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Personhood Through the Looking Glass - Ep 20
246 Plays6 months ago
After the physical labour of episode 19, Ash and Tilly decide to put their interpretative skills to work in this episode, and discuss how to research a certain magical mirror that has been dropped in their office. To do that, they chat about the history of mirrors, the symbolism of mirrors, and try to work out how exactly you would classify a magical mirror.
Links
- Mirrors in Literature
- Paper on mirror symbolism in literature
- Article on obsidian mirrors
- Article on bronze mirrors
- Dissertation on mirror burials in Iron Age Eurasia
- Archaeology of Personhood (Chris Fowler)
Contact
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @and.my.trowel
Transcripts
- For rough transcripts of this episode, go to: https://www.archpodnet.com/trowel/20
ArchPodNet
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- Tee Public Store: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/archaeology-podcast-network?ref_id=5724
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Transcript
Introduction to 'And My Trial'
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You have my sword. And you have my boat. And my trowel.
00:00:11
Speaker
Hi, you're listening to episode 20 of And My Trial, where we look at the fantastic side of archaeology and the archaeological side of fantasy. I'm Jilly. And I'm Ash. And today we're look...
The Enchanted Mirror Mystery
00:00:22
Speaker
Oh, Ash, you've got a little something just there. What? Did I get it? No, no, a bit higher on your cheek. I got it. No, a bit to the left. No, no, no, my left.
00:00:32
Speaker
Oh, hang on, let me just look in the mirror. No, no, not that one, not that one. One? Why? OK, so, right, sorry. So that's what we're actually going to be talking about today. That there is no ordinary mirror. It's an enchanted mirror. Oh, OK, tell me more. So it turns out that this particular mirror has been doing the rounds of various different archaeological companies. Pomp and Fluster Archaeology, Elrond and Daughters Consultancy, Narnia Closet Excavations Unit, et cetera, et cetera. And now it's ended up here.
00:01:02
Speaker
Okay, so are you saying that it's another one of those really annoying objects and nobody knows what to do with and now we've been stuck with it?
Magical Mirrors in Fantasy
00:01:10
Speaker
Maybe, yeah. Seriously, Tilly, you got all annoyed about me about the tavern thing and now this. Yeah, I know, I know, but in my defense it's because I knew that this was here. But I didn't know it was there. Fair enough. Okay, so let's have to deal with this particular mirror.
00:01:28
Speaker
Well, as you can see, no, no, don't look at it directly. Here, take these mirrored glasses, they'll reflect any reflections. But yeah, so as you can see, there's a big crack down the middle of it. So it's obviously not working anymore exactly how it should.
00:01:39
Speaker
Okay, so what kind of mirror is it then? What's the magic? I don't know. So there's just enough residual magic left in it to enchant anyone who looks into it, to the extent that they lose all knowledge of themselves and their purpose, which as you can imagine has somewhat hindered any attempts at research.
00:01:58
Speaker
Tell you, this would have been really nice to know before I decided to look into the mirror. Yeah, well, OK, well, let's have a little think while we sort of consider the different types of mirrors that there are. So, I mean, there's so many different mirrors in fantasy fiction. Actually, funnily enough, there was a book that I
00:02:15
Speaker
literally finished yesterday. And I loved it, by the way. And actually, Ash, you recommended it to me. I did. It's called Empire of Shadows by Jacqueline Benson. And it's a fantasy adventure that's very much focused on archaeology. And it happens to feature a magical mirror known as the smoking mirror. I don't want to say what exactly it does, because it's a bit of a new release. It was only released in the last month or two. And I don't want to spoil it for anyone. But yes, it was it was a really great book. I really enjoyed it.
00:02:40
Speaker
But Ash, what fantasy books have you read recently or have you read that have featured some kind of magical mirror? I don't know if I've read one recently, but the one that immediately kind of comes to mind is like the fairy tales like Snow White, even Beauty and the Beast, where you get the mirror to see her family and her father and stuff. That's the ones that pop into my mind. There's some like magic mirrors in Dungeons and Dragons too, but more about necromancy and things like that.
