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Gods, ritual, and potted plants - Ep 28
167 Plays1 month ago
Why have Tilly and Ash been turned into potted plants? Maybe it’s because they were trying to categorise an ancient and (apparently) wrathful god. But how does one classify a god? How can we identify them archaeologically? Are they people or objects? And most importantly, how will Ash and Tilly stop this recording? Listen in to find out!
Books Mentioned:
- Small Gods (Terry Pratchett)
- Bound to the Battle God (Ruby Dixon)
- Pyramids (Terry Pratchett)
- Odds and Gods (Tom Holt)
- Ye Gods (Tom Holt)
- Godkiller (Hannah Kaner)
- The Raven Tower (Ann Leckie)
- The Realms of the Gods (Tamora Pierce)
- Kaos (Netflix series)
Links
- Article: Are archaeologists afraid of gods?
- Article: Cattle skull ring in Kheshiya
- Article: Taking the bull by the horns (Catalhoyuk)
- Article: Griffins, Myths and Religion
- Article: The Spatial Configuration of Belief
- Book: The Archaeology of Religion
- TeePublic Store link
Contact
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @and.my.trowel
Transcripts
- For rough transcripts of this episode, go to: https://www.archpodnet.com/trowel/28
ArchPodNet
- APN Website: https://www.archpodnet.com
- APN on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/archpodnet
- APN on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/archpodnet
- APN on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/archpodnet
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Transcript
Introduction to Episode 28
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You have my sword. And you have my bow. And my trowel. Hi, you're listening to episode 28 of And My Trowel, where we look at the fantastic side of archaeology and the archaeological side of fantasy.
Tilly's Mysterious Scroll Adventure
00:00:19
Speaker
I'm Tilly. And I'm Ash. And oh I'm so, so glad that you are back from your travels down south, Ash, because I really need some help with this latest quest that I've been working on.
00:00:30
Speaker
Okay, what's the problem? Well, here's the scenario. So I was working in the Archives the other day, collating the information for the Chosen One project for the Wizards, when suddenly a gust of wind blew open the doors, a scroll thumped down onto the desk. I unrolled it carefully. It was a very particularly ancient scroll, and so the edges crumbled under my touch, but eventually I managed to have it flat and could read the language inscribed on it.
00:00:57
Speaker
It was a very, very ancient language, more symbols than lettering. But after checking and comparing with and comparing it with various translations in our library, I worked out that it was requesting a classification for some kind of deity.
How to Classify a God?
00:01:11
Speaker
So then that got me thinking about how one would classify a god. Because if you think about it... Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Tilly. Why did you start working on a quest that was sent in before we were even employed by the Fellowship of the Troll? Why have you done that?
00:01:26
Speaker
ah Well, but because honestly at this point anything is better than trawling through yet more records looking for the air of the world. Oh, yeah, okay, fair enough. i mean But so it seems simple enough to me what you're saying, you know, you just need to classify the particular god type and then allocate it a personality and then bingo, you're done. Well, see, I initially thought it was that straightforward too, but then I automatically thought, of course, of the first fantasy book featuring gods that popped into my head, Small Gods by Terry Pratchett. Oh, you're such a Kevin. You're such a Kevin. And in that book, the gods are actually only as strong as their believers. but So just to give a little summary of the vague premise, there's the one of the biggest religions on the disc, so like on the world, in disc world, is Omdian. And the god, the great god Om is like the head god of Omdian. And he's like this all powerful being and there's millions of people who worship Om and all this kind of thing. And every couple of millennia he comes down to earth,
00:02:30
Speaker
in a reincarnated form to kind of make sure that everyone's still doing the right thing and all this kind of stuff and usually he's like a massive ox or a big strong eagle or like something really big and powerful but this time he comes down and he's only a little tortoise because it turns out that even though omnian is the biggest religion in the world there's only one person who actually believes in om and so that belief is what fuels the god so therefore he's only as strong as that one belief um so also and throughout that that book. The reason it's called small gods is you have lots of little gods, like small gods, which only pop into existence when people actually start believing in them. So also, consequently, if people stop believing in them, which is then the kind of whole premise of the book, because I'm so worried because he's going, Oh, my God, if this one believer dies, or something happens to him, I'm screwed, because then I won't have anyone believing
Gods in Fantasy Literature
00:03:19
Speaker
in me anymore. And then I'll die as a God.
