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Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: That Super Humble Statue of Zeus · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
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Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Let's hear it for a super producer,
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Speaker 1: mister Max Williams zeus zeus Z.
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Speaker 2: Is that a thing people chant? You can chant anything.
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Speaker 2: Uh has a good mouthfield too when it makes you
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Speaker 2: want to pump your fist.
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Speaker 1: And hopefully there are a few people in the audience
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Speaker 1: tonight who are chanting Uh. Ben Bullen, I'm kidding.
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Speaker 2: That's you are in the mirror on a regular basis.
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Speaker 2: That's very nice of summoning you like the candy man.
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Speaker 2: And you are Noel Brown.
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Speaker 1: And today we are continuing our our exploration of the
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Speaker 1: Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Now, previously we talked
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Speaker 1: about the hanging gardens of Babylon. We also talked about
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Speaker 1: a pretty sick Mauslem And today no, we're exploring a statue.
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Speaker 2: You know, it's it's it's it's a cool statue. It's
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Speaker 2: an imposing statue. It looms large in both history and
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Speaker 2: like you know, physically to jump in here.
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Speaker 3: As the research associate on these, I'm going to say
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Speaker 3: this right now, at the top. I think Statue of
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Speaker 3: Zeus is the lamest of the seven ones.
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Speaker 2: I take back, and I was trying to big up
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Speaker 2: the Statue of Zeus, you know, but you can just
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Speaker 2: deflated it. That's cool, You're right.
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Speaker 1: It's so you think it's you think it's lamer than
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Speaker 1: the the what does the world?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, the one that doesn't exist.
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Speaker 3: I mean that one's really cool because the legend and
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Speaker 3: lore and stuff like that. Obviously it doesn't exist. I
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Speaker 3: mean something like it definitely did. But I think it's
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Speaker 3: actually probably very likely that people were confusing just things
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Speaker 3: in Babylon.
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Speaker 1: To be you're in that area, yeah, one hundred percent.
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Speaker 1: Like Archimedes didn't really invent Archimedes' screw.
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Speaker 2: And invents the Archimedes screw. Why is it called that?
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Speaker 1: It's just branding at that point. Like Pythagorean theorem.
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Speaker 2: But wait a second, are you saying yzaggaris is in
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Speaker 2: India Pythagorean theorem?
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Speaker 1: Well, he independently discovered it, probably, but someone else also
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Speaker 1: came up with it.
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Speaker 2: It's all more that parallel thinking we only see in
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Speaker 2: history and speaking in parallel thinking. A lot of human
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Speaker 2: cultures love making.
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Speaker 1: Statues, Uh, there's a bit of hubris to the concept, right,
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Speaker 1: but it's also a way to tangibly commemorate an idea,
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Speaker 1: a deity, or you know, a ruler. You don't see
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Speaker 1: a lot of average guy statues.
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Speaker 2: That's true. I guess the hubrious element comes in depending on,
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Speaker 2: like who decided who commissioned the statue. If it's like
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Speaker 2: Noel Brown commissioning a giant statue of Noel Brown in
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Speaker 2: my front yard, which certainly has been known to be done,
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Speaker 2: that would be an act of hubris. But I guess
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Speaker 2: if it's like you know, in commemoration of a great figure,
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Speaker 2: and it was done by like the people, I don't
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Speaker 2: know that. I guess the people don't really commission stiesse
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Speaker 2: I don't know what I'm talking about. What's the deal
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Speaker 2: with Zeus though? That's that guy is a pretty big deal.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the third oldest or most likely the
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Speaker 1: third oldest wonder of the ancient world. Stay tuned also
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Speaker 1: for our upcoming episode on who decided what made the
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Speaker 1: list or did not make the list?
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Speaker 2: It was Esco, It was wasn't it was different.
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Speaker 1: It was a little before UNESCO's time. Okay, fair enough,
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Speaker 1: but it was definitely. I'm gonna say it was kind
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Speaker 1: of arbitrary, but we'll we'll get into it in the future.
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Speaker 1: For now, yeah, for now, Zeus is if you travel
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Speaker 1: back into the heyday of this sculpture, then you'll see
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Speaker 1: something phenomenal. As Mark Cartwright says writing for World History Encyclopedia,
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Speaker 1: this statue was worshiped by pilgrims from across the Mediterranean.
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Speaker 1: It inspired countless imitations. It defined the standard representation of
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Speaker 1: Zeus in Greek and Roman art on pretty much all
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Speaker 1: any kind of ancient merch you can imagine, pottery, gemstones, coins.
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Speaker 1: It's kind of like how a political cartoonist and the
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Speaker 1: Coca Cola company solidified the image of Santa Claus.
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Speaker 2: This.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, before the statue, Zeus could be represented in any
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Speaker 1: number of ways.
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Speaker 2: That's true. Yeah, I'm looking at it right now. Are
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Speaker 2: looking at an artist rendering of it right now. It's
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Speaker 2: pretty elden Ring. Dude, that stepter that he's holding, I
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Speaker 2: feel like I could do a lot of HP, you know, seriously,
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Speaker 2: And then he's got what is that like a why
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Speaker 2: is there an angel in his hand? What's that about?
