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A bundle of Viking Age text-speak - Teabreak 28
507 Plays4 months ago
What’s the link between two dirt balls, a bundle of five silver arm-rings, and a golden bird pin? They were all found in the Galloway Hoard! This month, Matilda is joined by Dr Adrián Maldonado, a medieval archaeologist who is currently researching this unique and fascinating find. Tune in to find out the difference between medieval history and medieval archaeology, why people buried things in the ground in the past, and what any of this has to do with the coffins of saints.
Transcripts
- For rough transcripts of this episode go to https://www.archpodnet.com/teabreak/28
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- Name: Dr Adrián Maldonado
- email: a.maldonado@nms.ac.uk
- Twitter: @amaldon
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Host
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. um You're listening to Tea Break Time Travel, where every month we look at a different archaeological object and take you on a journey into their past.
00:00:17
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to episode 28 of Tea Break Time Travel. I am your host, Matilda Ziebreich. Today, I am serving a black vanilla tea. It's one of those days where I need a black tea. Don't drink black tea that much these days, but today is one of those days.
Welcoming Dr. Adrian Maldonado
00:00:31
Speaker
And joining me on my tea break today is archaeologist, Dr. Adrian Maldonado. So welcome, Adrian. Thank you for joining me. And what are you drinking this morning or today?
00:00:41
Speaker
Oh, i'm thanks for having me. It's wonderful to be on here. And I'm on the black coffee as usual. What else is there in life? Yeah, darker, even stronger. It's one of those weeks. And you do, is it always black coffee, no cream, milk, flake? Oh, well, these days, let me tell you, when I when i go out, it's a oat milk, flat white. But when I'm home, there's no time for anything. is like coffee Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah. I must say there's one day a week where I have to travel in to be in person at work and I go by the train station. I always pass a little coffee shop and that's the one day where I i treat myself to some caramel latte macchiato or something or other. But if I'm home, it's just... And you know what? You know what? You deserve it. Exactly. Thank you. See, it's here. It's on the podcast, it said. um Well, thank you for joining me today. I hope that the black tea and the black coffee kicks in.
Dr. Maldonado's Archaeological Journey
00:01:36
Speaker
on this morning during the recording. So I should actually say to those listening in, for anyone who listens to And My Trowel, the other podcasts that I host here on the Archaeology Podcast Network, you will probably be familiar with the name, Dr. Adrian Maldonado, because we had him on to talk actually about the same topic, but in a slightly different way. But of course, this is a very different podcast, very different theme. So
00:01:59
Speaker
For those who haven't listened to you before or who don't know who you are, perhaps you could tell us a little bit about yourself. So how, first of all, how did you first become kind of interested in archaeology? Because you are indeed an archaeologist by training, correct?
00:02:11
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. But i I only came to archaeology kind of later in life. It's a pretty common story. The more archaeologists you speak to, you know, some people were kind of born to do it and they were sort of, you know, born, travel in hand watching Indiana Jones or whatever, whatever the kids are, whatever, getting the kids into archaeology these days.
00:02:31
Speaker
But some people, and I think most people actually kind of fall into it based on their other previous interests. you know And so for me, I was just always like a little nerd. you know i read I read a lot of fantasy fiction as a kid. I read a lot of Tolkien. I read The Hobbit way too early in life and just kind of you know messed me up. and and And so I was into medieval things. No, that definitely not. And so when I went to college, I thought I wanted to do medieval things and so history. I did an undergraduate degree in history that was at Harvard. And and that was fine. But, you know, I started there there was something sort of not satisfying enough about it. And in my third year of the undergrad, I went on a semester abroad
00:03:16
Speaker
to Scotland because we had a good program there, and it was a medieval university. This is St. Andrews University, which was founded in the 15th century. And if you've ever been to St. Andrews in Scotland, it's a glorious place. It's got medieval castle, cathedral ruins, and the streets of the town are actually the same medieval streets. So they've been there for about 800 years or so or more. And so everything about it was just tangible. And so being there and studying castles or whatever the class was that I was taking there, you know, that that's what kind of blew my mind and thought, and I thought I could actually be here and study this stuff and touch it and feel it and be among it. And so at that point, I decided to switch to archaeology and so finish my undergraduate.
00:04:04
Speaker
And I found a degree program in medieval archaeology specifically. yeah and And in Britain, there's only a few universities that do that. Glasgow University was one of them, and it was in Scotland, which is where I wanted to come back to. So that's when I came to do archaeology, and then I never looked back. I stayed in Glasgow all the way through to my PhD. And medieval archaeology, so speaking as a pre-historian, because I do have contact with ah medievalists and sort of medieval historians, so is there different what what would be the difference between medieval archaeology, normal archaeology, medieval history? like How does it fit in? Yeah, I mean it's the same, obviously the same techniques and a lot of the same theories, of course. We record using the same forms, you know, yeah when we're out of the field. But with medieval archaeology, you are in a position where you still don't have everybody's name, and you don't always have calendar dates, but you do have some. You do have historical names, you have kingdom names, and so you kind of know where you are.
00:05:10
Speaker
on the map and you do occasionally have historical figures as well so it's archaeology but you have to have a sense of the historical sources as well and that is a really dangerous game as anybody who does historical archaeology can tell you because the material culture the objects left behind are not telling you the same story as texts that people left behind you know the histories that they wrote are the things they wanted to write down, and the archaeology is kind of what they didn't intend to be remembered, you know? So is it, I guess it's almost the perfect combination, because you always hear about the kind of conflict between historians and archaeologists, even though, I don't know, I've never personally experienced it too much, but I know a lot of people who have. Would you say medieval archaeology is kind of the perfect combo?
00:05:58
Speaker
I, well, I think it's perfect, but a lot of people, and not a lot of people would agree. And I remember, I don't remember actually being there, but I remember in my master's program, as you're reading about the history of the discipline, there was a huge row in the 90s, especially in the 80s and 90s, amongst medieval archaeologists and they were arguing amongst themselves like, are we, you know, how much are we supposed to deal with all these texts? Maybe we should ignore them all together, you know, and maybe we should be like more like the prehistoric and just kind of let the material speak for itself. And then the other side was saying, well, no, we have this glorious privilege of having a few names and dates and, you know, prehistoric would kill to have a few names and dates. I don't know how you feel about that.
