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Two or More Objects Meet in a Hoard - Ep 21
227 Plays6 months ago
Deep in the heart of Khazad-dûm, changes are being made. Caverns are being restored, bridges are being rebuilt, and there’s even plans for a new shopping centre… But when a huge hoard of objects is discovered in a hidden chamber, Ash and Tilly are called in to investigate! And helping them in their quest is Dr Adrián Maldonado - archaeologist, author, and expert on hoards. Together, they discuss the history and definition of hoards, and the fact that Tilly’s constant Discworld references finally seem to be having their desired effect…
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Transcript
Introduction to Fantasy and Archaeology
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 21 of And My Trowel, where we look at the fantastic side of archaeology and the archaeological side of fantasy.
Exploring Fantasy Hordes
00:00:18
Speaker
My name's Ash. And I'm Tilly. And today, we're uncovering the secrets of fantasy hordes. And no, not the rampaging horde that ravaged the landscape, but rather the shiny treasure-filled kind. Oh, you mean like dragon hordes, H-O-A-R-D. Wait, haven't we already looked at dragons though? Did you need me to send a
Message from the Longbeards: Uncovering a New Hoard
00:00:37
Speaker
raven to Alex quickly? I can get her here. Well, no, actually there are different kinds of hordes out there. but No, not no, there's only one kind of horde. Sparkling treasure sat on by a fire-breathing dragon, right?
00:00:49
Speaker
Well, that's exactly what we've been asked to figure out. Oh. So, I yeah received a message this morning via Raven from the Longbeards. Longbeards? Longbeards? Where have I heard that name before? Wait a sec. Do you mean the minds of Moria Longbeards? As in... Casadum. Yeah. But it's fine, it's fine. It's more than fine, actually. According to the long beards, since the fourth age, the descendants of Thorin III have actually really cleaned up the place. They reclaimed it, so to speak, and have begun restoring it. Apparently there's plans for a shopping centre or something. I don't know. Anyway, they need our help. And it looks like they've stumbled across a stash of, well, a hoard of objects that they never really knew existed. And so there's some issues that they kind of want to figure out with it.
00:01:34
Speaker
Oh, interesting. So what kind of objects are we talking about? Good question, Tilly. Good question. And they did attach some drawings. It looks like a lot of unidentified metal, a few swords, perhaps. Oh, and a horn as well by the looks of it. Well, I mean, I don't know about you Ash, but I think we might need some help with this one. Well, lucky for us, I just know the person for the job.
Introducing Agent Maldonado
00:01:58
Speaker
Tilly, meet Agent Maldonado, archaeologist, author and Galloway Horde researcher at the National Museum of Scotland. Hello. Hi, nice to meet you. Thank you so, so much for joining us. So, I believe that you actually already know Ash from a previous previous life. but
00:02:15
Speaker
I do not know who you are, and our listeners also do not know who you are, so maybe you can tell us a little bit about yourself. So, Galloway Hord, researcher, that sounds very specific. What exactly is kind of your your broader area of speciality, your specialism, and how did you get into that? Well, I'm an archaeologist and I do early medieval archaeology. I'm based here in Scotland and I have been for for most of my career. I'm currently at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, but I used to teach archaeology at the University of Glasgow and for a little bit at the University of Chester in the north of England. But I've always been an early medievalist.
00:02:52
Speaker
Interesting. But so very different from what you like, Tilly, your opinions. I was going to say, no, no, no, lovely. There's, you know, room for everyone in this world. I'm a prehistoric. It's all right. We won't hold that against you for now. Fight, fight, fight, fight. And in terms of hordes, and specifically, how did you become interested in that topic?
Galloway Hoard Project Insights
00:03:19
Speaker
So I came to the National Museum in 2018 because there was a project where they were reassessing the collections of the National Museum of Scotland to do with the Viking Age. So basically the 9th to the 12th centuries. And that resulted in a book, my first book. I usually say first book as if there's going to be more. open
00:03:40
Speaker
But that book was entitled The Crucible of Nations Scotland from Viking Age to Medieval Kingdom, and it deals with the sort of archaeology of, yeah, the Viking Age and what comes right after. And then at that point, a project came up. We have this fantastic and quite famous now Viking Age Horde that was discovered in 2014 and was allocated to the National Museum. And there is a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council all about the Galloway Horde and they needed a team of people and as a sort of early medieval material culture specialist, I was brought on as the Galloway hoard researcher. So writing up the silver in that hoard specifically, but also thinking about, you know, what is a hoard and why do people leave them in the ground in the past? and So you are an expert that we need today. Definitely. And yeah, so what are you working on right now?