00:03:22
Speaker
So, if we go by that premise, then gods are actually only created once something someone believes in them, so once a person creates them, which could technically make gods a man-made object.
00:03:36
Speaker
Okay, I see. All right. Okay. So that that can definitely throw a different light on the situation. Right? Exactly. So yeah, that's what I wanted your help with because I don't know. It's sort of, but I admit, I also thought initially of just the, okay, well, gods are people. So we classify them as a particular kind of person or a particular kind of concept. But yeah, maybe there's more different things. So I'm curious, I had a quick look on the sort of different fantasy depictions of of kind of gods or goddesses, as we always do, you know go back to the literature. and I found this really interesting blog on different kinds of religion and various fantasy fiction from a ah blog called Legends of Windermere. I'll put the link in the show notes. According to them, there are
00:04:18
Speaker
a couple of different sorts that are kind of the classics in fantasy fiction. So you've got actual like Jesus Christianity, which they argue is very unimaginative. yeah Because if you're doing a fantasy universe, why would you make it Christian? But anyway, but then you also have existing kind of ancient pantheons. So like Greek and Roman and Norse, like all of those kind of things.
00:04:38
Speaker
And then you have a two-god system with one good, one evil. So like that's the sort of classic as well. Then you have gods that are worshipped but never seen. So kind of intangible gods, I guess. You have warring gods, which then you know it's the cause of their disagreements and their war which sort of pushes the plot forward and causes all of the issues usually. You have gods that are actually physically present in the world.
00:05:00
Speaker
And then you have kind of household deities. So like those ones that protect the home or like half gods or like all those kinds of things. And they sort of vary ah between all of these different ones. So those are the kind of examples that this blog came up with. But I'm curious, what books do you know that have featured this concept? Or like, what kinds of examples do you have from these ones?
00:05:19
Speaker
Hmm. question. I would also say if you ever call a God within their hearing a person, I think they'd be very upset with you. Probably. Probably. sure like We might have to reassess the like classification system. Don't say that in front of them. They'll take you into a tree. Yeah, it is true. So, well, books, fantasy fiction books, I think the first one I would think of is God Killer by Hannah Keener. Keener? Keener? Hannah? Keener? I'm not sure, actually. Hannah Keener. We'll see if you know. and were a cool yeah That's a cool one-name thing, Hannah Keener. Yeah, it's very good. And and she's the the Fallen Gods trilogy, where gods basically, they are physical manifestations of people's belief. Oh, so kind of like small gods, yeah. Yeah. And so like, you know, the more people that believe in the more powerful they are. Yeah.
00:06:14
Speaker
And then it's sort of like, there's a few different gods within God Killer. And I'm not going to do any spoilers, because there's quite a lot of spoilers. But there's like, Skitty, who's the god of white lies, but they also then bind themselves to a young, noble person. And that's kind of odd. But then there's like, imperson in person, in person, or like they become that person or that person becomes them? Or is it just like a They're kind of bound to them as if the person is an object, I think. I've only read halfway through the book. Which it happens to me quite a lot. I report back i just get sidetracked like on a side quest and then that's me off for me. I mean, this whole thing is my side quest at the moment.
00:07:04
Speaker
But yeah, so then the the bit that I remember quite vividly was the river there's a river god in it, that because there the main character is called Kissen, and she, her family, have been killed by god. It tells you in the blurb. So that's not that's not a spoiler. And basically she's like a paladin-like mercenary who kind of kills gods um in a world where... She's the god killer. Yeah, she is the god killer. So then the in the world where like the king of the world called Midrin has you know outlawed gods, banned them because they're too powerful or they can become too powerful. So basically worship is
00:07:44
Speaker
is not a thing. And then these gods will manifest because certain almost pagan beliefs still are around. You can't stop it. So like the river god, there's an idol that gets dropped into the river, and then she but attracts this god to this river and and then has to break the idol in order to kill the god. um but Which yeah, in that case, I guess it's more like indeed than being objects.