00:06:45
Speaker
um Well, it' it is that thing, right? it's the It's this form of bias, but at the same time, it's another form of evidence. So yeah, it's kind of... Yeah, yeah and it's just, yeah, so I mean, the the fight was really about, you know, are the historical sources kind of blinding us or biasing us or leading us down paths that we wouldn't ordinarily go down. And so there was a real sort of struggle for the soul of medieval archaeology. And I think we came out of it pretty well. I think we all speak to each other still. and yeah
00:07:19
Speaker
not too many battles okay well no it's good to know no i know I know a couple of students who are having that kind of conflict at the moment of, oh gosh, do I go pure archaeology? Do I go more historical archaeology? And they're finding it difficult to marry the two together, let's say. Follow your heart, man. Follow your heart. That's all I can say. There you go. That's the the theme of this today's episode. to Anyone listening, just go with what you want to do. Ford your own way.
Medieval Monasteries and Personal Interests
00:07:44
Speaker
And of course, this is a time travel podcast. We will be journeying back in time today. And I do always ask my guests if you could travel back in time, or actually, I think one of them threw me completely out of the works and said, well, actually, I'd go forward in time. That's not the point of this podcast. But anyway, feel free to say if you want to travel forward. But I always ask if you could travel back in time.
00:08:05
Speaker
Where would you go or when would you go and why? Now, this is the kind of thing that I think archaeologists often get asked, you know, there's a stereotype, I think of, you know, archaeologists are people who can't deal with the present and so they bury ourselves.
00:08:21
Speaker
They go back and say, it's like an escapist thing. you yeah You'd rather be living in the past. And this is a big theme of that last Indiana Jones movie. Live in the past. Or do you want to live right now? And you know I won't spoil the film, but he has a crisis himself. But I think i think that's a completely fake thing. I know enough about the past that I never want to go there.
00:08:52
Speaker
It's one of those things you think, I would die in the first two seconds. I would die immediately. I would immediately. And and even the best case scenario, I don't die immediately. You infect somebody and then they die immediately. yeah You know that that Simpsons episode where they go back to the dinosaur times and the Homer sneezes and then one dinosaur falls on the other like a set of dominoes like bam, bam, bam. I haven't seen that one. It would be exactly like that. yeah yeah All the dinosaurs just topple over like a row of dominoes. Immediately they all die. But no, okay, yes, I would not like to permanently live in the past. It sounds terrifying. But if I could go without any consequences and and just look, just have a look like as if through a telescope, let's say.
00:09:44
Speaker
like Or it's a drone. Yeah, that's right. No, like a drone, like an invisible drone. Okay, you're just sending the robots. That's right, yeah. If we could just send a camera back, yeah then theyre obviously, obviously, obviously I would love to go back to one of the monasteries that I study. I study the monasteries of Scotland, early Christianity, these early centuries of the Christian religion. You know, you think you know Christianity, but then you go back to the early and medieval period and people are doing some pretty wild stuff. But also but there are they're also coming up with the kinds of things that we take for granted. you know The kinds of ideas about heaven and hell are actually being worked out at the time. And the kinds of monuments and statues and sculptures that you see, are they're all kind of being invented, really, at this time. and and And one of the monasteries that I always have been fascinated by is one called Iona, which is now so remote. It's in an island off of an island off of the west coast of Scotland. But in the medieval period, it would have been like the Oxford University of its day. I think even I have heard of Iona. Yeah. Oh, nice one. There you go. We even got one of the historians. You vaguely in my periphery, but I know nothing about it.
00:11:02
Speaker
Well, I'm very happy about that. That's great. Yeah. And it's just a right now it's one of Scotland's main tourist attractions for those who can get out there. But back in the day, it would have been, you know, sort of super busy. It would have had hundreds of people ah visiting all the time and working there and living there. Kings and queens were kind of sent there, you know, to kind of retire in the monastery and and obviously be buried there in some cases, you know. So this was And yeah, it had one of the biggest libraries, perhaps, wow anywhere in Britain and Ireland at that time. It was a huge center of learning known across the continent. And, you know, we've done a lot of work about how much of the monastery that you see now was actually the genuine, if you like, that the sort of authentic early medieval monastery. And, you know, we've got radiocarbon dates that suggest to us that certain features that you can see now
00:11:58
Speaker
There's one chapel called St. Columba Shrine. There's a cobbled path a street that leads up to it called the Street of the Dead. How wonderful is that? That sounds like a Tolkien-esque, I mean. Doesn't it? Exactly. and and And that street is sort of lined with really tall, high crosses of stone. and And so some of these things we've been able to date back to the eighth century. And so they they genuinely are what some of those aspects that you can see when you walk there are. Yeah, if you know the the monastery goes back to the sixth century, but the eighth century is pretty close. Yeah. So I think what we're what we can still see now is the point at which the monastery becomes
00:12:40
Speaker
a pilgrimage destination, you know, an internationally renowned famous place. And so they're monumentalizing it with stone churches and stone crosses, you know, whereas before, it would have been mainly a timber structure, timber cells, you know. So the eighth century is when Iona kind of blows up.
00:13:00
Speaker
okay And so I think, yeah, so what you're seeing is not the first monastery, but kind of its sort of its hero phase. ah So well really cool it sounds like you wouldn't even need to travel back in time, then you can just go there now and see it.
00:13:15
Speaker
Well, so I think what I would genuinely love to do is actually travel back in time to before it became this sort of tourist attraction, pilgrimage destination. And see what it looks like. Yeah, that's right. Before it was big. Like, let's call it the middle of the seventh century, you know? Things are happening. There's already library, you know, it's kind of on its growth era, you know, but it hasn't really kind of become this celebrity monastery yet. I'd like to see it then. Capture it just before it was cool. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I mean, that sounds good to me. And yeah, maybe see the timber buildings, you could do some proper radiocarbon dating, see how much you can do. Oh yeah, wait, am I allowed to swipe samples? Okay, let's go. I guess, yeah, it's the dependent, right? Each time we've always had different parameters, some people say they'd want to actually chat to people and interact with them, others say they want to just be a fly on the wall. So I guess, you know, it depends. Yeah, okay, fly on the wall, but also with a sampling swab. With a little swab, just in case.