00:03:10
Speaker
Okay, yeah, which sort of fits with so the ones that you mentioned in the sort of Snow White and even in Dungeons and Dragons are kind of almost that they're cages for kind of trapped souls. So in Snow White, there's like the person in the mirror who's like talking to the Evil Queen. And I guess in Dungeons and Dragons, it's kind of similar like there's there's a mirror has an entity in it that kind of Yeah, it has an entity that like will allow you into a certain place or
00:03:37
Speaker
or not at all can grant you things, yeah. And they're often tied to like a deity. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, that's kind of one of the indeed the examples that I had found as well of kind of different
Mirrors as Portals and Reflectors
00:03:50
Speaker
type of mirror. You also have my personal favorite, which is mirrors as portals to another world.
00:03:56
Speaker
I mean, the classic is, of course, Alice Through the Looking Glass, where she goes through the looking glass. But you have kind of a couple of different examples of that. And they're not always mirrors. Sometimes they're kind of mirror-like substances in a way. But yeah, you have those things. And then the third kind of sort that I came up against was mirrors as fortune tellers in a way. So perhaps you can think of an example from Lord of the Rings, where that might be the case.
00:04:23
Speaker
Oh yes, the Mirror of Gladriel. Exactly. Although, what I like about that one, and also there's another very famous franchise, the Harry Potter franchise has the Mirror of Erised. The thing with those ones is that they're fortune tellers, but they tell not what will, not what will happen, but what sort of could happen, I guess, in that respect. Yeah, they're kind of like, with magic mirrors, they tend to be, they either show you the absolute truth, or they're kind of sneaky, aren't they?
00:04:56
Speaker
Yeah, which is one of the kind of often mentioned symbolisms of mirrors, especially in literature, is that they're reflections of ourselves, but it's also kind of the true self versus the wished for self. And quite often the mirror will, like you say, trick you and will show you what you want to see. So you also have, I mean, one of the most famous examples of mirrors, I guess, in mythology is that of Narcissus because he looks in the mirror and he wants to see himself and he sees himself as beautiful and then he's blind to everything else. So it's sort of
00:05:07
Speaker
It kind of doesn't be devious in a way in trap you. Exactly.
00:05:24
Speaker
revealing, I guess, yeah, your true nature, and the true nature of things as well. Because you have, for example, things like vampires as well, and they don't show up in mirrors quite a lot of the time. Oh, yes, or Dorian Gray, where he looks in, well, he's got the painting, obviously, and then he looks in the mirror. The painting is like the mirror of him. Yeah. And I think it's in that one, even if he does look in a mirror, he sees himself as
00:05:49
Speaker
as he actually is rather than how he appears to everyone else so exactly so it sort of is revealing and then it also sort of reflects different things so sort of dualities internal struggles which again is also related to kind of what you see and what others see it's all related to perception in that respect so yeah so those are the kind of
00:06:10
Speaker
the main, I guess, literary interpretations, shall we say, of sort of mirrors in fantasy
Terry Pratchett's Use of Mirrors
00:06:16
Speaker
fiction. And they're all used so much as almost a character in their own right in a lot of things, one could say. I do have to mention, of course. Oh, here we go.
00:06:26
Speaker
One of my favorite. Well, it's actually, and I wanted to say a quote from, it's one of my favorite Discord books. It's called Witches Abroad. It's the second in the Witches series. And it is, this is a bit of a spoiler. So if you haven't read it yet and you want to flick forward like 30 seconds.
00:06:41
Speaker
So basically, it's about fairy tales, and it's sort of a satire of fairy tales in a lot of respects, but there's, of course, stuff about mirrors and the fact that witches can't get between two mirrors. That's sort of a myth in a lot of other places, I think as well. And that mirrors reflect your power, so you'll sort of get exponentially more power, but they end up inside the mirror somehow, these two characters. So you have Lilith Weatherwax looked out at the multi-layered silvery world. Where am I inside the mirror? Am I dead? The answer to that said death is somewhere
00:07:10
Speaker
between no and yes. Lilith turned and a billion figures turned with her. When can I get out? When you find the one that's real. Lilith ran and a billion figures ran with her. And then later on in the story, you have the same thing happen. Granny Weatherwax looked out at the multi-layered silvery world. Where am I inside the mirror? Am I dead? The answer to that said death is somewhere between no and yes. Esme turned and a billion figures turned with her. When can I get out? When you find the one that's real? Is this a trick question?