00:08:09
Speaker
Yeah, like yeah it it is an object. yeah And then it becomes a divine being by people's belief in that object or a belief in that concept of the God. okay which yeah And that's where it comes from. And that also, and that's similar actually to, I'm just thinking, because yeah, that's very similar to in small gods, although then you don't have necessarily objects, it's more indeed the belief itself. So you have to break the belief in order to break the God rather than Yeah, so GOC tells you that God can come back because people's belief is still there. So yeah if you break the object, it'll get rid of it
Modern Media Portrayals of Gods
00:08:47
Speaker
for a while. But that god like she's encountered that God a few but few times and killed it all over and over again.
00:08:54
Speaker
I also like, I'm just thinking of a more Terry Pratchett one, so there's another one called Pyramids, which is about the Kingdom of, and when you say it out loud, it's the Kingdom of Jellybaby, but it's spelled like D-J-E-L-I, like it's, you know, but B-E-B-I or something, so it's like,
00:09:11
Speaker
but So it's when you're reading it, it's one of those classic ones that when you're reading it, you don't really notice. And it's only if you so try to say it out loud that you're like, hey, but that one's kind of inspired by ancient Egypt. So they're building pyramids and ha ha. And in that one, the yeah, the Pharaoh is like the God.
00:09:29
Speaker
as in the same as with ancient Egypt. But then at some point, yeah, and I don't want to spoil it, but basically, yeah it's the it's a similar thing in that the belief of the people have created these gods, even though actually, one of the sort of main people made up those gods. like his but you know Because there's so much belief in them, they are now real. like It's it's you know one of those kind of classic things.
00:09:55
Speaker
So okay, so there seem to be a couple of examples of that. Do you know anywhere you have, like, because I'm thinking of the first one I thought of when I thought this was actually a romance fantasy called Bound to the Battle God by Ruby Nixon, yeah and so which was just really funny. It was really good. Because I was basically looking into like parallel universe books. And this one's like a parallel universe one. So she gets taken through to this alternative world. And she's like an anchor, isn't she? Yeah, well, yeah. So this is a thing. And it's i don't I don't know how much to say without spoiling it because you sort of only really learn all of a lot of things throughout, but basically there's gods and every so often they come down to earth and there are physical manifestations of themselves. So they are people, they're not like inhabiting people or they're not you know doing things, so they're actual people walking around, but they're the gods as well.
00:10:45
Speaker
But now they could be killed because they're people, which is quite interesting. so And yeah, I won't say too much else because I think that'll be a spoiler. But yeah, that's an interesting one because
Archaeological Perspectives on Gods
00:10:55
Speaker
then they're...
00:10:56
Speaker
a lot of it is, the beginning is, you know, him having to learn that like he has to wear clothes and he has to eat and all of this kind of stuff because he's like used to it. I don't want to. Exactly. yeah yeah I think he talks about it at some point and he's going, but that is disgusting. They're going, yes, yes, but you know, it's necessary. Which, yeah. And that's in the, I'm sure it's in the the aspect and anchor series. So that'll give you an idea of maybe where the plots go, because that's actually the series title. Oh, okay. Well, yeah. And you also have another fantasy author who I really like is called Tom Holt. I don't know if you heard of him? I know, I'd never heard of him. And I just found one of his books on my parents bookshelf. And I don't know if he's written anything recently, actually, I need to have a look. But he's written loads and very funny as well. They're comic fantasy. And they're the kind of books that you read. And then it's only sort of halfway through, you finally get what's happening. like, you're like, oh, but it's very entertaining, the whole way through. So you enjoy reading it. And then it's only at some point that you're like, Oh, I get it, they're actually in a computer or, you know, something like that. It's sort of this whole thing. And he's written quite a few, which are almost sort of parodies of various like religious pantheon. So odds and gods, you've got like a retirement home for the gods. And
00:12:12
Speaker
They're all like going around with things, and then there's one called Ye Gods, where it's like the ancient Greek gods and myth myths, and Jason is the main character, so he has to do his Golden Fleece, but like he lives in like so modern suburbia, so he has to kind of work around that, which then they they're also their actual people, like the gods are actual characters. yeah yeah Well, there's also, i've i don't and I haven't read this series, but I was thinking about it because it's on my TBR, which is extensive and never-ending. But the the Raven Tower by Ann Leckie, the narrator of the book is a god. It's the god of strength and patience of the hill, but the god inhabits a large boulder, which joe like it is the boulder.