00:14:10
Speaker
just get it Just get into people's cheeks, though. and That's horrifying. Maybe I can grab like some hairs or something. like So you see someone going, huh? What was that? Well, that sounds like an excellent trip. And thank you very much for joining me on my tea break today. And before we sort of discuss further the the object of today's episode, let's first go back to around 900 AD. I think, anyway, you're probably going to correct me on this later.
00:14:40
Speaker
to what would nowadays be southwest Scotland. It's late in the afternoon. The summer sun is still illuminating the dappled shadows cast by the trees in a forest clearing. Figures cluster around a hole dug into the ground. A crowd of linen dresses, thick cloaks, twisted braids, thick beards, shining jewelry. We creep closer through the trees to see what they're doing.
00:14:59
Speaker
Everyone is lowering objects into the dog pit, muttering as they do so in hushed, respectful whispers. One puts in a large silver cross, another a bundle of squashed and twisted silver, another a selection of beautifully decorated brooches. We crane our necks to see further and see a final pair of hands carefully cradling a small object, the gold flashing in the sunlight.
00:15:20
Speaker
As it's laid reverentially into the ground, we see that it is a beautiful bird-shaped pin. Thick curved beak smooths into a small head, two large black eyes. A curve takes us down the slender neck to the body with intricate patterns of feathers along each closed wing ending in a long straight tail. So that is the object we'll be kind of focusing on today, although its context will also be chatted about a lot. We'll get into the details soon, but first let's have a very quick break.
00:15:49
Speaker
Okay, welcome back everyone. So before we get into a kind of proper discussion, one of the things that I always like to do in this series is to look at the most asked questions on the internet, courtesy of Google search autofill, in order to see what other people want to find out about this object.
00:16:05
Speaker
So we thought we'd focus on this kind of birdpin today, but actually there weren't any Google searches about that. So I decided to start broad and look at the kind of broader context, which is the Galloway horde. So we're going to answer the most asked questions about the Galloway horde first, and then we'll focus back in on the pin and then go broad again. So the most kind of common question was where was the Galloway horde found, which I assumed Galloway, but I guess not, or is it in Galloway?
00:16:33
Speaker
I mean, it's a good, it's a good hint in the right direction, isn't it? Yes, it was found in a region of Southwest Scotland that is now called Galloway. But you know, that's, that could be confusing to people who haven't been to Scotland, actually in regional authority, that's called Dumfries and Galloway.
Galloway Region's Historical Context
00:16:52
Speaker
so first But it is a region that does go back 1000 years, you know, the first mentions of the word galloway do take us back into the 12th century, I believe. um yeah And so it's ah it is a historical term. It is what is now the southwest corner of Scotland. It looks out towards the Isle of Man in the middle of the northern part of the Irish Sea. more or less. So it's that part of Scotland there. And what's interesting about Galloway is that in the 9th century, just before the Horde was deposited, this was part of the Northumbrian Kingdom. And Northumbria is one of the Anglo-Saxon, the Old English speaking realms of what we later come to call England, but at this time was just a patchwork of kingdoms.
00:17:47
Speaker
Northumbria was one of the most powerful at that time. It's the northernmost English-speaking, the old English-speaking kingdom there. And so this was part of the Northumbrian realm, which stretched as far as Yorkshire and Sheffield, and as far north as Galloway and Ayrshire, and the first and fourth near where the capital Edinburgh is now, the capital of Scotland, I should say. So yeah, so that that's why Scotland and and and England, these terms, they kind of allow us to kind of place ourselves on the map, but they don't actually exist in the 9th century. There is no such kingdom as Scotland. That doesn't come until 200 or 300 years after this period. and and And again, England itself, a coherent kingdom called England, is not really cohering until the later part of the 10th century even.
00:18:39
Speaker
So you can't say England or Scotland at this point. And that's why we're talking about these regional kingdoms. And even though we're in Scotland now, this is Northumbria. So it's ah actually and an old English speaking part of the world. But you're also ah You're on a frontier, basically. You're in between worlds here. You're facing the Irish Sea. So there's definitely Irish speakers, Gaelic speakers around. And the Britons, who speak of a sort of cousin of old Welsh, they're also in this region. They've never left. Even though this place has fallen under Northumbrian control, there are still British speakers around. And so it's a
00:19:19
Speaker
mishmash of languages. And then, of course, in the ninth century, dramatically, a new actor comes onto the stage, you would get the first Scandinavian raids, first around the islands around the sort of monasteries on islands like Iona, one of the earliest targets is a monastery of Iona. And then eventually, by the end of the ninth century, they're starting to push further and further. And they're certainly in the Irish Sea Zone by this time. So Galloway is also on the front lines.
00:19:49
Speaker
that Okay. And so did it also, so I'm trying to remember frantically my ah of an undergraduate degree and I did a course on Viking archaeology and the, I remember the Dane Law and there was that whole sort of central belt that was then Viking, but that would have been later, right? Like it wouldn't, it wouldn't have been around the time of the Galloway Horde. Would the Vikings have already been kind of in control or would they have had some power ah there or was it just raiding still at that point?
00:20:17
Speaker
Nice, okay, no, I think that question kind of hits the nail on the head. What's excellent, what's interesting about the Galloway Horde, among so many interesting things, is that it falls into this window of time. So in the 860s and 870s, there's a massive Viking army that's called the Great Heathen Army, or the Great Viking Army.
00:20:37
Speaker
And it's a series of campaigns that last more than 10 years, and they're sort of rampaging all across the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, and they're taking them down, frankly. they're They're having a lot of success. And of course, there's this guy called Alfred the Great. He becomes known as the Great Later, but he's, you know, justifiably famous in his own time. I think I've even heard of him, yes. There you go, there you go.
00:21:00
Speaker
So, yeah. And and he is he is king of one of ah of the kingdoms, the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms called Wessex, the West Saxons. He's one of the last ones standing and eventually manages to kind of beat them, beat the Vikings, at least into a standstill, a detente.
00:21:20
Speaker
And they enter into a treaty. The West Saxons enter into a treaty with the Danes. ah And they decide to kind of draw a line on the map, basically. And they say, everybody on this side of the line is subject to our Anglo-Saxon laws. And everybody on that side of the line is now under Danish laws. And eventually, that becomes yeah that becomes a sort of ah a more clearly defined territory.