00:07:40
Speaker
No, Granny looked down at herself. This one, she said, which I just thought is such a great, I don't know, it seems to really just capture the whole essence of it because it's like you see, you get so confused by the mirror and what you're seeing and what's real and what's not.
Philosophical Reflections of Mirrors
00:07:56
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, if you think about like the houses and mirrors that you get, like fun fairs and stuff. Yeah. People just like run.
00:08:04
Speaker
Pelt straight into a mirror because they think that's the way and they don't know and they can't figure out and it's intentional to confuse you Yeah, yeah exactly and that whole idea of that you see I mean it's it's you know a whole philosophical thing right that you see Yourself differently to how others will see you so also if people look in the mirror They will see something different to what someone else looks at in the mirror But then that is used so much in fantasy fiction. I think to show that kind of subconscious
00:08:32
Speaker
self. That was another one I just thought of. The Jekyll and Hyde, I think that also incorporates mirrors in some way. That's duality all in one person as well, isn't it? What is his personhood if he's two things living in one body? Yeah, exactly. It's a lot of
00:08:53
Speaker
kind of this this quest is going to be I think a little bit more interpretational than our last quest. There's a balance to be had in all things. Exactly, exactly. So the last one was very physical, going through and doing that massive survey and talking to all those people. And this one will just be sitting and contemplating.
00:09:13
Speaker
the time.
The Archaeology of Mirrors
00:09:14
Speaker
There's also been a lot written about this, so I'll put a couple of references into the show notes, but in terms of kind of the imagery of mirrors and reflection, because I think reflection is also something that's really important. I mean, I don't know if you have any examples that you could think of, of sort of something in fantasy where it's the reflection of what you see is different. I'm trying to think now if there was something that I read
00:09:39
Speaker
recently, actually, which was all about reflections. And I can't for the life of me remember what it was. I'm like, I'm actually struggling to think of Milan immediately.
00:09:56
Speaker
I was thinking about the fear it must have been, because if you look at like in the past, right? There's stuff like picked-ish mirrors and lots of different carvings about mirrors, especially in Scotland. There's these very obvious mirror looking thing, or we call it a mirror anyway. But imagine seeing your reflection reflected through a mirror. The fear, you can see it in the stories, there's a fear of what's in the mirror.
00:10:23
Speaker
If that makes sense, but it's just, it's just, you must have been quite terrified to suddenly not know, like you would have sort of known and, and like water reflections distort your appearance, right? But then you would have had this very clear
00:10:39
Speaker
like reflection of you and you'd be like oh my god is that who is that yeah and you don't even see yourself even if it's a clear reflection it's still not the same i mean there's been so many like murder mysteries that the the result has been based on the fact that like a murderer has practiced doing something in the mirror or something and then it's only then that people realize oh that's why it's wrong because it looks weird because it's back to front basically or like it's yes what is that
00:11:08
Speaker
I know it, but it's one of the Agatha Christie's. I don't want to say which one in case it ruins it for people. I mean, you know, for a very long time. That's true. Spoiler alert for... Death at a funeral.
00:11:23
Speaker
where yeah basically the person who gets murdered does like a bird-like tilt to the head and then there's one of the characters who like constantly thinks that something's off and then they realize it's because she was tilting her head the wrong way because it wasn't actually her it was the murderer dressed as her so oh look at that
00:11:40
Speaker
That's clever. She's so clever. And so that was all about reflections and it's, you know, indeed, and how you, how your, the pretense gets stripped away while, while looking at a mirror, which, you know, well, and so, yeah, so if we now look at our particular example and try to work out kind of maybe how we can look at this archeologically, I mean, what do you think of this sort of particular one then, Ash? This particular mirror. Ash?