00:04:39
Speaker
So at the moment, what I'm busy working on is this fantastic Viking Age hoard. And we're writing up the silver objects. So it's quite a large hoard. It's almost the largest Viking Age hoard found in Scotland. And a lot of that is made up of bars and arm rings made of silver. And there's several of these things. And so we're just cataloging those, making sure we know what kind of dates they are. And looking down the microscope, finding all this sort of evidence of whether they've been used or whether they're sort of freshly cast and dropped into the hoard, and just kind of anything that can give us a little bit of a clue as to who is behind this hoard, why they're buried in the ground, and what more we can say about it. Wow, that sounds really cool.
00:05:25
Speaker
Funny story, actually, just to turn in here. The reason that I became a material culture specialist was very random. It was because I had to do an assignment at uni on the Vikings and we were looking at hacksilver and the fact that you like had these rings of various different silver objects that were found in the hordes and it was just because of the weight of the silver or something. I can't remember in detail, to be honest. And for some reason, that just made me really interested in objects. And I was like, I want to become an object specialist. And so, you know, and then And then you went as far away from the Vikings as you went. My undergrad was in Vikings now. Geographically. Geographically, yes. I did arctic stuff. All the Vikings went to the arctic. Thanks, they got there eventually. They followed me there. but and i mean so It sounds like you're very enthusiastic about the topic. It sounds like you know a lot about the topic, but what do you personally find the kind of most interesting or the most exciting? What would be your, I guess, elevated pitch to try and hook others into the topic?
Mysteries of Medieval Scotland
00:06:23
Speaker
I think it's that potential for discovery, just like any kind of time period in archaeology, what's kind of left unsaid in the written sources is what draws you in. And whenever you read about early medieval Scotland, there's always lots of mystery just kind of lurking around the edges, aren't there? There are these people called the Picts who don't have any descendants. you know There's no longer a Pict land, but there is a Scotland. So what happened to the Picts has always been kind of one of those driving questions for early medievalists working up north. And with the Vikings and all of the kind of people that they displace, what happened to these people? That's always been the more interesting side for me. So even when I'm writing about Vikings, I'm really always thinking about, you know, who was there before? What happened to them? And how did the Vikings kind of get along or otherwise? You know, but I think it's always kind of, it's always been, the you know, the the the stuff that's left unsaid, the kind of mysteries in between the cracks, in between the lines. That's what's always kind of drawn me to the early medieval period.
00:07:28
Speaker
Did you just get chills because I did? I feel like that should be the perfect, like, anyone asking, but why do you do archaeology? We should just take a clip of what I did and just say it and be like, ta-da! Should I just play it? That's it. I was actually at a Pictish stone last weekend. We went past it and I was like, Martin, pull over! know and there my um no i like yes So I like ran out and I got pictures and everything. Yeah, I think my my kids at this point, I have two two young girls. And I think at this point, anytime I try to see something old, they call it a Pictish stone or another Pictish stone, regardless of what it is. Just a pebble on the ground. ah
00:08:10
Speaker
understand no Unfortunately, my kids aren't not yet at the stage where I think they're interested in old stuff. They like digging, but that's inevitable because their mum's an archaeologist and their dad's a gardener. so they' going to be They're halfway there. It's how it starts. Exactly. I'm going to ask the opposite question. okay so You've said the most fantastic thing about archaeology and your topic, but what do you find the most frustrating about your topic? Well, it's kind of the same thing, isn't it? there You know, it cuts both ways, doesn't it? Yeah, it's it's one of those things where there are certain things that you can say to a reasonable extent might be true.