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Speaker 2: He was just a cool guy. It was that like
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Speaker 2: his familiar can he like deploy that to like, do
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Speaker 2: you know ranged damage.
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Speaker 1: Let's get into it. Let's get into it, right, the
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Speaker 1: DPS and the obviously this statue has a lot of
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Speaker 1: hit points. But yeah, what's its hip box is the question?
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Speaker 2: Right? Right?
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Speaker 1: This this is a world famous thing in its time,
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Speaker 1: and we owe it all or we owe the actual
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Speaker 1: sculpture to a guy named Phidias City, which is such
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Speaker 1: a fun silly name.
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Speaker 2: It feels like the name of a jolly cat, it does.
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Speaker 2: It just sounds fiddly for some reason. This guy is
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Speaker 2: a sculptor. Cartwright goes on the master sculptor and architect Phidious,
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Speaker 2: which is also spelled kind of like a five five
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Speaker 2: ds I guess at pH e I d i as
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Speaker 2: was active from four sixty five to four twenty five BCE.
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Speaker 2: He was already kind of a big deal. He'd supervised
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Speaker 2: the construction of a little old government building called the Parthenon.
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Speaker 2: Never heard of it? Yeah, no big deal there in Athens, uh,
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Speaker 2: And it's giant statue of Athena also a pretty big
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Speaker 2: deal in terms of like pantheons, right.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, patron Goddess of Athens, and I love I gotta
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Speaker 1: stop here for a second. I love the idea of
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Speaker 1: mascots for cities, whether they be gods or you know,
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Speaker 1: uh Yo kai or.
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Speaker 2: Something we got? Is it issy? Isn't that what it
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Speaker 2: was called? Yeah? For the Olympics.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, not not the city's best work. No, but
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Speaker 1: it's no Athena, It's no Zeus. But you know the
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Speaker 1: So this guy is kind of like Phidias, is kind
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Speaker 1: of like a guds On Borgloom of his day, the
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Speaker 1: guy who made Stone Mountain and the faces. Yeah, he's
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Speaker 1: he He's a that guy. Gutan's a problematic dude, but
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Speaker 1: is similar because he is known for making these beat
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Speaker 1: me here Max big aps sculptures.
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Speaker 2: Big boys. Yeah, it's true. The location was going to
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Speaker 2: be Olympia in the western Peloponness of Greece, where a
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Speaker 2: huge temple had been erected recently. That is where every
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Speaker 2: four years the Olympic Games, sort of the og Olympic Games,
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Speaker 2: the Pan Hellenic Olympic Games took place or were dedicated.
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Speaker 2: And this is from Cartwright's research.
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Speaker 1: And this would help solidify like the location of this
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Speaker 1: temple and then later this statue of Zeus. This would
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Speaker 1: help solidify these events as not just a series of
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Speaker 1: games similar to things in other parts of the world,
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Speaker 1: play instead as the games big tent item.
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Speaker 2: I guess it's appropriate then that I brought up Izzy,
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Speaker 2: because that was the Olympic mascot, the sort of goofy,
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Speaker 2: cartoonish Olympic mascot of the Atlanta Olympic Games. What was
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Speaker 2: that in the nineties ninety nineteen ninety six six man
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Speaker 2: was wrong, way off. So Phidias was a really really
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Speaker 2: beloved and you know, luminary of an architect. So he
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Speaker 2: was the kind of obvious choice for this statue because
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Speaker 2: it not only was going to be a big deal,
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Speaker 2: very visible honoring a very important deity, but it was
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Speaker 2: going to be logistically pretty gnarly, and he was going
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Speaker 2: to need to supervise hundreds of workers and craftsmen and this,
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Speaker 2: like many, you know, things that I guess would be
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Speaker 2: considered ancient wonders, it was going to take quite a
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Speaker 2: few years of planning and work to get this done.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, you know, and he has the bona fides,
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Speaker 1: he's got a nasty CV.
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Speaker 2: They like him for this.
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Speaker 1: He moves to Olympia because it's going to take so
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Speaker 1: long that he pretty much has to live there to
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Speaker 1: make the statue. And if you fast forward you'll see
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Speaker 1: that later excavations in the twentieth century discovered Phidias's workshop,
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Speaker 1: so we know he was an actual person.
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Speaker 2: We know he was alive. Uh. We have one of my.
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Speaker 1: Favorite pieces of material evidence for his existence, other than
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Speaker 1: you know, the statues. Uh, in his workshop they found
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Speaker 1: a little wine jug or cup and on the side
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Speaker 1: of it. You know how a lot of people when
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Speaker 1: they have office jobs, they have qut mugs with his statement.
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Speaker 2: There they're faced on the bottom. Was it in the
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Speaker 2: it crowd? Where like you'll know it's what is it? Moss?