00:13:02
Speaker
So the whole story is from the perspective of a boulder? Kind of, yeah. So it's split into two different perspectives. But one of the narrators is is the the the strength and and patience of the Hail God. ah But then the gods only speak the truth. So if they see something that's like a lie, they expend energy.
00:13:22
Speaker
um mean And then, but then it means that the world changes because of the lie, and then... So that it's not a lie anymore? Yeah, so the God has spoken it, so that it's fallible, but then the God, if it expends too much energy, it will die. Oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah. So they're not necessarily immortal. No. Because they make a mistake. Only if the high know they Which if that isn't a good message, just I don't know Well, wait, actually, the word immortal just reminds me of another series called the Immortals series, um which know by Tamora Pierce, who was one of my favourite authors ever growing up, I devoured her books when I was a teenager. And I think it's called The realm yeah the Realms of the Gods is the fourth book. And in that one, you actually meet the gods because the MCs venture to the divine realms, which is where the gods live. But that's sort of interesting one because the gods don't actually live in the gods of people.
00:14:23
Speaker
But they don't live on Earth, so they have their own like little realm. And do they interfere with Earth? Or do they do? They do, but I think not kind of...
00:14:36
Speaker
It's not like a whole thing where if they have a battle that affects Earth, it's more like the effects of Earth, they'll respond to kind of thing. So they'll respond to actions of people and that kind of thing. And they're kind of, it's almost like a pantheon a little bit. So you have like a father God and a mother God, and then you have different sub gods with like the gods of the animals, the gods of different water or stone, you know, and all of that kind of thing. So it's sort of more similar to the ancient Greek ones, but less Zeus getting angry.
00:15:03
Speaker
um kind of trees And basically just ruining everything. yeah so Yeah, and those kind of pop up throughout. But yeah, they're sort of more alluded to, I guess, throughout most of the books, they don't really feature as main characters until the realms of the gods. so Also, I would just do a plug for a new series that's come up on Netflix, if anyone, it which is all god related, and because we're talking about Zeus, Chaos. Oh, I've seen that. We've got Jeff Goldblum. yeah Yeah, it's very good. He plays a very scary, very realistic Zeus. and i would And that also ties into belief and how the gods came into being. But I would like, spoil it. I'd recommend watching it because it does tie into this episode quite well. look yeah Okay, i need to I need to try it because I have Netflix again, actually. I didn't have it for ages and now I have it again.
00:15:55
Speaker
It's very good. And it has like, you know, all the, the, the three main, like most popular myths, I think. but um Okay. and just But yeah, so I mean, there's the ones that were sort of mentioned in the blog, but then there's also, I mean, even just in the ones we've had, there's a couple of different possibilities for gods kind of out there, like in person or elusive or representing a people representing an object just based on belief. So yeah, there's lots of different possibilities for how we could classify them.
00:16:26
Speaker
But the majority so far seems to be there's real people, but we'll not call real people because they've got the gag. But you know what I mean? As they can physically interact with the world as beings. So then they'd be identified as potentially people within the archaeological record.
00:16:46
Speaker
Yeah, but then what about those situations, like we said as well, where the gods only exist because of the belief of everyday people? Are they still people? Like, are they independent beings in their own right? Or are they manmade creations? And therefore, are they people? Or are they objects? Oh, god. Yeah, exactly. But what type? No, I mean, mean I mean, like, oh, goodness, that's like a question.
00:17:12
Speaker
I think this was for a cup of tea. yeah So I'll go and I'll put the cauldron on and we'll be right back.