00:12:11
Speaker
Oh no, she looked into the mirror. Okay, she's become enchanted. Hang on everyone, we'll just have a very quick break while I disenchant her. Okay, are you feeling better now?
00:12:24
Speaker
Yeah, but that was really weird. Well, I'm very glad to have you back with us. But so the question that I was asking was, how do we actually look at mirrors archaeologically?
Humorous Archaeological Anecdotes
00:12:35
Speaker
And more specifically, how would we look at this one, a magical mirror? So yes, as I said earlier, this might be a little bit more of an interpretive discussion. But first, I thought it would be interesting to get a little bit into the history of mirrors. So what do you think is the oldest mirror?
00:12:49
Speaker
Well, I guess that would depend on how you define a mirror. Good point. So, according to the Merriam-Webster...
00:13:00
Speaker
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a mirror is a polished or smooth surface, brackets as of glass, closed brackets, that forms images by reflection. So when you think of glass, or more specifically of old glass, and I mean like very old glass, what do you think of? Very old glass. It has to be obsidian. Hey, ding, ding, ding. A plus glass. Indeed.
00:13:29
Speaker
So the oldest mirrors that have been found so far are made from obsidian, indeed polished obsidian, and they date to approximately 8,000 years ago. So a long time ago, the oldest one we found comes from Anatolia, modern day Turkey. And fun fact, I have seen one of these mirrors myself at an excavation at Chattelhoyak in Turkey. That's just a massive archaeological drop that you've just gotten there.
00:13:53
Speaker
And even better, I could go even better. We took our team picture, so I was working in the Groundstone Lab. I was very lucky. My wonderful supervisor, Christina Tsuraki, invited me to go with her and work in the Groundstone Lab. I was looking at the beads from Neolithic Tjatalhoyuk. This was back in 2017, and it was one of the greatest experiences I've ever had. It was amazing.
00:14:18
Speaker
And we were working in a lab with the Chipped Stone Tool people as well. So Flint and Obsidian. And they had this beautiful Obsidian mirror that they had found. So one of the analysts was looking at it and everything. Sean, I can't remember his last name. Sorry, Sean, if you're listening. And we decided to do our team photo of like the stone lab.
00:14:38
Speaker
taken he set it up so we went and stood out in the in the courtyard outside the room and he set up the mirror next to the camera so that it reflected our like us standing in the courtyard in the mirror and he took a picture of the the mirror with the
00:14:54
Speaker
Did you get trapped in the mirror? Right, I'm still there! I'm still there! Till he doesn't exist! She's still in Catahoy! It's the photo, you know, capturing a piece of your soul and getting trapped in the mirror, like, it's the double whammy. I mean, if you've got a curse on you, I'd take it, honestly, like, to have that experience. I'd be like, yep, curse, that's absolutely fine.
00:15:13
Speaker
But anyway, it was very, very cool. But yeah, sorry to just flex there, but it was a very cool. Flex away. That was a brilliant flex. I've never found an obsidian mirror. To be fair, I didn't find it. They found it long before I got there. But it was very, very cool to see. Tell them that you found it. Yeah, I found it. I saw it come up. It was amazing. I know exactly what this is. Obsidian mirror.
00:15:36
Speaker
Clearly an obsidian mirror. It was beautiful, though. It was very, very beautiful. And so, yeah, so we had obsidian is sort of the oldest mirrors that you find. What would you think would be the next material that one might be able to polish up to an extent that it would be? I know this.
00:15:52
Speaker
I know this, and there's only one reason why I know this, and that is because of the 1999 The Mummy. Hey! The 1999 classic starring Brendan Fraser. And it is bronze. It moves the mirrors to make light. Yes, exactly. So indeed, from around 2000 BC, it was the sort of oldest one that I could find reference to. But you also dig on that site? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:16:21
Speaker
So, you know, like this weird plague of locusts that's been following me around for a while. Oh my god, that's what it is. That makes some sense. Exactly. Unfortunately not. No, I am never dug in Egypt, would love to at some point, but slightly different. Well, not such different political issues at the moment, actually.