00:08:52
Speaker
And that's probably as far as you're going to get. And even with things like radiocarbon dates, as you well know, radiocarbon dates have these statistical margins of error, don't they? And so even if you had 10 radiocarbon dates for a single context, you know, they all have this sort of statistical margin of error and you could say, well, we're reasonably close to what we think is this century, you know? And even with that, the sort of most scientific kind of dating that we have available, sometimes you can only just get so close, but not quite sort of grasp it, you know? And and I was told in my PhD research that maybe the word that was used most is the word seems as if as if every other sentence I was like, yeah, this seems to say, or it seems to be this way.
00:09:40
Speaker
yeah And so even with the early medieval period, we're a lot where a lot sort of further than we were even just 20 years ago with early medieval archaeology in Scotland. We have a lot more knowledge of where people are, who they were, how they lived, but there's only so much you can get at without names and dates of individual people. By the way, if anyone listening is interested in hearing more about radiocarbon dating that was just mentioned or other dating topics, I believe we spoke about it in our time travel episode. And maybe in the Dendrochronology episode about Ents, with yes so swans we'll just have to go back and listen to the back catalogue if you don't understand that reference. so you know Yeah, we don't have time to go back into dating at all. So we're going to kind of switch a little bit and ask you, Adrian, do you enjoy reading fantasy books?
00:10:29
Speaker
ah so i mean The story I always tell people, and i think I think it's actually become true by now, is that the reason I got into archaeology and medieval stuff in particular is because I read J
Tolkien's Influence on Archaeology
00:10:42
Speaker
.R.R. talking like too early in my life and it kind of ruined me forever. You know, I read The Hobbit maybe when I was 10 years old, and then I moved on to the Lord of the Rings shortly thereafter. I even tried the Silmarillion a couple of times, but it wasn't until college before I actually got into it. But oh but you did get into it. That's you. Here's the thing. Here's the thing about that. So that makes me a terminal kind of fantasy nerd in a way, except that it kind of it kind of ruined other fantasy for me in a way. And I was always like a late comer to other things. And so it took ages for for for my brother to convince me to also try A Song of Ice and Fire and for my wife to convince me to get into the Harry Potter books and things like these. And i'll I've got to admit something to you both. It's only since I started
00:11:30
Speaker
listening to the back episodes of your podcast, this very podcast, that I've dipped my toes into Terry Pratchett's. Yes, we're making a difference. Oh, that has made my day. it's true it's something that's been on my radar obviously for the longest time and I just thought oh it's such a big world how do I start where do I go and I vaguely kind of knew that there were people kind of like the pics except that they're yeah you know very small blue creatures are obviously fantastical
00:12:07
Speaker
creatures. And I always thought, oh, I'd love to find out how Terry Pratchett incorporates picked-ish characters into his novels. And well, in a few episodes ago, I i think it was you, Tilly, who mentioned the carpet curriculum. Oh, yes. and and And so I started with that one. I've just got it on audiobook. It's read by Indira Varma and a couple of other voice actors, Bill Naid. Oh, you got the play one. Yeah, because they they've just started redoing them, which I'm not sure how I feel about it, to be honest, because the the originals were... You've started us now. Sorry, sorry, that's right. so email that maybe Maybe this is something that we can we can kind of talk about off air. and Like, which ones which which versions you think I should move on to next? You know, because I've got to say, like, the the density of cleverness, I think, is just off the charts. Right. yeah
00:12:55
Speaker
He's got something, doesn't he? It's unbelievable. the The amount of turns of phrase per paragraph is phenomenal. yeah ah You heard it here, everybody. that was And I would like to say that was unsolicited. I did not mention anything about Discord in the lead up to this episode. I did not mention anything right now. yeah i thought I thought you'd be so disappointed in me, to be honest with you. I've only just started, but there you are. you know If anyone can start, it's never too late to start the dairy factory. I think you have actually made a day right there. You've encouraged us. I knew that slipping a reference into every episode would eventually make it. I feel like there's another podcast coming now.