00:17:22
Speaker
Thanks for the tea. It's made me feel a bit calmer about the situation. Good, good. Okay, I think it's fine. We can work this out. So according to the fantasy, there are three potential situations here. Okay. yeah One, gods are independently created by people or created people.
00:17:43
Speaker
Right? Two, gods are man-made and therefore could be classified as objects. Yeah. Which I'm sorry Zeus. Three, gods are intangible concepts. Yeah, which is a bit more complicated. Okay, we'll get there. So all we need to do is think of how we would identify these in the three situations archaeologically.
00:18:11
Speaker
Okay. All right. Okay. Yes. I like lists. Okay. I like breaking down tasks this way. But, uh, okay. So if we start with the first one, then gods, gods are people. Sorry, Zeus. As Zeus, if you're listening, assume we're not talking about you. Aphrodite and, and all of them, and Hera. No, she'd be the worst. Oh, good. Yeah. Any gods listening, this is purely hypothetical. This is hypothetical. We're just popcasters. This is a sort of experiment rather than anything else. It's not heresy, I swear. Exactly. Right.
00:18:40
Speaker
oh ah you Are you a potted plant now? I'm not, that's good. i don't I wouldn't know if I was, right? That's the worst part of course. They sometimes make you into something and then they don't make you, you don't realise you're something else. Are we potted plants right now? Are we potted plants? We'll make the recording. I mean, thank goodness I pressed the recording button before if not turned into potted plants. This might just be the longest recording ever because I can't press it off. I really want like art now of us as potted plants.
00:19:11
Speaker
That could be our next tea public tea show.
00:19:18
Speaker
Yes, okay. Right, yes, serious podcast, serious archaeology. So okay, so if we go for option one, gods are people and again, yes, disclaimers to anyone listening. So how would we identify them archaeologically? I mean, I guess if gods are people, then they're just really high status people.
00:19:39
Speaker
They have to be, because they would be the ones in the big burial mounds, man. But would they be in burial mounds? This is what I was just thinking. Because they're immortal, so they don't die, unless they've lied, of course. They've lied, or they've been oh their idol's been... snow and and But then it's the idol, then it's the object.
00:19:55
Speaker
Oh my goodness, this is confusing. Right? I mean, could they have a burial mound? Well, well, I mean, technically, not a burial mound, but gods have temples, right? That's true. Yeah, temples. And if they're living in like the divine realms or something, then they'd have houses there as well. And burial mounds sometimes have gods in them, because the if you think about it, this is maybe a tangent, but like May's Howe, which is the Neolithic chambered cairn on Orkney, when the Vikings ah broke in to evade a storm one night, and they thought there was a little gods in it.
00:20:35
Speaker
And they were worried. Yeah, they were worried there was bad spirits. And what is a spirit if not a god? Because that's... Well, this is something else, I guess we need to... True. I feel I should make some sort of disclaimer here before we go too much further. We're talking about gods and we're talking about the archaeological representation of kind of God's religion in that respect. But, of course, not all societies in the past or not all fantastical societies would have had a belief that involved what we would think of as a god.
00:21:01
Speaker
So I feel like we should just state that now. like yeah Don't worry. So I mean, for example, in archaeology, you have shamanism, which is a very pervasive kind of system of belief that you find all over the place in different parts of the world. But we can't go into all of these different things in one episode because we just don't have the time. So that will be a topic for another episode.
00:21:21
Speaker
but It completely will be, yes. But just to clarify, before we go further, when we're talking about spirits, maybe we should... I mean, yes, some spirits can be gods, and some gods can be spirits, but also some spirits can be part of everything else. Yeah, exactly. exactly yeah yeah And we're also talking about not just monotheism, but polytheism, lots of different gods, we are not taking different hierarchies of gods, different all sorts of things. Also, there's a really interesting, I think I have this in the notes later on, but there was a really interesting book that i found when I was looking up stuff for this episode, but I didn't have time to read it all, called The Archaeology of Religion, which if anyone's interested in reading more about that, it's really interesting. It has chapters on the archaeological like identification of different world religions, importantly written by archaeologists from those regions. So that's quite important, I think, because then you have to have an important like an understanding of the religious culture.