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Speaker 2: He had his face was on the bottom of the mug,
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Speaker 2: and so he's looking for his mug. But it was
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Speaker 2: until the end that they showed the twist when someone
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Speaker 2: was drinking from it and looked at the bottom and
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Speaker 2: it was a big picture of Moss's head played by
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Speaker 2: Richard Iowadi. Great, great, I love it.
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Speaker 3: It's a completely generic mug. Other than that, that's exactly.
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Speaker 2: I like your glasses.
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Speaker 1: Well, I'm sorry, they're not for sale.
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Speaker 2: They're not you know what, everything's not for sale.
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Speaker 1: Okay, So this, uh, getting back to this story the
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Speaker 1: QT mug thing. This is again one of my favorite
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Speaker 1: facts about the discovery of this guy's actual existence. He
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Speaker 1: had a little mug and his little mug which was
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Speaker 1: probably meant to hold wine. On the side of it,
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Speaker 1: it says I belonged to Phidias Phidias cup.
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Speaker 2: He just couldn't put down the cup, you know.
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Speaker 1: And this workshop also we know they had implements that
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Speaker 1: sculptors would use. They also have fancy stuff like ivory tools,
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Speaker 1: goldsmithing hammers, and then molds for pieces of a large,
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Speaker 1: so far unidentified female statue. But anyway, maybe we talked
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Speaker 1: about the temple before, so we can understand why they
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Speaker 1: moved this pretty famous guy all the way over there
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Speaker 1: to build this statue.
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Speaker 2: Right, And I don't know if it happens right here,
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Speaker 2: but I think Max pointed out in the research and
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Speaker 2: the temple and the statue sounds like like a doom
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Speaker 2: metal band, or like the very least like a metal album.
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Speaker 2: It's very metal. Oh it doesn't. The first line sounds
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Speaker 2: like an album name. It's true highly metal sounding. So
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Speaker 2: before we dive into the actual statue, to your point, Bed,
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Speaker 2: let's talk about the meaning and the significance of the
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Speaker 2: temple In the religion of ancient Greek, a temple was
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Speaker 2: very very important. That I mean, it's not completely different
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Speaker 2: than the idea behind a church or like it is
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Speaker 2: the literal house of God. It is where God lives.
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Speaker 2: Whose house God's house?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and the name that would be used for temple
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Speaker 1: is nous in aos, which just means dwelling, so that
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Speaker 1: the statue of the deity then it's like a shrine.
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Speaker 1: The statue is far more important than the structure of
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Speaker 1: the temple that surrounds the statue.
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Speaker 2: Now do we know.
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Speaker 1: The degree of sincere spirituality for people worshiping at the temple?
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Speaker 1: Do we ever write it's still a question today would
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Speaker 1: be point.
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Speaker 2: Right, I guess because it was kind of a cosmopolitan world,
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Speaker 2: right in Greek this was a very an urban is
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Speaker 2: the wrong term, but you know, secular, like in terms
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Speaker 2: of like the kinds of stuff, the commerce aspect of it.
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Speaker 2: I know that the worship of the gods was a
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Speaker 2: thing on paper. But the question then becomes like how
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Speaker 2: strong was every individual's faith at this point? Is that
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Speaker 2: what you're saying, Ben.
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Speaker 1: Well, we have to realize, you know, there's yes that
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Speaker 1: question that continues in twenty twenty five, right, But we
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Speaker 1: also have to realize that to the point about cosmopolitan
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Speaker 1: or diverse belief spectrums, there was a.
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Speaker 2: There was a.
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Speaker 1: Monopoly of varying degrees of sincerity, you know. For It's
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Speaker 1: funny because in some cases, at this time in history,
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Speaker 1: people are literally sacrificing animals, and sometimes more than animals
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Speaker 1: because they believe in gods to that degree. But then
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Speaker 1: in other cases, is you could say they root for
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Speaker 1: their city's god the way you would root for your
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Speaker 1: city sports team.
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Speaker 2: You know what I mean. Yeah, case in point with
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Speaker 2: the Olympics. I mean, truly, it does feel like that
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Speaker 2: was the best representation of like this, you know, cheering
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Speaker 2: for your particular deity of choice. But it's also it
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Speaker 2: shows as well, though, how politics and religion were very
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Speaker 2: closely intertwined, you know, and in many cases, perhaps by
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Speaker 2: the folks in charge, religion was a way of controlling
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Speaker 2: folks at a lower social stratum than.
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Speaker 1: They right, an opiate of the masses always Yeah, And
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Speaker 1: the name for a statue in Greek is zoom zoo or,
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Speaker 1: which translates to living things. So that's part of why
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Speaker 1: these sculptures from this period. That's why they aim for
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Speaker 1: a realism and kind of hyper realism which takes an
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Speaker 1: immense degree of skill.
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Speaker 2: It's unbelievable. It's still blows me away when I got
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Speaker 2: I mean, there's like a little sculpture garden at the
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Speaker 2: High Museum here in Atlanta, and like the stuff that
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Speaker 2: always absolutely blows my mind is there's one in particular,
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Speaker 2: I believe where it's like a I think it's a
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Speaker 2: Greek sculpture. It's a woman sort of in a shroud
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Speaker 2: and like fa The way it flows and the way
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Speaker 2: it looks transparent. Dude, it's crazy, the level of precision
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Speaker 2: that goes into these things.