00:21:50
Speaker
gradually over time and eventually becomes known as the Dane Law. But that's all happening in the 870s, 880s, and 890s, and that's exactly when we think the Galloway Hoard was put together. So we frankly don't know what's going on in Northumbria in the eight seventies. Like the records kind of blink out because they're kind of under attack. And so the kind of sources that we had before the Viking age, they kind of take hiatus or they disappear entirely. The security cameras are turned off. and That's right. It's spray paint the cameras. and they go into the vault and so we don't actually know what's going on and the Galloway Hoard falls under this little hiatus where we don't actually know necessarily what's going on very well or very clearly in Northumbria and so the archaeology is really important at this time yeah and every discovery of this time period kind of adds to the story a little bit and Galloway Hoard I think adds quite a lot.
00:22:52
Speaker
Okay. Oh, well, okay. We'll go more into that in a bit, I think, with the whole, what actually is the importance of the hoard itself. Let's go back to the, to the questions because this, this next one now, it was, it came up in a couple of different alternations when I put in different words and stuff with the words, Galloway hoard, Galloway hoard dirt balls. I don't know if you have any idea what that could be referring to.
The Enigma of the Galloway Horde
00:23:15
Speaker
I love that these have become the sort of viral sensation. The Galloway Horde dirtballs. Yes, it's true. so
00:23:27
Speaker
I should actually kind of introduce what the Galloway Hoard is. it's ah viking age It's a Viking Age treasure. I mean, there's gold and silver, that's the bulk of it, okay? It's 105 objects, and these are just the sort of hard objects, the metal and stone and glass objects. There's dozens more fragments of textile and leather and organic materials like silk, linen, wool, leather, animal guts, and all sorts of things which are soft and generally do not survive in the ground. You know, these are the soft things, like the wrappings, the containers, these are the things that usually completely degrade in the ground.
00:24:10
Speaker
you know, within years of of it being buried. But for a very precise sort of good scientific reasons, the contact with silver and particularly the copper in these metals helps actually act as a biocide. It kind of prevents some of the microbes from eating away at the soft material. so yeah so things that are That's right, things textiles that are in contact with copper containing metals help preserve those textiles and things like those. And part of the hoard was actually sealed really well in a lidded container.
00:24:48
Speaker
perfect they knew what they were doing that's right and so that that container itself is wrapped really carefully in three layers of textiles so they've bundled it up really nicely and they've inverted it to kind of stop the dirt from trickling in through the top and so for all of these reasons it's created a little micro environment inside that littered vessel which preserved even more textiles than survived outside of it So basically, you've got this hoard which has piles and piles of silver. You expect that from every Viking hoard. But then that lidded container, that lidded vessel is almost like a hoard within a hoard. It contains things that you don't often or ever find in other Viking hordes. There's sort of personal items. There's curiosities. There's sort of personal possessions. And some of them seem really old, like they're heirlooms that have been kept in the family for a long time. Yeah. So this is an extra added thing to the usual, if you like, Viking horde of silver and gold. And in that, buried in that vessel, almost one of the first things that went into that vessel, almost, all the way at the bottom of this. A lot of strange objects we'll hear a little bit more about maybe, but at almost at the bottom of this vessel are two dirt balls. Now, there's gold, there's silver, there's ancient things. two little balls of mud. They're like, they're like the size of, well, it depends on what side of the Atlantic we are here in Britain. You would call them the size of Maltesers. I guess in America you might call them the size of milk duds. Okay. So really small. Yeah. Yeah. Like little small chocolate balls. Hey, they're made out of dirt. They're rolled up and you can actually kind of see the way they've been rolled up, like little balls of clay, ah but they're, they're, they're dirt and they kind of stand out because they're not precious metal. You know, there, there, there doesn't seem to be anything of inherent value in them. And we, you know, we put them, put the whole hoard through X-rays and CT scans before it was touched, you know, before it was excavated in a lab. Yeah, and so we know that there's nothing sort of nothing at the core of these things, so it's not like dirt around something inside. yeah to protect stuff yeah yeah But when we we we took them down to the British Museum and used their science lab and and and with their sort of high-spec x-rays and CT scans,
00:27:11
Speaker
The CT scans in particular picked out material going all the way through, but it's in the dirt itself. And there's little flecks of gold and little flecks of bone. And so there's there is material bound up in the dirt itself. yeah And there's only a couple of things that that could be.
00:27:33
Speaker
You know, we've talked to a lot of metal workers and they say, yeah, when you have gold or silver and you're working on it, it makes all these shavings, these little, you know, little shavings of gold and silver come off. And so at the end, you know, you don't lose that. You gather that all onto a sheet or something and then you roll some clay and it gather it all up and then you can melt it down and reuse that gold and silver. And that would explain the gold, but it wouldn't explain the bone. Yeah.
00:27:58
Speaker
you' accidentally shave off your finger? Oh man, oh well, I guess I better put it up in a bowl and put it in the thing. That's right, keep that The leading theory then is that we do know in in in Rome and in the Holy Land that one of the things you do when you are a pilgrim visiting the shrine of a saint is you can actually reach in and sometimes touch the shrine, touch the coffin, you know, and sometimes touch the you know the the earth that the the saint is is buried in or laid upon. And we have lots of evidence of this. And we do have some texts which tell us that people were allowed to roll a little ball of the dust or the dirt of the saint or of the saint's tomb. So grab a little clump of soil from the saint's tomb, from the burying place of the saint and take that home with you.
00:28:53
Speaker
you know and And so there's two of these. like yeah And so these could be incredibly valuable. So, you know, you go in thinking these have no value whatsoever. But if you are a Christian who's been on pilgrimage to the Holy Land or to Rome, these are the almost the most valuable things you could have.
00:29:15
Speaker
hu Amazing. Which also shows a perfect example of how then having that historic record does come in very handy. Because if you were just focusing on the material, you might have been like, oh, just the balls, but having that history. But that's incredible. That's really... It's a possibility, yeah. But I mean, we won't know until, you know, you'd have to like reach in. And this would be quite destructive, I think, to do. You'd have to reach in and sort of grab something to sample for radiocarbon dating or something similar. But all of that is quite destructive. And these are really quite precious and fragile objects. So they've never even been on display. And so these things are incredibly fragile and sensitive. And I think that's why they've kind of piqued people's curiosity. you know I know. Well, now that you've said it, I'm thinking, we're going to focus on this bird pin. We should have just talked about the dirt balls.