00:22:12
Speaker
but like the context of the culture before you attempt to identify things. But there's also chapters on like the ethics of archaeological approaches to religion and like gender in the archaeology of religion. So yeah, a very interesting book, I would recommend. I'll put the link to it. It's fully
Gods as Man-Made Objects
00:22:26
Speaker
up. You can read the whole thing online. So I will ah put that in the show notes. Anyway, sorry, diverging to God's people. So he imagines in temples and then burial mound. So you think, so yeah, I guess there could be gods.
00:22:39
Speaker
almost like little ghosts living living in a... ah but It could be. and the manifest if if If it's gods or people, it will stick to the people because I'm thinking I'm already tangent off. But yeah, I mean, to it totally could be. I mean,
00:22:54
Speaker
If you think about where religion kind of starts as well, usually it's in the kind of ritualistic spaces, right? Yeah, true. like If you look at the very early bits of Christianity, it starts in graveyards and things like that. So yes, that's how you identify it anyway. like So you can see it. Yeah. Yeah. And And actually there was a really interesting paper I read as well called The Spatial Configuration of Belief by James C. Wright. It's a bit of an older article. It's from like the nineties, but it's still quite interesting because it talks about, so he does different ways that you could interpret Mycenaean. Mycenaean? Mycenaean.
00:23:30
Speaker
but That one. um but I like how you started answering with such confidence. You're like, yes, mailda it's clearly this. Oh, wait, hang on.
00:23:43
Speaker
I don't trust my pronunciation. And you say it with confidence, nobody knows. ah My Syrian belief. So the different ways you can interpret that belief by looking at the kind of spatial configurations of the different buildings. So like he was looking at whether you could tell that religious activities were like family oriented or wider community oriented, or whether kind of the religion and the gods and that kind of thing were more external to the sort of society and community or whether they were really associated with the living spaces, which was also quite interesting to see how the people develop, which I guess you, that's hard to say that whether then they'd be people, but if the gods were people and where they'd be living within relation to kind of the town is also important to to think about if you understand the religious context.
00:24:30
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I mean, there's two points in my head floating around, but like the first is that, you know, I did a course in that uni of the archaeology of religion. and And we were looking at the Abrahamic religions and how they kind of like started. And a lot of the the houses were converted into either kind of temples or then they were also converted into churches. And you had them living side by side with each other. So people were living there, but then also you'd have like this like holy font in like one of the back rooms and things like that. And and and so if you're if you're a god, having a house that is your temple, it's also quite a good one. But then you also think of like Mount Olympus and then the landscape, exactly that yeah that is actually a place in the landscape. So that is where the gods live. yeah
00:25:19
Speaker
yeah so yeah yeah true. So yeah, looking at that kind of thing. And then also looking at like iconography, like pictures. So I'm thinking like the ancient Egyptian wall paintings, which show the gods is like larger than the everyday people. So you can then identify that like, Oh, that's a God, because that's how they're depicted in kind of that particular type of thing. So Okay, so if God's a ah people, you would expect to see kind of their living spaces, looking at how they're depicted in like the art or that kind of thing. And so the general selves. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, general like signs of high status and and kind of power and and that kind of thing. And maybe in burial mounds, but that's something we'd have to look at further, I guess. That sounds like a whole other episode. yeah Okay, so what about option two then, that gods are then man-made and maybe objects? How would we? Identify. Immediately when I think of like objects and I think of god figures, I think of like the Venus figurines. Right? Yeah. yeah Which have different style variations and typologies depending on where they've come from. Yeah, yeah. And actually you also have, so I did skim read through this archaeology of religion book and in the one about archaeology of hindus Hinduism, they mentioned the terracotta figurines, which are apparently very prevalent in prehistoric India. And the mother goddess figure is, continues to be a really important aspect, like all the way up until like more recent Hindu religion. So like the way that it's, it might have developed differently over time, but yeah, it's kind of, it's still that, that linking thing is the little terracotta objects and sort of the representation of the God.