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Speaker 1: I've spent more than an hour just baffled at that one.
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Speaker 2: It's crazy. I'm glad that you liked that one too.
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Speaker 2: Do you know much about the background it has to
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Speaker 2: be I think roughly of this era. It seems like
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Speaker 2: the style. In any case, I should have read the cat.
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Speaker 2: It's a similar medium and a similar level of realism
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Speaker 2: that we're talking about.
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Speaker 1: It is a similar medium, it's a similar level of realism.
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Speaker 1: I don't think it's from the same time, just because
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Speaker 1: this statue of Zeus is so very old.
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Speaker 2: That's very true. It might be Italian. It might be
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Speaker 2: later though and like inspired by that kind of sculpture.
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Speaker 2: But we'll figure that out. We will maybe maybe off bake.
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Speaker 2: We'll report back. It was this kind of idea of
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Speaker 2: this this temple containing this incredibly imposing statue, that it
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Speaker 2: would be this link right between like the Mortal Coil
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Speaker 2: and like the world of the gods.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and Phidious understands this is a quite prestigious gig, right.
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Speaker 1: He doesn't want to let the team down, so he says, look,
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Speaker 1: I'm going to make a statue that is so big
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Speaker 1: and so literally dripping in gold that it is going
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Speaker 1: to inspire revelation and epiphany to the onlooker.
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Speaker 2: This will change the way you feel about God. Dude,
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Speaker 2: that's the kind of statue I'm making. So you got
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Speaker 2: to wonder there to our question, is this a flex
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Speaker 2: like he's gonna just like he's almost likening him himself
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Speaker 2: to a godlike in his ability, or is this coming
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Speaker 2: from a place of true belief. It's up for debate.
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Speaker 1: We were not able to get Phidious on the show
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Speaker 1: today for a couple of reasons. His dance card's a
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Speaker 1: little full, but he says, hi, and he wants us
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Speaker 1: to tell you that this statue was over forty feet tall,
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Speaker 1: and like you were describing earlier, it is not Zeus standing.
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Speaker 1: He is sitting atop a throne. And it's similar to
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Speaker 1: later statues like the statue of Lincoln in DC. It's
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Speaker 1: wrought with symbolism, but unlike the Lincoln statue, which we're
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Speaker 1: just using his reference point because most people can picture
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Speaker 1: it in their heads. Unlike the Lincoln statue, this thing
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Speaker 1: is I'm gonna say it's a little gaudy. It's a
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Speaker 1: combination of gold and ivory over a wooden core. All
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Speaker 1: the all the skin of Zeus, his face, his arms,
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Speaker 1: legs towards, so that's made of ivory, like actual from
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Speaker 1: elephant's ivory.
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Speaker 2: That's why that includes all of his extremities right his
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Speaker 2: face and arms and torso uh and his beard, all
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Speaker 2: the little lacoutrement called them, like the accessories robes and
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Speaker 2: his staff are made of gold, then these are. There's
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Speaker 2: a lot of craftsmanship that goes into that because they're
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Speaker 2: hammered really thin and then applied directly to the ivory
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Speaker 2: as these almost like I guess Inlays is maybe the
17:34
Speaker 2: wrong word, but it does have all of these different
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Speaker 2: like components kind of little lecoutrement jewels as well, if
17:39
Speaker 2: I'm not a mistake, enamel, maybe even ebony mm hmm,
17:44
Speaker 2: yeah uh. And then of course paint a bunch of jewels,
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Speaker 2: because why not. And it's blamed out for sure, it
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Speaker 2: is definitely you know, it has it has some drip.
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Speaker 1: And we know from again the evidence in the workshop,
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Speaker 1: they probably first erected the statue in pieces. The size
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Speaker 1: of the workshop again proven to be Phidias's hangout, his
18:08
Speaker 1: little home away from home office. It is exactly the
18:11
Speaker 1: same dimensions as the inner main room of the temple.
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Speaker 1: So they probably put it there together in the workshop
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Speaker 1: to give it a qa, and then they took it apart,
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Speaker 1: and he took it to the temple and they put
18:25
Speaker 1: it back together. It's in ikea sculpture.
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Speaker 2: It does seem to be the case there, ben So
18:31
Speaker 2: lest we rely on our own kind of recreation of
18:34
Speaker 2: like artists renderings and things that we've seen, which I think
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Speaker 2: we've done a fine job, let's hear a historical description
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Speaker 2: that has found circa second century CE by the Greek
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Speaker 2: geographer and traveler Pausanius. Pause, Pausane Pausanius. Yeah pause, Ennius.
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Speaker 2: Yeah there you go. Love it. You want to pass
18:51
Speaker 2: this one around them? Yeah, let's do so. Here we go.