00:16:37
Speaker
Anyway, but yes, they have these polished metal mirrors made from bronze, indeed, found in Egypt, but also, for example, in China and other places of Asia, they have this sort of similar style. And you also see similar mirrors depicted even later as well. So on, for example, Greek vases, you have this very kind of clear depiction of people looking into mirrors, and they look indeed like these polished metal mirrors. So it carried on for quite a long time, this particular material.
00:17:02
Speaker
I don't know if you know any, you've done more digging in other parts of the world than I have. So in Scotland, do they also have mirrors? Well, I've never found a mirror, but I know that the, like I talked about the Pictish. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. The symbols often have what we call mirrors in them. There's like albument lemmo. I can't remember how to say that. The stone. Oh yeah. It has like the snake and it has the mirrors on it as well.
00:17:31
Speaker
And then there's replicas, people do replicas of these mirrors, but I don't actually know if they actually were mirrors. I have no clue. True. But I do know that they were around and there's Roman mirrors and things like that as well. Yeah, yeah, no.
00:17:47
Speaker
And I actually have a replica of a bronze, a polished bronze mirror, which, and it does work well. It kind of, obviously it distorts a little bit and obviously the colour's a bit off because it's bronze. But yeah, it does work surprisingly well, actually. We'll have to put a picture of that online for everyone to see. Yeah, I'll put a picture on the Instagram.
00:18:05
Speaker
Yeah, because that's very cool. I mean, I suppose mirrors like, what's the word? Like how they haven't changed as much. Yes. You know, like the form of a mirror is very similar to. Yeah. Even now, everyone's got that kind of little vanity circular mirror. And you see that in the bronze mirrors as well. They're kind of these sometimes handheld little tiny mirror. Yeah.
00:18:30
Speaker
Yeah. I guess it's sort of, yeah, don't change a winning, winning formula. If it works, it works. And yeah, that's sort of how it, how it goes, which, and that sort of is similar as well to, so we've had, we've had obsidian, we've had polished metal. Can you think of any other materials that may have been used in the past for mirrors? Well, obsidian is a stone.
00:18:52
Speaker
Yeah, well, it is, although technically, indeed, it is a glass, you were right about that. But yes, indeed, stone was also used, they had different kinds of stone, polished stone mirrors in, for example, South and Central America, also around 2000 BC is kind of the oldest examples we found from
Historical Mirror Materials
00:19:07
Speaker
there. So the point is that in all parts of the world, pretty much in like from Asia to South America, you're finding
00:19:17
Speaker
things that would have been used, we assume, as mirrors, although we're going to get to that later. Because, yeah, like you were saying, who knows if it actually was a mirror? Maybe it was just a cool piece of a cool plate. If it was a tan. Well, although one of the things that it does need to be is slightly convex, so that then you have that sort of reflection. So that's great for making like a poached egg.
00:19:43
Speaker
Oh my gosh, they were just perfect convex. So they polished a lot. Food polished? I should do use-wear analysis on them, maybe. It was actually polished. I need to do a lot of experimental archaeology to check the traces though, so they're gonna have to do a lot of egg poaching. Luckily I just got five new chickens, so I can't
00:20:10
Speaker
Next episode, results. Results of the coaching experiments. And also, so we've had the obsidian, we've had bronze, we've had stone. But of course, as it also stated in the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition, usually when you think of a mirror, you think of glass, right? Yeah. And but actually that came in surprisingly late. So I mean, the earliest
00:20:33
Speaker
what we could call a sort of glass mirror was found in around the third century AD. You also have, for example, a lot of examples from fifth century AD in China. But actually what we would consider a mirror which has this sort of reflective material, which was quite often like platinum or some other kind of precious metal behind the glass to act as that kind of reflective surface and provide you with the true image, I guess, rather than just having a reflection in a sort of distorted image. That actually only emerges in about the 12th century.