00:30:03
Speaker
It's even more more interesting. Wow, that's really, I'm now going to go and look into these more because that's really fascinating. I find that really interesting. ah The last question that we have, back back to the treasure, back to the more obviously shiny things, was where did the silver in the Galloway Horde come from? Which you mentioned that it's sort of classified as a Viking Age Horde, so were we assuming it's sort of Scandinavian silver or?
00:30:28
Speaker
Yeah. So theres there's, there's a great question as well. When it came out of the ground, the first thing that they could see, I should say it was found by metal detectorists in 2014. So 10 years ago, 10 years ago in September. So almost exactly 10 years ago. as yeah yeah um and And so it was found by metal detectorists and they came down onto silver bars and a cross and so that immediately sort of sent alarm bells ringing so in Scotland when you find anything ah ancient any kind of archaeology it has to be reported to the treasure trove unit basically so if it's ownerless by law it actually belongs to
00:31:17
Speaker
the king, at that time still the queen by law. And so it has to be reported to the treasure trove unit, and then they sort of decide how old it is, how you know, and and then the process sort of moves on from there. So these people, the metal detectors did the right thing instead of carrying on digging. They recognized that what they were looking at is probably silver, that was pretty clear, but also probably Viking Age silver, so a thousand years old, so very important. And quite a lot of it as well by the looks of it. And so they stopped to their credit. Well done, yes. And they called in, yeah, they called in the authorities and eventually it was the
00:31:55
Speaker
it was the county archaeologist ah who came out and did the excavation so it was excavated professionally on the day and taken to the lab straight afterwards and that helped preserve things like organic materials you know and so yeah so when it came out of the ground Immediately, it was very clear this was Viking Age stuff. These are bars and arm rings of silver. And these arm rings in particular are decorated in a way that is very typical for Viking Age hordes in Britain and Ireland. We have hundreds of these things, yeah. And so in that way, it was kind of a really good example, but quite sort of a known type of horde, a Viking horde. And so the headlines are Viking horde found, great Viking horde, this and that.
00:32:39
Speaker
with holes Yeah, exactly. Well, then the more we dug into it, the more the more they realized that there was more stuff in there. And there's stuff that does not come from Scandinavia and does not really does not usually or ever get found in Scandinavian style or Viking age hordes. Well, the sort of narrative began to change. And so the formal line now is we call it a Viking age horde because it's of that Viking age, but it is not specifically just a Viking in the sense of a Scandinavian. more of Harjin.
00:33:11
Speaker
And so if we continue on that, so the the you mentioned the the kind of arm rings and the cross, but indeed this and this bird pin was really just basically me picking this out of looking at pictures of the Galloway horde. And I saw this pin and thought, this is incredible. Is that a typical then Viking age kind of object, or would it be representative of another culture? Is that one of the objects that made people think, oh, actually, or is it sort of quite common? Do we know about them from other places? Yeah. I mean, though the bird pen was one of the one of the things that immediately sort of caught the imagination. It's one of the first things to have been cleaned off, and it's gold, and so it doesn't corrode. And so it was almost as soon as it came out of the ground, it was still sort of glistening in such a good condition. And it's this recognizable shape of bird. And and so it really kind of caught the imagination. It's kind of become the almost like the brand of the Galloway Horde. you know So the silver in the hoard has been tested and we've we've we're we're partnered with this great project led ah by Jane Kershaw at the University of Oxford and they've tested the silver in all these fascinating new ways that they've basically developed for this project and we can more or less fingerprint where the material is coming from.
00:34:25
Speaker
And so the silver used for these Viking Age arm rings seems to be coming from the Anglo-Saxon metalwork and coins used in the 9th century. So it looks very much like ah like they basically somebody has gone on a raid.
00:34:44
Speaker
captured a lot of Anglo-Saxon silver coins, loot, and they've cast it. They've melted it down into these bars, these ingots, of which there's 26 in the hoard, and then also hammered out some of those ingots into these lovely decorated armbands.
00:34:59
Speaker
So it's all kind of Anglo-Saxon derived. But that bird pen is very much in the sort of ah of the English-speaking world, if you like. It's art style is recognizably what they call the Truhiddle style. And the Truhiddle style, the Truhiddle is a site in what is now Cornwall in the southwest of England. Yeah. But there's a famous hoard that came out of that, which had a lot of they had Christian and secular Anglo-Saxon material culture. And the art style that it was all decorated in is pretty coherent. And so this art style was named after that site, Truhiddle.
00:35:38
Speaker
And while that's now in Southwest, what's now the Southwest of England, but the Trujillo style is something that we now know more than a hundred years after that discovery, and went several so several hundred years after that discovery, we now know that the Trujillo art style is used all over the English-speaking kingdoms, and we know that Northumbria in particular is making its own flavor of Trujillo style objects, do you know.
00:36:04
Speaker
And so these Trujillo style objects, like the gold birdpin, actually belong to the 9th century English speaking world. And we call it Trujillo style, but it is one of these things that you can't really sort of localize, at least not yet, to any one part. And so we just call it sort of Anglo-Saxon style of art. Yeah, which I guess is like saying nowadays, oh, English style of art, which is very, very broad as well. So it's sort of, yeah, rough idea, but indeed can be further classified, I suppose.
00:36:36
Speaker
In that respect. Interesting. and so But then you mentioned that it was likely that the Horde could have been sort of the result of a raid um in that respect. So with that pin, I guess they just didn't want to hammer it out and they didn't want to ruin it. They just took it as is. Or could this ah be indicative of it coming from multiple cultures, the Horde?
00:36:55
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean, before before we even got into excavating the lidded vessel with all of its contents, you know, the outside part of the hoard, if you like, the piles of silver dominate, you know, but in amongst that there is a cross with a sort of suspension chain still wrapped around it, almost like you could see somebody taking it off of their neck winding this chain around it and putting it in the ground almost just before it's almost undamaged but it's missing like a little central gem it would have had a central gemstone and that's been popped off and so it's not complete in that sense and so we don't know if this is something that is still considered sort of a you know christian of religious power or if by
00:37:41
Speaker
you know, taking off that central gemstone, you like, de-consecrated. Is it now just silver, you know, like all the rest of it? So there was Anglo-Saxon stuff, this Trujillo-style stuff, in amongst the Viking silver. And at that point, you can still say, well, all of the silver and gold has to have come from somewhere, probably a raid. And so these bits of Anglo-Saxon stuff mixed in.