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Speaker 2: The god sits on a throat and he's made of
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Speaker 2: gold and ivory. On his head lies garland, which is
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Speaker 2: a copy of olive shoots. It is right hand. He
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Speaker 2: carries a victory Nike, which, like the statue, is of
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Speaker 2: ivory and gold. Oh dear, I don't know gonna follow that,
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Speaker 2: miskinnes my regular lies she Nike right, the victory, the
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Speaker 2: winged victory like the one at the louver. If phenom
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Speaker 2: mistaken that Rachel Ziegler is always talking about her in
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Speaker 2: her YouTube videos. She wears a ribbon and on her
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Speaker 2: head a garland. In the left hand of the god
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Speaker 2: is a scepter ornamented with every kind of metal, and
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Speaker 2: the bird sitting on the scepter is the eagle, terrifying bird.
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Speaker 2: The sandals also, I gotta do a voice here for
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Speaker 2: it of the god of gold, and is likewise his rube.
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Speaker 2: On the rube or embroidered figures of animals and the
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Speaker 2: flowers of the lily. The throne is adorned with gold
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Speaker 2: and with jewels, to say nothing of ebony and ivory,
19:57
Speaker 2: which is a weird shout out to that song. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: it's true, that's where it came from. Everybody knows that.
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Speaker 2: So what's the deal with Zeus? We've been talking about
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Speaker 2: it sort of in absentia, sort of as a thing.
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Speaker 2: What was right?
20:10
Speaker 3: Ah?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean it makes it makes sense because
20:13
Speaker 2: of you know, I think you could probably put two
20:15
Speaker 2: and two together and know that the kinds of sculptures
20:18
Speaker 2: that we have from antiquity that remain are like burly material,
20:22
Speaker 2: you know, stuff that is carved out of a single
20:23
Speaker 2: piece of rock. You know, perhaps even carved into perhaps
20:27
Speaker 2: like a cliff face or what have you. It makes
20:29
Speaker 2: sense that those would perhaps stick around this perhaps due
20:31
Speaker 2: to its modularity not the case so, long story short,
20:34
Speaker 2: a statue celebrating a deity of a pagan religion also
20:39
Speaker 2: not super popular. When the Christians take over this.
20:41
Speaker 1: Group be in, They're like, mm, this has got to
20:43
Speaker 1: go to the point about spirituality and politics. We often
20:48
Speaker 1: say spirituality and science were inextricably linked in the ancient
20:52
Speaker 1: world on our show stuff they don't want you to know.
20:55
Speaker 1: And I think it's a really interesting point that spirituality
20:58
Speaker 1: and politics were likewise is intertwined. So as you're saying there,
21:02
Speaker 1: it should be no surprise that when the Roman emperor
21:07
Speaker 1: Theodosius the First got into Christianity, it shouldn't surprise you.
21:12
Speaker 1: They was like, all right, get rid of all this
21:14
Speaker 1: other culty stuff, and he went a little far. He
21:17
Speaker 1: didn't even like the Olympic Games.
21:19
Speaker 2: No, he should didn't. And is that not the reason
21:21
Speaker 2: why a lot of kind of Greek sculptures and things
21:23
Speaker 2: that we have remaining are smashed up like or have
21:26
Speaker 2: been damaged. I'm sure that's one of the many I think. Yeah,
21:31
Speaker 2: it didn't want to presume, but I think that makes
21:33
Speaker 2: a whole lot of sense. Not a fan of the
21:36
Speaker 2: games as we dubbed them earlier, as Max dubbed them
21:38
Speaker 2: all caps, so he wanted to put a stop to
21:41
Speaker 2: that too. So the final Olympics were held in three
21:43
Speaker 2: ninety three CE, after a run of two hundred and
21:46
Speaker 2: ninety three games over a millennium, more than a millennium plus.
21:50
Speaker 2: So after that the site and the temple fell into disrepair.
21:55
Speaker 2: So it wasn't like smashed, right, it was just sort
21:58
Speaker 2: of ignored, And they decided to reroute the upkeep team elsewhere.
22:03
Speaker 1: Perhaps, Yeah, it just kind of faded, you know, it
22:08
Speaker 1: fell from its glory days, and then eventually it is
22:12
Speaker 1: outright desecrated in four twenty six CE, and this happens
22:17
Speaker 1: in large part due to a decree against all pagan
22:21
Speaker 1: temples by Theodosius the Second. Then after that, after the
22:25
Speaker 1: human disaster, natural disasters strike earthquakes in just a few
22:32
Speaker 1: decades apart from each other, absolutely rock the temple.
22:36
Speaker 2: Yep, it really got it rocked. It's true, but you know,
22:39
Speaker 2: nature time, it's the cruelest cut of all time. And
22:45
Speaker 2: the ruins were eventually covered, even adding insults to injury
22:49
Speaker 2: the remaining bits in silt from the River Alpheus, which
22:54
Speaker 2: slowly began to kind of redirect its course also over
22:58
Speaker 2: the time. What is that a riddle? Ben in Lord
23:02
Speaker 2: of the Rings. It's one of the Gollumn riddles. It's
23:05
Speaker 2: about time, And I always thought it was like grinds
23:08
Speaker 2: great mountains to me. Anyway, I think it's just a
23:11
Speaker 2: good one and I'll see we can find it time.