00:21:03
Speaker
So until then, we may do with with a lot of polished surfaces. Yeah, someone was wearing like wonky eyeliner. Right. That should be our new definition instead of like before Christ, you know, I'm afraid any of whatever, you know, before before eyeliner. I wonder if that reflects on any of the stuff like when they find makeup.
00:21:31
Speaker
as well. And I wonder if if you had like a polished bronze, if the color you look, I don't know, this is just because how we use mirrors. If you're looking at it, maybe the mirror, the color is different in the so are you matching it to the reflection? Are you matching it to how you see it in real life? Well, and this begs the question then of who was actually doing, like maybe you look in the mirror to like check things. But for example, if you're putting on makeup, would you have been putting it on yourself? Or would someone else have been putting it on you? Because I mean, if you
00:22:00
Speaker
I assume if you're wealthy enough, you'd have somebody else doing it. Right? Someone else there checking your line. Yeah. You screw it up and go, no, no, that's stuff. It's fine. It's fine. Look in the mirror. Hold the mirror still. No, no, no.
00:22:17
Speaker
But I suppose mirrors don't have to be used in the same way that we would use mirrors. Like we look at it to gussy up our appearance and stuff, you know. But it might be that they're using it for other means. And I hate to say the word, so I won't.
00:22:38
Speaker
We can still leave that buzz up. I know, I keep saying we'll make it. For our 50th anniversary episode, we'll introduce, we'll do a whole episode on ritual and we'll introduce the ritual buzz up.
00:22:51
Speaker
But there's all those superstitions around mirrors as well, isn't there? Yeah. What are your favourite? Do you know any superstitions around mirrors? Yeah, there's the seven years bad luck if you break it. Yes, actually turns out I didn't really know this. I don't know how true this is, by the way. I just found this on a source on the internet, which is
00:23:10
Speaker
Apparently it's because the soul also shatters with the mirror, but the soul can regenerate every second seven years according to Roman legend. So that's why breaking a mirror causes seven years bad luck because by that time your soul will be regenerated again. That's interesting. Right. Okay. So this weekend, I actually had a conversation with someone about this because they broke a mirror and I went, oh, that's seven years bad luck. And she went, no, no, it's three now. And I went, all right.
00:23:36
Speaker
It's changed. Who changed that? So now the soul only needs three years to regenerate. Well, sorry, forget what I said then. But that just shows you how these kinds of superstitions around certain objects do change quite much. And I don't know why it's changed to three instead of seven.
00:24:01
Speaker
Maybe we consider our soul, maybe it is something, you know, we consider our soul lifespan shorter. So it's sort of the regeneration is less time. We don't think as much in the long term. We think in the short term and that I'm going real. But they also say like, like every seven years, your cells change, don't they? So that kind of fits with the Roman legend. But then the three yet, where did that come from? Yeah, that's unless we're just all rapidly aging, which I mean, which
00:24:30
Speaker
Maybe the older you get, it's like an exponential graph as well, right? Like the older you get, the less time, bad luck you have because your soul, no, it'll be the opposite. It would need more time to regenerate. Yeah.
00:24:41
Speaker
Yeah, because if you're a baby, you've got the stem cells. Which is fine because the babies break things all the time, so then it's okay. But if you're getting older, you don't want to break things because you just get more and more bad luck. And also then you have to go to the shops and buy a new one. Yeah, which will probably cause all sorts of horrendous stuff. But there's also that kind of Victorian tradition of if someone dies, you cover the mirror. Yeah, which is related as well to the whole soul being trapped in a mirror thing, because if you cover the mirror, then the soul can't be trapped in it.
00:25:11
Speaker
Yeah, and there's that whole kind of ghost paranormal investigator stuff where they basically look into a mirror and watch as their face distorts and stuff, which is actually just your eye perceiving the different light. But that's apparently communicating with the spirits because it's a portal. Like we said before, there's like different worlds you can connect to mirrors and they bring different energies in and things. Yeah.
00:25:36
Speaker
Yeah, and also indeed revealing the real truth of what's there, which is a lot of things in that respect as well.