00:38:04
Speaker
could just be stuff that was hovered up in the process of looting and raiding. you know And that gold pin is really unique. you know There's one other bird-headed pin like this, where there's like a 3D bird sitting on the top of a pin.
00:38:22
Speaker
Okay. It's gold, which is really rare in Viking hordes. You only very rarely find gold hordes. You mostly find silver horde. And so that's already very special, even if this was the only gold object. And the gold pin itself, again, kind of stands alone. Yeah.
00:38:38
Speaker
And it's undamaged, not like that cross. The pin itself is pristine, as far as we can tell. It's got a little bit of wear from age. I was going to ask, is it it's been has there been any sort of use wear? Do we know what it whether it could have been used or what it could have been used for? yeah so i mean Gold is is quite soft, and you can see wear on it fairly quickly and so it hasn't been used for a long period of time but you can see that some of the black inlay which is called Niello, some of the bits have kind of fallen off and so you know there there is some use wear but it's actually in really good shape.
00:39:13
Speaker
and And the way that the Niello, the black is inlaid on it, sort of allows for this contrast with the gold of the material. And it creates this gold and black contrast, which is really quite pleasing to the eye. And some of the some of the more you know famous and rare objects of the Trujillo style are gold and silver inlaid with this black Niello. That's kind of one of the ah one of the hallmarks of that style. And I've looked through collections in in in Scotland and in museum in the National Museum in Ireland recently. And Niello is something that isn't being used widely. It's really ah sort of people who are adopting that Trujillo style are using this technique. So it's actually kind of ah a fairly specialist metalworking technique, but it gives this really pleasing kind of signature look. The black on white when you use it on silver and the black on gold when you use it in.
00:40:06
Speaker
and in gold. And the other thing about this bird, iss got it's got these its eyes are picked out in these two little beads of blue glass. So these shiny blue eyes still intact, you know, still in place and they kind of they complete the picture. It's just a really striking object and there's really not much that's quite like this.
00:40:28
Speaker
okay Oh, so it's as important as the dirt balls, one might say then. Okay,
00:40:37
Speaker
okay well, I think we're going to have to have another little quick break now so that those listening can have an opportunity to top up their tea, but we'll be back very, very soon.
00:40:48
Speaker
Welcome back everyone. Hope the teacups are fuller and the biscuit jar is emptier. So ah usually I take this third section to kind of talk a bit more about you and your background, but I'm so interested in this hoard. I think we're going to have to talk about it a little bit more first. So first of all, we've talked about kind of the individual objects, but in my little, in the little time travel sort of description, I mentioned that people were putting it in very carefully because it does sound indeed like this, this wasn't just a random load of objects shoved in. I mean, how do we know that people did put it in carefully. It's just an impression that I got, but is that indeed the case?
Implications of Horde Discoveries
00:41:21
Speaker
That's right. Okay. So one of the the best parts of this project. So I'm on, I'm employed by National Museum Scotland. And my title is, you know, imagine this, it's called the Galloway Hoard Researcher. because yeah because i'm like like a novel in itself that's I'm actually employed as part of a team that is working specifically just on this hoard, because it has so many different parts, as I mentioned, it's got 105 individual options. Yeah. Not every horde, but usually usually hordes have 105 of the same objective, either one thing or another. But this one has lots of different elements. And so I'm on there to talk about the silver specifically, but we're also all engaged in the question of why do people hoard
00:42:07
Speaker
how the hordes come together. And with the Galloway horde, because of that preservation of organic materials, we can actually see that this part of the horde was in a bag and that part of the horde was in a lidded vessel. and Within there, you can see little subgroups and parcels within those ah wider groups. And so we actually have an opportunity with the Galloway horde to see in micro detail kind of how a horde was put together.
00:42:35
Speaker
And so, for example, the bird pin, though you mentioned that there was this littered vessel which had was wrapped in textiles and that had the dirt balls, but the the pin was that in with a bundle with something else then?
00:42:47
Speaker
Yeah, so the the the the fine spot of the pin is is something that kind of tells us a little bit more. It gives you a hint of how this was put together. So the hoard had an upper layer. So there's a pile of silver, which is just silver bars and arm arm rings, and then the cross that I mentioned before. That's all in a discrete upper layer.
00:43:08
Speaker
And that is almost working as a decoy. As in, if you come across this, you dig it out of the ground and you're like, wow, that's crazy silver treasure. I'm so lucky I'm going back home with my silver treasure right away. And then you'll miss that just a few centimeters below that, there's a layer of dirt and then a few centimeters. And then in the in the lower layer, separate from that upper layer, there's actually a much bigger and richer deposit. And so the the upper layer is just a small, it's actually quite a lot of silver, but ah but the lower level is even more. But it would all have been put at the same time. That's right. Yeah, we know yeah we but we believe that they the objects are related enough. They all seem to hang together as a group. And it looks like this was a deliberate choice to make a little separate hoard on top and a larger hoard below.
00:44:01
Speaker
And so that larger hoard below has a bigger pile of silver. And it has that lidded vessel with stuff in it, which we'll get to. But in that large pile of silver, there is one discrete parcel. And this is five very large arm rings. They're really heavy. And these are really well decorated. Four of those arm rings are tied together by the fifth.
00:44:25
Speaker
Oh, okay, so proper bundle. Yeah, it's a nice little bundle of arm rings, and those are complete. They're not dinged in any way. They seem to be kind of pristine, whereas everything else is in various states of hacking and unfolding and flattening. these This cluster of arm rings the biggest and heaviest arm rings in the bunch. They've been kind of clasped together and tucked within that bundle of arm rings. If you can imagine five bracelets stuck together, you have a nice little tunnel, you know, like a nice little hole in the middle and they've used that. to place a little wooden box. And that little wooden box is what holds the gold bird fin and two little gold objects. It's like an adventure novel or something, unwrapping all the layers and wow, okay. That's right. and so So again, where this is the first clue that this hoard has been put together with a certain amount of forethought and a great deal of care.
00:45:23
Speaker
And, you know, in your opening vignette, lu I like what you've done is displayed it as a group of people. And I think that has to be the case with the Galloway Horde. I don't think this is a treasure of one person like one king or one Viking chieftain or whatever.