23:14
Speaker 2: I've got it. Yeah cool, yeah, okay, yeah here it is.
23:20
Speaker 1: Wait, wait, we're not going to do a Gollum voice
23:27
Speaker 1: because I'm wonder the weather, but this thing all things
23:30
Speaker 1: devours birds, beast, trees, flowers, gnaws, iron, bites, steel, grinds,
23:36
Speaker 1: hard stones to meal, slaves, king ruins town. And I
23:40
Speaker 1: think the line that got it stuck in our heads
23:42
Speaker 1: we saw this was was where he just gets super metal.
23:45
Speaker 2: He's like and beats high mountain and then he takes
23:49
Speaker 2: like five minutes to say down. It gives them the
23:54
Speaker 2: beat down of their life. And I think one of
23:57
Speaker 2: the other clues or the solutions to one of the
24:00
Speaker 2: is mountain. And then we also have which is another
24:03
Speaker 2: feature of time. I mean, think about the way like wind,
24:06
Speaker 2: just over long enough, time just erodes things down to nothing.
24:10
Speaker 2: It's just I don't know, I'm stating the obvious, but
24:12
Speaker 2: I do still find it. It's amazing.
24:14
Speaker 1: I hear you, And I think this is one of
24:16
Speaker 1: my favorite details about the tragic loss of the Statue
24:20
Speaker 1: of Zeus here because the fact that a river slowly
24:25
Speaker 1: changed its course is the best illustration of how long
24:29
Speaker 1: it goes. Yeah, took place, And.
24:31
Speaker 2: Back to Cartwright direct quote, because I think he said
24:34
Speaker 2: it best. The statue would not suffer the same fate
24:36
Speaker 2: as the temple, though as the two were destined to
24:40
Speaker 2: be separated and never reunited. The statue was renovated several times.
24:44
Speaker 2: Cracks in the ivory were repaired, and even perhaps supporting
24:47
Speaker 2: columns added under the throne.
24:49
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, and there's a Roman emperor. We've got to mention.
24:53
Speaker 1: You may have heard of him before. Caligula.
24:56
Speaker 2: Bit of a sex pest that guy.
24:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I really don't have a reaction because I
25:01
Speaker 1: feel like that's very true.
25:04
Speaker 2: I mean putting it. Yeah, check out the movie with
25:07
Speaker 2: the Malcolm McDowell. It is bits porn. Just it's rough.
25:12
Speaker 1: And we should also note that with any historical figure,
25:15
Speaker 1: I feel like I always have to say this, be
25:16
Speaker 1: the emperors or popes or what have you, you have
25:20
Speaker 1: to be careful with wild stories you hear about them
25:23
Speaker 1: because sometimes they can be propaganda to mess up a reputation.
25:29
Speaker 1: That being said, caligular man anyway, in addition to doing
25:34
Speaker 1: a lot of Skinemax type stuff, he tries to take
25:40
Speaker 1: the statue of Zeus and transport it to Rome. But
25:45
Speaker 1: if you look at the works of Roman writers like Suetonius,
25:49
Speaker 1: you'll see that eventually they gave up on the project. Now,
25:54
Speaker 1: the reason we know they didn't move it there. This
25:59
Speaker 1: is like eighties Clash of the Titan stuff. The project
26:02
Speaker 1: gets abandoned for one reason or another. But the official
26:06
Speaker 1: reason this writer gives is that the Zoos statue, when
26:10
Speaker 1: they tried to move it, mysteriously emitted a roar of laughter,
26:14
Speaker 1: and then all the scaffolding that the workers were on collapsed.
26:21
Speaker 2: Look upon my works? Can we unpack what this might
26:31
Speaker 2: have been? Do you think it was somebody playing a
26:33
Speaker 2: nice ashton Kutcher asked prank on all of these construction workers, Like,
26:37
Speaker 2: maybe it's crouching in the bushes and doing a laugh,
26:40
Speaker 2: throwing their voice. That's that's I like a hygiens. I
26:43
Speaker 2: do like that.
26:44
Speaker 1: I think it's more plausible that maybe it was uh,
26:48
Speaker 1: maybe it was a cover up story because it got
26:51
Speaker 1: too expensive to move it.
26:52
Speaker 2: Or what about this? What if it was a temblor
26:55
Speaker 2: what if it was a small earthquake that made some noise?
26:59
Speaker 2: And then man, don't you picture when he starts laughing
27:02
Speaker 2: that he just rises up and the like the stone
27:05
Speaker 2: cracks and he gets up and just starts like initiates
27:08
Speaker 2: a giant fight, Like I'm sorry, I've been playing this
27:12
Speaker 2: clare obscure r j RPG style game. So I'm picturing
27:15
Speaker 2: everything in turn based combat. I think Zeus would crush'd.
27:20
Speaker 2: It's good. It's getting a lot better. You got it.
27:22
Speaker 3: You finally finished the main story last night, so I'm
27:24
Speaker 3: doing a new game.
27:25
Speaker 2: Plus.