00:13:40
Speaker
Oh my gosh, if we could do the archaeology of Sherry Prep of Discworld, that would be like, maybe we have to do that as well. That would subscribe right away. We should definitely do that. You've got one less mentally. Yes, that's all you need. it's not like So sorry we know what Tilly's favorite series is. But Ajay, what's your favorite fantasy book? Is it Lord of the Rings? It is, of course. I mean, it's the entire legendarium at this point. I have to admit, I've i've not read the sort of history of Middle Earth cover to cover. But I think in terms of the books that I go back to most often, think about and relate to other things in my life, you know, I think it has to be Tolkien's legendarium.
00:14:22
Speaker
and ah about like Do you find then that you also enjoy more when you read other high fantasy kind of books? Or do you find that ah that if you have that comparison that it's sort of almost too similar, so therefore you have a negative and you need to try a different kind of fantasy? No, I think, you know, in you've caught me at ah at at a kind of strange transition point in my sort of fantasy reading journey. So I've not only just finally dipped my toes into Discworld, I've also very recently that finally came to Ursula Le Guin's Wizard of Earthsea. for the very first time and it's these things that I felt very guilty about not sort of accessing early on in my life and so I'm trying desperately to kind of catch up here and I'm seeing about all this sort of different worlds that I've missed. I always kind of thought that everything that came after Tolkien was going to be kind of influenced some way or another
00:15:14
Speaker
And of course it has been, but there's so many different ways and different flavors to approach you know things like magic. you know and And the things that I find myself most interested in in these worlds are the big questions that you know that that any human would have about you know death, the afterlife, and the soul, and how these people kind of deal with those things, the immaterial things. And there's so many more ways at it than Tolkien's way, and I think much more interesting. in some of those ways. I think Tolkien's world is the one that I think I'm most fascinated and invested in. But in terms of those questions about you know how magic works in your world, I think are a lot more fleshed out in subsequent fantasy fiction. So I'm just trying to find my way around it, to be honest.
00:16:00
Speaker
Amazing. think but I mean, it sounds like with your archaeological background and your fantasy interest, it sounds like you're the perfect person for this job indeed. So see do you think you'll be able to help us with this particular issue? Oh, I'm looking forward to it. Excellent. Oh, Ash, did you forget to feed the Balrog again? I can hear something in the background. Oh, Let's hope those new office planes are fireproof. Hey, no, no, don't come in. No, I said I said you shall not pass. Um, we'll be right back.
00:16:32
Speaker
Hello and welcome back. Okay, now that the baby Balrog is back in its pen, we can continue on. I think I've pulled a muscle. Anyway, we're talking about hordes. So Adrian, first question, what exactly is a horde? start with an easy one. Why don't we? Well, I mean, there's cost to phil that's right i suppose fair enough. I think the easiest way to start might just be the strict sort of legal definition, which isn't very exciting. I think in the UK, at least the legal definition of a hoard is any two objects that can demonstrably be shown to have been deposited at the same time.
00:17:11
Speaker
Only two. I didn't think the So only to so you could put like two pull coins in and that's a hoard. That's it. Yeah. at Minimum of two all already counts as a hoard, as long as you can show that they were both deposited deliberately at the same time. So there you are. But I mean, I think most of us kind of assume that hordes are, you know, what characterizes them is that they're a large collection of things, a large assemblage of things,
Legal Definitions of Hoarding
00:17:36
Speaker
don't we? But I guess a lot of us have collections in our lives, like we have collections of books and people collect other strange things sometimes, you know, so it's the kind of a philosophical question, I suppose, but you know, at what point does a collection become a hoard
00:17:54
Speaker
And I think for an archaeologist, the kind of red line, the distinction is ah the moment at which your collection gets buried in the ground for some reason, then it becomes a hoard, I guess. Very specific to archaeological. I was just about to ask, like does that count? as like do you Do you have to deposit in the ground to be a hoard? Because I'm pretty sure my partner would say that I have multiple hoards in my house. isn't there that whole thing as well? It's like, oh, I'm not a book worm. I'm a book dragon. I hoard my book. Yeah, you don't read them. You just like them. I'm very much like that. If it's got a nice cover, that's right. and And if there's one missing, you know exactly that there's something. Who did I read that to? But also you mentioned that hordes are then deposited in the ground. Does it have to be in the ground? Because I know that there's, for example, a lot of like, virtual deposition in water. Would that be a hoard?