00:45:39
Speaker
I think this is a group of people deciding to come together with a lot of their most sort of valued objects. And they've put them together in a way that made sense, that had some kind of a degree of intelligibility to it.
00:45:56
Speaker
And I think that cluster of arm rings with a wooden box of gold objects tucked into it is maybe that is the sort of core of of that silver deposit. you know These are four people coming together with their big arm rings tied by a fifth. And there's other hints of four people. There's four arm rings in the rest of the horde that have runic inscriptions on them. And so it looks like there's four different elements to the Silver Horde. And so I think, we think, that that there are at least four different parties, four different donors. And we don't know if they're individuals. you know they could One could represent a family and one could represent a war bed. Who knows? That's right. And so there's four different donors, potentially.
00:46:48
Speaker
And the more you dig through the horde, the more you see the sort of ah groupings and they they they you know that number of four different groupings kind of seems to continue to crop up. But there's no there's no ruining conscriptions of this band belongs to Bruce and um he did it because of this or or anything like that. That's right. So the runes are actually quite cryptic, which is kind of annoying. You can never trust a rune.
00:47:17
Speaker
They seem to be abbreviations, you know, those ruining conscriptions in the hoard. Three of them are just single syllables, Ed, Till, and Bear. And each of these are Anglo-Saxon words, they're old English words in their own right, but they also are used very commonly as the the first element of a personal name. So Ed, Bert, Till, Red, you know, these these are these are, these could be abbreviated names. okay like nicknames yeah and then the fourth one on the biggest arm ring is actually a really mysterious longer inscription we can read it there seems to be words in it but it doesn't really make a lot of sense and so we know that again it's probably another anglo-saxon an old english runic inscription but it seems to be made of a lot of abbreviations and we haven't really deciphered it yet, but we, you know, we have a, we have a good handle on what it might mean, but that hasn't been sort of vetted by the experts just yet. It's almost like text talk, like for, you know, see ya later kind of thing, you know, in ruen so yeah and so with that that tells me that, you know, the people who did it were probably coming back to get it. And so they didn't need to write. This is gonna be my next question. Indeed. It seems like it was okay to just sort of delineate with abbreviations. This is, ah you know, Ed's bit, and this is still his bit, you know. Maybe, that's a possibility. And so they didn't leave instructions saying, this is the hoard of da-da-da, and it was deposited on this date. And and so that's a clue as to maybe that they were sort of, they were kind of labeling different parts of it in the hopes of maybe coming back to it someday. And sadly, it never happened.
00:48:59
Speaker
Well, happily for us, I guess. which and I guess that's sort of the broader topic of hordes and horde research because, ah as you say, you sort of become ah embroiled in that sort of topic or in that theme. I mean, do do we ever know really why a horde was left? Is it possible to know for sure?
00:49:20
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, usually in in the archaeological literature, do you know, it it comes down to is it a, is it a ah hoard for safekeeping, like valuables that were never retrieved? Or was it deposited to stay in the ground? And, you know, in the 1980s and 90s, there was a big movement in the sort of Anglophone archaeology, especially,
00:49:44
Speaker
about sort of, ah they called it post-processional archaeology, where the it was about sort of trying to get at the symbolism behind actions. You know, everything wasn't just left by accident. Some things were sort of deposited with a purpose behind them. And we're trying to get at the why of why things were left in the ground.
00:50:06
Speaker
And so there was a lot of movements since then to sort of see hordes as things that were deposited, as sacrifices, as offerings. And and that is possible, you know, even still. There are texts, there's old Norse sagas, and these are quite problematic because they're all quite late, you know, they're sort of, they're written down in the 12th and 13th centuries, but they're describing events of the pagan Viking age, you know, but we do have a record, we do have one of these sagas which says that Odin says that, ah you know, the god of the the the sort of the high god of the of the Norse pantheon said that whatever treasure you bury while you're alive,
00:50:51
Speaker
you have access to in the afterlife. So it is possible. Yeah, that's possible that, you know, some of these things were laid in the ground because they believe that they would have access to it in the afterlife, like grave goods, but outside of the grave. And that is a possibility.
00:51:07
Speaker
But, you know, again, there's sort of hints and labels left on these things, which is really rare. You you don't often find inscriptions or tags like this in a hoard. And so I do think that they expected somebody to find it and they left behind these sort of labels and and and clear and clues to say this is how it was put together.
00:51:27
Speaker
And you never see that more so than in the lidded vessel itself, where the lidded vessel is packed to the brim with rare objects and weird objects, but they are bundled together. So there's a bundle of seven brooches here, and then there is... Yeah. And then there's a bundle of objects wrapped in silk and linen here. And then there's a a group of beads and a rock crystal ball and a rattling stone, a naturally occurring rattle stone. Oh, cool. Yeah, like a geode almost, but with like a flint nodule rattling around in it. And so that has to be some kind of amulet, you know? And we have, you know, we have sort of modern parallels for, for amulets being made out of naturally occurring objects. But that occurs in a group of other round curiosities like beads and heirlooms. And so there is structure to how this hoard is put together.
00:52:25
Speaker
so To me, you could say that that is an offering because it has that structure. Or you could you you look at what these objects are. They're heirlooms. They're things that have been kept, in some cases, for 100 or 200 years even. These things are precious. But they're precious in a way that is not monetary. Some of them are dinged up glass. And as you've heard about, the dirt balls, you know they're they're they're not valuable for their materials. They're valuable for what they mean. present mentality. That's right. They have a personal, and in the case of relics, possible relics, they have this sort of communal value that is supernatural. And so in the Galloway Horde, you have a bit of both. You have these things that are preserved and bundled very carefully, but for very personal reasons. And so, you know, these are valuables
00:53:21
Speaker
relating potentially to a single family. you know And so that kind of blows up this whole image of a Viking horde as just sort of a treasure to be kept as if it was like a bank, like a safe deposit box. This is something different altogether.
00:53:37
Speaker
But the point is that it was all wrapped and bundled very carefully in a preconceived way to kind of keep the objects safe and sort of in a predetermined way ah reflect the people who deposited them. So I think the personalities of whoever was involved in depositing this hoard is actually very legible in a way that's really rare.