00:27:00
Speaker
So the the kind of, the core of the god remains, but then the different and stylistic interpretations change? Yeah, which would also be an interesting way to see, you know, if you have like evidence of development over time or like cultural variation. Another paper, I went really into the reading with this one, I was really interested in the background. So there's a paper by Kenneth Leimer called Griffin's Myths and Religions.
00:27:24
Speaker
And he looked at the different depictions of griffins, like the mythological creature in both like historic sources, but also he looked at artistic representations. And I mean, the conclusion was that there was an extremely complex relationship between like griffin imagery and material culture. But the sort of main point he was making that like there's multiple different cultures that shared this similar iconography in terms of sort of recognisable griffins, but that didn't mean that they were homogenous culture.
00:27:53
Speaker
yeah the yeah sort of griffins meant something different to each person. So I guess if you're thinking of like a God, it's so dependent on the people who are, it's so dependent on the culture. So even if multiple cultures have the same sort of God, if they're manmade, you would expect to see some variation of that because it's sort of so dependent on the culture of like the social context around the God.
00:28:14
Speaker
Yeah, and to just like expand that a little bit to to outside of objects, you also would see that archeologically in the place of worship too. ah you Yeah, you'd see like, I mean, if you look at like, obviously I've been done south, so with I think I've got the Neolithic on the brain.
00:28:30
Speaker
but like Like, if you look at, you know, any type of standing stone sort of structure, the stones change constantly. And that's usually generational as well, you know, yeah they change it because the representation of what it means to them changes, yeah you know, the belief changes. But that would be more indicative of it being indeed then based on the people rather than the God. Like, as in, because if yeah it is like an independent being, then they would be like, hey, what are you doing? Excuse me, where's my nice temple gone? yeah Why is it now this? I'm so confused. yeah That would also be hilarious book to read if you were just like... They're like, what happened to my temple? They're like, excuse me! Why am I suddenly dressed like this? Like, if everything sort of changed constantly. and yeah right Why do I not have two heads? I'm so confused. Where's my eighth arm gone?
00:29:22
Speaker
Why are they in the song? Lots of different stuff. They were hilarious. Yeah, definitely. Okay, so
Challenges in Identifying Intangible Gods
00:29:29
Speaker
so yeah, that would be sort of the main the sort of main difference, I guess, between those two things. Yeah, so they're not independent beings. yeah They're dependent on the the social context and the opinions around them. Yeah, exactly. and Okay, so then third option, option three, gods are intangible concepts, which I would argue was the most difficult to identify archaeology. I'll check. Absolutely. I could see that word. and where's my Where's the buzzer? We didn't we have a little buzzer. That's exactly what it is though, isn't it? Yeah, basically. which yeah and i So actually, and I've also found a really funny paper called, well, funny. I mean, it was an interesting paper, but I found it quite amusing. It was titled, Are Archaeologists Afraid of Gods? Absolutely, I'm very proud of them. Timothy Insel. But it was really interesting because he he talked about all the difference between like religion, ritual, you know all of that kind of thing.
00:30:26
Speaker
But I have a a very quick quote, which is, yeah, part of the problem lies with the term religion itself. Archaeologists appear frightened of using it as a descriptive device and hence recourse is made to ritual. The archaeologists favourite catch all category for odd or otherwise not understood behaviour, which I thought was just kind of perfect. But then yeah, it's that whole the word itself has that kind of encapsulation. But yeah, going going for the sort of odd or otherwise not understood behavior, I think that that would be the the easiest way almost to identify something ritual if if if also potentially a god like an intangible god.
00:31:03
Speaker
Yes, like like a strange building or one that doesn't have, a well usually ritual is something that doesn't seem to have a function. Yeah. Like a practical function. Yeah, so the first the first thing I thought of was like animal skulls put in the walls, which seems to be like a really common thing in lots of different places. So like in Chateau Lhoyuk you have that, in a place called Keshia you have that, I think somewhere in Iceland even you had that as well. like Well, yeah, or even like Claude Hallinow is thinking of in the US, which is like these round houses, but then they have people that are like, all and i
00:31:40
Speaker
anna ma anna to and ho and but but we should just call this episode Ash and Tillicott for now.