00:18:45
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. I think any place where it would survive for a period of time long enough for an archaeologist to stumble upon it, so yeah, under the water, in the walls of a building, you know, under the floorboards, any place where it would survive. But again, that's limited to archaeologists encountering these things. So if we're talking about just for us, I guess that's what a hoard consists of. So are they intentional collections that you deposit somewhere? So there's the question as well. And this is something where a lot of the literature kind of revolves around that question of intentionality and whether it was buried for safekeeping or whether it was given to the ground, as it were. or you know deposited in the water, never to be retrieved. So the question of whether somebody could have retrieved it or not is one of the things that allows us maybe to distinguish to a certain extent whether it was a deposit, a, oh no, are you going to ring a bell, a ritual deposit? oh we need We need a sound drop. We need a sound drop. Yeah, we need a sound board, guys. But yeah, that the the distinction is classically, could you retrieve it or was it irretrievable? So if it was in the bottom of a lake, then presumably it was impractical to retrieve it, and therefore that is classed more as an offering. But again, you know you know because of climate change and land change and improvements,
00:20:17
Speaker
You know, sometimes wet places are dried out later on and it's really difficult to kind of know that for sure, unless you find a hoard and then you subsequently investigate the area as best you can. And so, you know, context is everything. is true i mean we have um yeah If not, then we need to do that as a one. I feel like stickers and t-shirts will be selling hot this weekend. yeah we and So the hoard is something that potentially was intentionally deposited in a place that was not going to be then retrieved or not easily retrieved, otherwise it would be a deposit. And I realised I just used the word deposited when I'm not referring to a deposit. This is kind ah the terminology of this.
00:21:04
Speaker
it's So what actually, I mean, we've mentioned already that it could be objects, two or more objects, but what do you usually find in a hoard? Like, what would you see a couple of objects turning up and be like, aha, this is probably going to be a hoard. Yeah, I mean, you know, I think if for those of you who have children or remember being children, you know, you often just gather things up, don't you? You know, you collect the randomest things, you know, bottle tops is kind of the classic thing, but, you know, any number of weird things that you find.
00:21:35
Speaker
you kind of group them together and maybe if you've got a more advanced state of proto-archaeological mental disorder, then you start classifying them, don't you? know You start putting them into groups by color or by material and then you're going down the road of being an archaeologist and so seek help. I feel attacked. I know, I was just about to say that. But I mean, you know, so collecting, but collecting is its own
Clinical Classification of Hoarding
00:21:59
Speaker
thing. And it doesn't have to be, you know, what it was funny when you know we write a lot, we're writing a lot about hordes for my current project. And what is a hoard is the kind of big question behind it all. And why do people hoard? And so you're reading as much as you can about it. And one of these things I came across recently was this really amazing sounding reference book. It's the Oxford Handbook of Hoarding and Acquiring. And I was like, yes, the Bible, finally. Someone's done this, we don't have to do it anymore. You find out very quickly that it's actually not a history or an archaeology handbook, it's a clinical psychology handbook in which hoarding is officially being reclassified as a disorder separate to but
00:22:40
Speaker
related to, but distinct from obsessive compulsive disorder. And so the whole book is about sort of identifying and treating hoarding as a pathology. But I mean, you know, collecting isn't, uh, isn't a pathology. I think it's like a natural kind of human thing. Is it this Shirley? Somebody please tell me that it is. I was like, I think I need to wing my therapist. actually If anyone listening in has been affected, by the way. We need to have some, yeah, we need to have a hotline. We'll have a hotline. Yeah, we need to have websites and hardlines at the end, don't we? You think you are a hoarder.
00:23:12
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean, and for for an archaeologist, I mean, it's usually what we see are the things which tend to survive in the ground for many years. And so it tends to be inorganic, hard materials, and mostly really, it's metal. And so hordes have really in the in the archaeological literature, hordes are generally speaking metal hordes simply because they survive better in the ground. And so we have this image of hordes, mainly that word linked to treasure, basically coins and gold and maybe sometimes caches of weapons, but generally metal. And that's why, you know, the the project that I'm on at the moment, the Galloway Hoard, is really significant because in amongst all the masses of silver and gold and precious metal in this hoard, because it was excavated by an archaeologist and then set to the lab right away, it's created this opportunity to preserve inorganic materials. And so this hoard was seemingly wrapped and left in the ground with lots of sort of bags and and pouches and wrappings that still survive sometimes just in scraps.