00:53:59
Speaker
Which, like you say, it's really nice to be able to actually see inverted commas, the the people behind the horde indeed, and not just see it as, oh, it's a horde of treasure, but actually you consider, okay, who would who was it? Who would have left this horde? Why would they have left it? And yeah, i see the... the yeah And the kill big the killer thing the killer thing about all of that, the thing that kind of matters beyond Scotland, beyond England, and beyond the Galloway horde itself, you know, there's this ah beautiful treasure, lots of pretty pictures of shiny objects, and a lot of interesting stories found in it. But what it makes us think of, inevitably, is how much of all of the other Viking Age hordes, and indeed any other horde that's been deposited archaeologically,
00:54:39
Speaker
How many of these hordes had this kind of predetermined logic to them? How many of them did have all these bundles and parcels, but they were just sort of excavated too quickly or pulled out of the ground one by one without actually carefully noticing what was next to everything? And how much organic material have we lost from all these other hordes?
00:54:59
Speaker
And so you go back to all the hordes that have been found before and suddenly you're thinking, gosh, could this have been a parcel? Could these objects have been grouped together? And maybe there's this kind of information is inherent in most of the hordes that we've excavated, you know, and we just haven't had that level of preservation. So, you know, the lesson is, you know, be careful.
00:55:23
Speaker
you know, record everything you can. yeah Yeah, no, and indeed, there's, there's so much potential as well, not even justifying new hordes, but to re look at old hordes and reassess old material and exact things in new ways, which is always exciting. Oh, fantastic. Well, before we wrap up, I always do like to ask a few questions for people. I mean, we talked about it a little bit at the in the kind of first section, but maybe we can just kind of go into a little more detail on that. So In terms of what you do, you mentioned you are the Galloway Hoard researcher. i mean ah is it sort of Would you say that your specialism is now in hoards, or would you say it's kind of more still in the medieval period, and ah how specialised are you in that respect?
00:56:06
Speaker
Yeah, well, like a lot of you know like a lot of people after their PhD, I have actually jumped from job to job. And I've been very lucky that I've been able to stay teaching or researching archaeology and mostly early medieval archaeology throughout that time. So I've been luckier than most. But I have jumped from job to job and I have had to learn things on the spot.
00:56:27
Speaker
As I say but before, my background was in early Christianity, early medieval Scotland, and religious faith, and why people convert, and what trace that leaves in the ground. you know The archaeology of religion was always my thing. And then I came to the museum because there was a job in the Viking period, and that's something that I hadn't done in any great detail before. But it's early medieval Scotland, and when you're an archaeologist in early medieval Scotland,
00:56:54
Speaker
you know, the National Museum is kind of where you want to get up to. So we jumped at the opportunity, but it did mean learning a new language, learning the language of objects and specifically Viking age objects. And all of that is kind of added to the things that I now feel confident I can do. And so I i still just call myself an early medieval archaeologist.
00:57:16
Speaker
But I now have this understanding of the Viking Age from its material culture that I'm bringing back to my original study. So i I am still very interested in the archaeology of religion and Christianity. And the Viking Age adds this entire new window to the archaeology of Christianity that I think is really central to the story. And, you know, these hordes, these Viking Age hordes, they actually accidentally perhaps retain things like relics.
00:57:45
Speaker
and reliquaries and things that are cut up and looted, but they actually preserve them in a way which is really lucky because these churches don't always survive very well. And even when they do, they're kind of trashed in the Reformation and a lot of things are lost. So in an ironic way, Viking age graves and hordes preserve a really amazing window into the early Christian past. So you've ended up finding the the perfect key to to doing the research you wanted. Well, which is interesting because I know a lot of people who, especially if they're starting out in their careers or even just their studies or trying to work out, oh, but this is what I want to specialize in. Oh, but this is the direction I want to go.
Career Insights and Advice
00:58:26
Speaker
But I also have that is kind of opinion that it changes so much as you go. And even if your interests stay the same, you end up in wildly different positions than you would have first imagined you could have been.
00:58:39
Speaker
Yeah, but these these rabbit holes, you know they often lead somewhere. do you know yeah And I think there's none of that time is wasted. Any time that you spend learning about other time periods and other ways of looking at archaeology is always valuable. It adds to your powers as an archaeologist.
00:58:59
Speaker
When you dig in the ground, as everybody knows, you have to go from the modern, from today and yesterday, straight the way back to every potential time period since the peopling of the place that you're looking at. And so you can go back thousands of years in a single trench, as you well know. And so you have to know something about everything. And so there's none of this time and experience is wasted. So follow those rabbit holes, see where they lead, and you might surprise yourself and change direction. That sounds like great advice to me. Well, I think we're nearly at the end of our tea breaks. We need to start wrapping up. But before we go, do you have any kind of other exciting projects or maybe exciting results or updates from your research that you would like to share with those listening?
00:59:46
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the best place to find out more about what I'm doing is go to the National Museum of Scotland website. And there you can read a little bit more about my profile and several blogs that I wrote about Viking Age archaeology. So all that's still out there. But I mean, the coolest thing that I've done recently is this other podcast that you might have heard of called, And My Trial. Oh, that sounds like a great podcast. Yeah. Let's go listen to that. You should really think about it. I think you would really like it. Right? It sounds like my cup of tea.
01:00:17
Speaker
Yes, indeed. Anyone who's interested in finding out more about the Horde, but maybe from a slightly fantastical perspective, do go and check out those episodes. But well, thank you so, so much for joining me today, Adrian. It was really great to chat to you again. And I feel like I learned even more, even though I've already talked to you about the Horde, I've learned even more about it today. So thank you so much for coming out. It was a pleasure. Thanks for having me on. So as we said, if anyone wants to find out more about Adrian's work, the Galloway Horde, et cetera, check out the links that will be in the show notes on the podcast homepage and shameless self-promotion. Go and listen to our other two episodes and my trial where we talked to Adrian about potential dwarvish Horde in the kingdom of Moria.
01:00:56
Speaker
So I hope that you enjoyed our journey today. If you want to help support this show and all of the other amazing series that form at the Archaeology Podcast Network, you can help us in multiple ways, for example, by becoming a member. You'll be helping us to create even more amazing, fun, and free content. We will also have exclusive access to ad-free episodes and bonus content. So for more information, do check out the homepage at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com. I hope that you enjoyed our journey today. If you did, make sure to like, follow, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and I'll see you next month for another episode of Tea Break Time Travel.
01:01:32
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 www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.