Magical Mirrors in Archaeology
00:25:44
Speaker
Which I guess then the question is, how would we approach a magic mirror archaeologically? So you mentioned that there's the mirrors as the portals to the other world, cages for trap souls, as fortune tellers. So if they're portals to another world, then I guess they're a place, a location, which
00:26:02
Speaker
Yeah, we've sort of talked about before. If they're a fortune teller, like they held a future then or they're sort of a cage, I guess you could talk about like object agency, which we talked about way back in episode one. I listened to that one again. The fact that it's an object. But what about if mirrors are actually people?
00:26:22
Speaker
So personhood. Yeah, they're person. They're persons. Yeah, exactly. Well, yeah, because if you think about it, most of the kind of fairy tale magic mirrors that you actually interact with you, you know, they give you options, they talk to you. Yeah. Yeah. So then we could look at, for example, the archaeology of personhood.
00:26:45
Speaker
Oh, right, tell me more. Yeah. Well, so you might think that a person is, and personhood, you know, they're interchangeable, but actually, little bit else to you. There are very complicated archaeological theories around this, which I've probably left it too late in this episode, so we won't be able to go into it in too much detail. But it's an interesting just little tidbit for thought while we finish up. So a person is a term used for sort of an entity, so human or otherwise doesn't have to be human as well. There's a lot of kind of
00:27:14
Speaker
religions or cultures which think of sort of shamanic ritualizations where you don't have to be human to be a person. So they are basically conceptualized and they're treated as a person. So they can have a mind, spirit, or soul. They have a physical body, but they don't have to. But the point is it has kind of its own form of agency, indeed. But personhood is the condition or state of being a person.
00:27:41
Speaker
So for example, you can be a person by your interactions. So personhood is therefore a condition that constantly changes as the person also has different interactions and develops and kind of is altered in different social practices. So as you grow up, you become a different person, you know, you might think someone and say, wow, he's a completely different person to how I knew him.
00:28:04
Speaker
that's because your personhood has developed in such a way to make you that different person. So you can pass to different stages of personhood. So there was a great book by Chris Fowler called The Archaeology of Personhood, and it's actually available free to read online. I'll put a link in the show notes if you're interested in finding out more about this. But so he says that personhood is attained and maintained through relationships, not only with other human beings,
00:28:28
Speaker
but with things, places, animals, and spiritual features of the cosmos. So some of these may also emerge as persons through this engagement. So it's a full-on inception. And yeah, the whole point is that basically it's just everything is connected. One person who's not the same as the other, and it's constantly developing.
Personhood and Mirrors
00:28:46
Speaker
So, you know, that's an interesting
00:28:49
Speaker
Look at a mirror. Yeah, but like, do you have to have a body to be a person? No, exactly. You don't have to. So it's purely, so it says exactly who or what may be a person is contextually variable. So it could just be a mind or a soul or a spirit, and not just. So it's transformative through life and death, you're still technically a person. Well, this is the question. And we had this, I think in also another episode, we talked a little bit about this of when, when do you stop being a person? If you become a ghost, are you still a person?
00:29:18
Speaker
Or a golem, are you an object? Exactly. So really we shouldn't classify this as just a mirror, but a combination of object, place and person, all in one. Oh gosh, I think we're going to have to find a bigger finds catalogue.
00:29:37
Speaker
most likely. Well, on that note, I think that's about it for this episode of My Trial. We hope you enjoyed this quest. If you have any suggestions for topics for future episodes, do get in contact via email or social media. All contact info as well as the references and further reading for the points we've mentioned today can be found in the show notes. Also,
00:29:56
Speaker
Don't forget to check out the other shows on the Archaeology Podcast Network. And if you'd like to support us and our fellow podcast hosts on the network, you can always become an APN member. All information can be found at www.archaeologypodcastnetwork.com. What's that sound? OK, this is going to sound really weird. But to me, that sounds like treasure.
00:30:21
Speaker
Sorry, do you know a lot about treasure? Are you like a human metal detector? No, no, not really. But I do know someone else who does.
00:30:36
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his 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.