Unique Aspects of the Galloway Hoard
00:24:27
Speaker
But we're almost uniquely with this horde have a picture of ah what probably was the case for a lot of hordes. It just hasn't survived very well that it's not just a mass of metal.
00:24:39
Speaker
buried in a pit in the ground, but something that was very carefully kind of left in parcels and groups. Here's my contribution in this pouch. Here's this person's contribution in this leather sack. And this one's showing us all up with their nice woolen cloak that they've used, you know? But I mean, that's the kind of very rare thing. And so now we're wondering, gosh, how many how many other hordes have had this sort of organic element that have since been lost? or how many hordes were purely made from organic elements as well. but That's right. Wouldn't we ever see them? You're right. We're missing so many things. The Galloway Horde, obviously, has been mentioned a couple of times. so You mentioned that it's a Viking Age Horde. Are all of the objects in it also from the Viking period or the Viking lands, I guess, sort of Scandinavia region?
00:25:26
Speaker
Yeah, so that's the thing. When it first came out of the ground, the metal detectors who found it were able to recognize the bars of silver as ingots and arm rings of a very stereotypical, I mean, what I mean to say is of a very common Viking age type. And so when it came out of the ground and when it hits the news, it is described as a Viking horde, like a really good example of a Viking horde, but still a Viking horde, something that we knew and we have lots of parallels for. But as we sort of take the the stuff back to the lab and we open up, we start opening up the sort of wrapped elements and uncovering things.
00:26:04
Speaker
deeper and deeper within the horde. We're finding things that are less and less Viking looking and more and more almost unique. There are certain things that are coming from the Anglo-Saxon world, ah you know, early medieval England, and there are things that are coming from really far away. There are things that look really quite exotic. There's rock crystal objects of a kind that we don't really find and there's a lidded vessel, there's a bowl made out of silver with gold decoration and it's packed to the brim with interesting objects of various different ages and that bowl itself has strange decorations around the outside that don't look
00:26:48
Speaker
Anglo-Saxon. They don't look Viking. They don't look Carolingian, which is a sort of main concern on the continent at this time. It looks like something from maybe Central Asia. And so there's silk and other exotic materials in here. And so this hoard, it contains multitudes. And so we're trying with this project to kind of peel back and identify everything that we can with a battery of techniques and just, you know, say who was behind this and how did they have these great sort of world spanning networks that brought all these objects to this what's now a remote corner of southwest Scotland.
00:27:26
Speaker
Yeah, that's fascinating. And so can you tie, like I don't know, can you tie an identity to that? Is there something in that? Because it's often said, you know, it's a Viking horde or a Viking age horde, but clearly if it's from different places, all these different objects, does that mean a Viking put it in there? Yeah, that's right. I mean, so we've got so many different kinds of things that what we're calling it now, we've we've we've moved away from Viking Horde and the official description that we use here is a Viking Age Horde, because that allows you to kind of explore all the different connections. Of course, the Vikings didn't just go west to Britain, Ireland, and and and onto the North Atlantic.
00:28:05
Speaker
they also went south and east you know as far as the mediterranean in one direction and as far as modern day russia ukraine vulgar and then on to the sort of islamic and bizantine world so the viking age kind of captures all of these different things And all of these different things are moving through the networks that are centered maybe in Scandinavia, but span the known world. And so we think sort of Viking Age captures that diversity, that messiness, better than just saying it's a Viking horde.