27:25
Speaker 3: By the way, do an in game plus you have
27:27
Speaker 3: to delete your save file.
27:28
Speaker 2: So uh, it's a little a little psychotic. I'm on
27:31
Speaker 2: the lamp Master, who was kicking.
27:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, you knew the end of Act of one then.
27:36
Speaker 2: Oh good? Yeah, the lamp Master very hard. But I
27:38
Speaker 2: realized that I kept getting my ass handed to me,
27:40
Speaker 2: so I decided to go back and fight some larger
27:42
Speaker 2: level bosses and level up somewhere. Anyway, enough about Yeah,
27:46
Speaker 2: it's good, I just started the grind. But anyway, I'm
27:48
Speaker 2: loving it very much.
27:49
Speaker 1: And speaking of the grind, Uh, there's another unfortunate thing
27:55
Speaker 1: that happens to this statue of Zeus.
27:59
Speaker 2: Uh.
28:00
Speaker 1: Emperor Constantine one is like one of those guys in
28:04
Speaker 1: Florida who steals copper wiring from out of houses.
28:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, like drains the what is the free on from
28:11
Speaker 2: air conditioning? You?
28:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, like has a side business selling dirty catalytic catalyts.
28:16
Speaker 2: What is it? What is the material that's in that.
28:18
Speaker 2: It's so dear, isn't it like platinum or something. There's
28:20
Speaker 2: like a tiny amount of platinum and catalytic converters makes
28:24
Speaker 2: them valuable.
28:25
Speaker 3: It's something. There is some material in there. Because remember
28:28
Speaker 3: Alex got his stolen off his truck when he's an
28:30
Speaker 3: LA hacked it off because this is like they're super
28:35
Speaker 3: expensive to replaced. Thankfully it was covered by his insurance.
28:38
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's.
28:39
Speaker 1: A platinum, palladium and rudium. Dang d look at my
28:44
Speaker 1: car stuff notes? Why do I still have those anyway? Yeah,
28:47
Speaker 1: So the gold parts of this Zeusied statue are taken
28:53
Speaker 1: by Constantine the first. Eventually the statue or what's left
28:58
Speaker 1: of it is moved to constant antoneuple. It's not as sambols,
29:02
Speaker 1: not as symbol, and that's not our business. And this
29:07
Speaker 1: is at the time the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire.
29:12
Speaker 1: Then from there the temple or the structure maybe a
29:17
Speaker 1: palace where this was housed that got destroyed, but we
29:21
Speaker 1: don't know how it got destroyed. It could have been
29:24
Speaker 1: an earthquake, could have been a tsunami, could have been
29:27
Speaker 1: the fifth century, could have been the sixth century CE.
29:32
Speaker 1: All we know is that so much time has passed,
29:35
Speaker 1: rivers have literally changed course.
29:39
Speaker 2: The statue is gone. Yeah, that's basically the story. But
29:43
Speaker 2: you know, based on these descriptions, very helpful descriptions, we
29:47
Speaker 2: do have some pretty cool artists renderings of it. Like
29:49
Speaker 2: I said, so you can look that up. There is
29:51
Speaker 2: a cool alternate kind of what if of it all?
29:54
Speaker 2: An alternate theory is recorded in the works of a historian,
29:58
Speaker 2: actually a paraff history Zonaris and Kedron. You might have
30:02
Speaker 2: heard of them, But doesn't that sound like a cool
30:04
Speaker 2: rap duo? Yeah, I could hear it. Jesus and Marrow,
30:07
Speaker 2: I think is what I'm thinking of. Zennaris and Kedron.
30:09
Speaker 2: I love it. They proposed that the statue was dissured
30:13
Speaker 2: by a fire, and I guess, given its wooden core,
30:17
Speaker 2: that would make sense, and that would have potentially been
30:20
Speaker 2: in four seventy five C.
30:22
Speaker 1: And so now we have a very interesting conundrum here.
30:27
Speaker 1: I'm going to call this statue Zeus Prime. Zeus Prime
30:32
Speaker 1: is gone by Eddie Measure. We don't know exactly what
30:36
Speaker 1: caused it to disappear, but Zeus has inspired so many
30:43
Speaker 1: other renditions. I would say the statue hasn't really disappeared
30:48
Speaker 1: because of the strength of its legacy, You know what.
30:50
Speaker 2: I mean, Mark, that's for sure. Yeah. And to your point,
30:53
Speaker 2: then it really is the quintessential artists rendering of Zeus.
30:58
Speaker 1: And with that we are ending the story of this
31:03
Speaker 1: wonder of the ancient world, the Statue of Zeus, uh,
31:06
Speaker 1: and getting to our main story, the question that has
31:09
Speaker 1: haunted all our fellow ridiculous historians.
31:12
Speaker 2: I threw out this low this half hour.
31:16
Speaker 1: Uh your question immediately, friends and neighbors. Should I build
31:21
Speaker 1: this wonder in the video game sid Meier's Civilization?
31:26
Speaker 2: And I start that to Max Maximilian, Max Atrillian with
31:29
Speaker 2: the facts.
