,
holding them by the feet, and dunking them. 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
(39:30):
toxic waste. But the street later that is clearly labeled
toxic waste. That confuses the matter. I think it's one
of the flavors of the soda fountain machines. And and
you know, you you 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.
(39:50):
Fair fair enough. Um. Now, to be clear, the individual
in this movie does not re emerge from the cauldron changed.
He's just killed in the bad the bend and the
vat or the bucket or whatever it was, the barrel.
But well, now hold on a second, I would say
that the fact that they are in a Friday movie
(40:14):
and that we will later see another Friday movie with
an almost exactly the same stock character may in fact
me and that these characters are reincarnated throughout each film
and sort of attained new forms. You know, you've always
got your your jock hunk, you've always got your nerd,
you've always got your you know, strict older gentleman um.
(40:36):
You know that they show up again and again. So
this may in fact be a well I guess it
wouldn't be a transformation. 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 I'm just riffing here? No, I say, Okay, maybe
maybe a bad character gets dunked and then in the
next movie they're reincarnated as a final girl. Okay, yeah,
(40:59):
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 you either fall down or you ascend upwards. Possibly. Okay, alright, interesting, interesting,
you know it's it's also interesting if you take this
just context of of immersion and rebirth, which we'll get
(41:19):
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
box to tank? Um, And what is the box to
tank but a kind of magical space cauldron that heals
your wounds and allows you to re emerge. I thought
(41:39):
that scene was weird. Loops Lukes all cut up and
he's in that like weird white diaper. Yeah, that I
remember as a kid thinking that was funny, and 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 we'll discuss that a
little bit in a few sure. I'm also and this
(42:01):
is also reminded of a scene, particularly in the film
adaptation adaptation of Umberto Echoes The Name of the Rose,
in which I believe the second murder has been committed
and the body is found immersed in a vat of
pigs blood. That the blood that is going to be
processed into sausage. Uh. And of course that's a that's
a wonderfully terrifying image. I remember, especially from the movie
(42:23):
trailer that I watched as a child, because here's this
cauldron of blood and two legs sticking out of it. Uh.
And and even that, there's so much, so much going
on there, because here's the cauldron as a vessel of
of 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. Okay, I think
(42:46):
we must cease cauldron ing for today. But there will
be one more cauldron, yes, and like I said, 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 mean time, again, if
you didn't listen to those first two episodes on the
cauld and go back and listen to those, a lot
of good, good content there. Uh, join us for the
(43:08):
next episode. Core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind
published on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the Stuff to Blow
your Mind podcast feed on Monday's. We usually do listener mail.
On Wednesdays, we usually do a monster fact or artifact episode.
That's a short form episode. Amount of fridays. We set
aside most serious concerns and we just talk about a
strange film. Huge thanks, as always to our excellent audio
(43:28):
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 just
to say hello, you can email us at contact at
Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com Stuff to Blow
(43:50):
your Mind. It's production of I Heart Radio. For more
podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
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