00:31:50
Speaker
that's every episode anatomically anatomically correct people but they're actually made up of lots of different people and then yeah and they're buried within the the um threshold of these houses oh so you'll have someone with like the arm from one person yeah from another person and the skull of someone else what but they look like a whole skeleton oh that would be so confusing as an archaeologist it's brilliant It's the most fantastic thing because you'd be like, wait, that person was really strong, but that person's muscle... signal Oh, what? yeah great oh That's a child's rib or like something like that. oh So yeah, they have, and I think they're made up of like two two or three people okay and and hundreds of years apart.
00:32:29
Speaker
as well. right So like that odd to know is yeah mode to us modern humans, that's strange. We wouldn't do that. We wouldn't put anyone on an ex carnation platform necessarily, not in Western culture anyway. no And that's usually where we have to archaeologists but tend to unfortunately unfortunately come from. And so, you know, we we don't understand it, so we go, yeah, that's ritual. If we put the term religion on it because of our modern connotations to defend archaeologists and our fear of gods, it's like, you know, we can't say that because religion has too many connotations for us. yeah It had also is quiet.
00:33:07
Speaker
It's very relevant really only to our modern definitions of religion, like the term religion itself is pretty new. so Yeah, exactly. It has it almost ah a dogma and a structure to it, religion, but we don't actually know if they had that in in the past in prehistory in the past yet. Yeah, exactly.
00:33:23
Speaker
But yeah,
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:33:24
Speaker
it's that kind of stuff. So there's kind of strange, strange strange odd behaviors that these strange prehistoric people have. Which is not true. I think it's doing their thing. There's another, there's a, I can't remember, there's another like Mesolithic burial site that has just like loads of pets on spikes and everyone's like,
00:33:49
Speaker
That's a little bit scary. Back then, maybe that was completely normal. you know sot know yeah So that's why we got the the kind of dissonance between the two. yeah you know ritual And I guess the problem is also ritual. It doesn't have to necessarily, like we said earlier, relate to a god. So that's kind of the most difficult one to to link with ah with a god.
00:34:16
Speaker
Yeah, because gods could be quite modern too, I suppose. It could be the concept of nature, or movement, or people. or you okay okay but if i'm Okay, but if I need to focus on gods then, maybe especially the first two options, have a look at them, see if I can differentiate there. So all I really need to do is have a look at like old site reports from that time and place, look at the depictions of the gods like over time, and see if I can correlate any of the archaeological evidence there with like one of those, maybe the main two options. Maybe I'll try to sort of avoid the intangible gods option that we've discussed today. Yeah, I think that's a good way to go about it. That's perfect. oh Okay, thank you so much Ash for helping me, I really appreciate it.
00:34:58
Speaker
No problem. After all, I am a merciful God. Ugh, I knew we wouldn't be able to avoid that.
00:35:07
Speaker
but Well, that's about it for this episode of and my trial. We hope that you enjoyed this side quest. If you have any suggestions for topics for future episodes, as always, please do get in contact by email or social media, all of our contact info, as well as all of the references and further reading. Plus we've started to add the books that we mentioned. They are found in the show notes. Also very exciting. We mentioned it briefly. We have much, much people. Match, match, match. They're real. I know, right? It's exciting. So you can now order our brand new Fellowship of the Trial designs on the APN T public store, along with a range of other fun and funky designs from the APN and the different shows on there. So we'll put the link to that in our show notes too. ah So yeah, have a look at that.
00:35:54
Speaker
You know, that painting on the wall over there is starting to look a little bit more dilapidated than it was before. Which painting? That one there. The portrait's the old and extremely withered man. Oh, that painting. Huh. Yeah, you're right. Hmm. Maybe we can get someone in to help us restore it? Do you know, I think I know just the person.
00:36:24
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his ah RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Cultural Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Rachel Rodin. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at w www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.