31:30
Speaker 3: Well, like all wonders, and Civilization depends on which game
31:35
Speaker 3: you can build it in. Through my research, I found
31:37
Speaker 3: it's been in four. I haven't checked to see if
31:39
Speaker 3: it's in seven.
31:40
Speaker 1: I haven't even played seven. I was when I were
31:43
Speaker 1: talking to earlier. I only play a civilization on long
31:46
Speaker 1: plane flights.
31:48
Speaker 3: This year's a really I mean, if you're a game nerd, this,
31:52
Speaker 3: oh yeah, yeah, it's really. But there's just so many
31:54
Speaker 3: video games this year to oh.
31:56
Speaker 2: Sorry, that's well, that's a good thing. It's a good, good,
31:58
Speaker 2: good kind of Roughs.
32:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's we're up through so many games, like I
32:01
Speaker 3: don't even touched a like Adam Fall, and that's supposed
32:03
Speaker 3: to be a beautiful game. Long story short though, in
32:05
Speaker 3: Civilization six, Statue of Zeus is probably the most worthless
32:10
Speaker 3: wonder in the game because what it gives you.
32:13
Speaker 2: They like to share your opinion of the one.
32:16
Speaker 3: No, it's like it's four hundred and forty production to
32:18
Speaker 3: build all the things that Statue of Zeus comes with.
32:20
Speaker 3: There's like one specific build you can do where it
32:24
Speaker 3: makes sense. I mean technically, like you know, it's an
32:26
Speaker 3: early wonder, so if you go in for cultural victory earlier,
32:29
Speaker 3: you build them the better. Blah blah blah. But it's
32:30
Speaker 3: like if I think I wrote down here the equation
32:32
Speaker 3: that I ran, But it's like if you're doing a
32:34
Speaker 3: Wonders China build, you have a classical age monumentality. The
32:39
Speaker 3: Statue of Zeus can be attained pretty easy because what
32:41
Speaker 3: you can do is you can, like, you know, put
32:44
Speaker 3: workers in there, you can buy workers with faith and
32:46
Speaker 3: do all these things. But you have to build in
32:48
Speaker 3: a canon and a barracks already, and you can just
32:51
Speaker 3: build you know, so many other great wonders like Jebel, Barkeel, Petra, Avedonna, Plasus, Colisseum,
33:00
Speaker 3: Right Library, Maha Body Temple, and of course the previous
33:03
Speaker 3: dimension Masleiam Halcronasis. Or you can even build the Terracotta Army,
33:08
Speaker 3: which has the exact same requirements as temple Zuits. But
33:12
Speaker 3: it's so much better.
33:12
Speaker 2: And those guys are scary, they'll come at you.
33:15
Speaker 1: And maybe first I have always liked the Great Library
33:19
Speaker 1: as a fan of Bordes, and due to the fact
33:22
Speaker 1: that it gives you those free technologies.
33:24
Speaker 2: That's just sweet. But this is someone who has never
33:27
Speaker 2: played the game or any of the games. Every time
33:29
Speaker 2: you guys talk about it, it gets me curious. It's fun.
33:32
Speaker 2: Isn't there one on PS five? There's one, there's a version. Okay,
33:35
Speaker 2: I'm gonna check it out. Are any of them free
33:37
Speaker 2: on PS plus? They should be, Maybe the older ones
33:40
Speaker 2: might be.
33:40
Speaker 1: Take a look or check an emulator if I can
33:44
Speaker 1: say that online. Anyway, we have we have so so
33:48
Speaker 1: much more to get to, more ancient wonders of the world.
33:52
Speaker 1: We have some ideas we'd like to share with you
33:55
Speaker 1: about what makes a wonder so wonderful or what not,
34:00
Speaker 1: But for now we are going.
34:02
Speaker 2: To call it to day.
34:04
Speaker 1: We're off on some adventures and we're doing so with
34:08
Speaker 1: big thanks to our super producer research associate for this episode,
34:11
Speaker 1: mister Max Williams.
34:13
Speaker 2: Boy are we ever? Huge thanks to Alex Williams, brother
34:16
Speaker 2: of Max, who composed this banging them. Sorry about your
34:19
Speaker 2: catalytic converter, Yeah, I think he got pasted. At least
34:22
Speaker 2: insurance paid for it. Huge thanks to Jonathan Strickland and
34:25
Speaker 2: the Quist and A J. Bahamas Jacobs the Puzzle.
34:29
Speaker 1: And to our dear friends the Rude dudes at Ridiculous
34:32
Speaker 1: Crime who are actually making an appearance on the Puzzler.
34:36
Speaker 1: You check out that crossover we're all very excited about. Uh,
34:41
Speaker 1: let's see Christopher Hasiotis, Eve's Jeff Coates here in.
34:44
Speaker 2: Spirit and Noel. Thanks to you. Welcome back man, Thanks buddy,
34:49
Speaker 2: I appreciate it's good to be back and we'll see
34:52
Speaker 2: you next time. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
35:02
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
35:05
Speaker 2: favorite shows.