00:28:40
Speaker
Which to be honest, yeah, every time anyone's like, oh yes, I have Viking heritage. I'm always like, oh really? What do you mean by that? What does that mean? Which I'm curious actually, so before we we sort of move on to a different topic, I'm curious what your hordes would say about you. Like if you would have to think now about your collections, both of you, I'm asking this question too. Sorry, this is completely random. I'm going off script. But if you think of like a collection of something that would be your hoard, if someone were to look at it, would they be able to correctly identify you, do you think? Or would it be wow random? Wow. I mean, okay. i Gosh, you know, sometime last year or a couple of years ago, I was asked a similar question. and And do you know what, like, when I started to think about it, I thought, well, I'm not gonna put
00:29:31
Speaker
a picture of myself or you know anything like that. and What I started thinking of like were the things that define me now at this point in my life are the place I've moved to.
Personal Identity Beyond Objects
00:29:43
Speaker
I'm from Puerto Rico, so I'd have something from there, but I've lived my adult life and my career has been in Scotland. I'm married and I have children, so it would be aspects, it would be things that sort of symbolize or stand in for my kids. my wife, my family at home, it would be more about those things rather than me as such. I guess another way of putting it is that what I think I am is made up of people in places and That's so beautiful, that's a lovely... And so it doesn't actually have
00:30:22
Speaker
me strictly in the sense of it doesn't have like my fingerprint. But if I guess if you put it all together, it adds up to what I think is me. And so i don't i it's kind of an existential question. Sorry. do you Do you have anything you want to add, Ash? I mean, that's very beautiful. I immediately thought of, you know, so silly, but in Gladiator, and glad hetan he's got those two little figurines um and then they deposit them in the ground at the end. Immediately thought that. That's a hoard, because it's two. And I think they're made of wood as well, so they're organic. oh and The ultimate hoard. Yeah, but mine is not as poetic, unfortunately. ah pretty much sure I'm sure there's going to, it's just like,
00:31:06
Speaker
fan art of lots of vampires and archaeological rap replicas of like tiny turtles and stuff from Greece. And then books. That's literally it. That's my whole hoard. I think mine is indeed going to be all my archaeological replicas, which is going to just really confuse future archaeologists because they're from all over the place. Be like, why is the Antikythera mechanism in with a scottish half stone ball? so so I just got one of those, the breastfeeding cups, the little and Egyptian ones, I think. yeah they And they've got the the like a little animal. It's very cute. yeah So mine would be that and Venus of Wilendorff, the westerly wife, the berserker from the Lewis Chessman and the tiny turtle.
00:31:55
Speaker
I had a bunch of candles. yeah and but Oh yeah, I forgot all my candles. yeah Actually, it's quite funny. When I do my candles, you made me think of it before I put them out and like on markets and stuff. I actually put them in period. like that's how like yeah has he From the Mesolithic onwards. Otherwise I get really upset and I'm like, don't touch it, it has to stay there. So yeah, I even do it when I'm particular when'm stacking them up and stuff. I'm like, it has to be, there has to be a typography and this is the way to do it. Well, I think the archeologists who found your hoard would very much appreciate that. Yes, they would, they would.
00:32:33
Speaker
That's great. Tilly, the Balrog is giving me puppy dog eyes. Do you think it's hungry? I don't think that immortal spirits need to eat ash. Aw, but its flaming eyes are looking so dim. Ugh, fine. Okay, sorry Adrian and
Upcoming Live Podcast and The Hobbit Read-Along
00:32:49
Speaker
everyone listening. We're going to have to cut this episode of And My Trial a little bit short, but don't worry, we're going to be continuing our chat with Adrian all about hordes in our next episode with part two. In the meantime, As always, we're always looking for new episode ideas. So if you have any suggestions, do get in contact via email or social media or contact info can be found in the show notes. Also, we have a very exciting announcement this time because in between the release of this episode and the release of part two, Ash and I are going to be doing a live podcast recording that will be released later again, like the the final recording will be released after, but we'll be recording it either this coming weekend
00:33:27
Speaker
or next weekend if you're listening to this podcast. We haven't quite decided the date yet. i still showing some We're still in the bit. Check the show notes and we'll put it in there. And check the Archaeology Podcast Network website as well because it will be up on there as well. You'll need to register. And remember, we talked about it in one of our previous episodes. We're going to be doing a read-along of The Hobbit and dealing with it from an archaeological perspective. So If you're interested in hearing part one of that little sub-series, do come along and join us. Otherwise, see you again in part two. Bye. Bye.
00:34:03
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.