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SYSK Selects: How the Rosetta Stone Works · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey there everyone, it's me Josh and for this week's
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: s Y s K Selex, I've chosen a two thousand
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  Speaker 1: thirteen episode, How the Rosetta Stone Works. It's kind of
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: amazing actually that had it not been for this one
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  Speaker 1: government decree that happened to be written in a few
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  Speaker 1: different languages, we may never have figured out what the
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  Speaker 1: heck hieroglyphics mean, and they would have been lost forever,
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  Speaker 1: including the culture that formed the basis of a significant
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: portion of Western civilization. So check it out. How the
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Rosetta Stone Works. Coming at you right now. Welcome to
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Stuff You Should Know, a production of My Heart Radios
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and this is
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  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know, the Overly Hot Studio Edition. I
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: have a bit of a chill now, you don't, I do.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: I'm not at all hawk. Yeah. You also said hurt
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: when our new coworker shook your hand. So what does
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: that say that it has a strong hand shape and
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: you're always cold? Yeah, it's all these lamps in here. Well,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Jerry's decorated. It's nice. It is nice. It's just like
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: an ikea cattalog. That's right. Um, chuck. How many times
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: have you been to Egypt? Um? Kying that trip in
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: high school? Zero? Same here. Yeah, And yet we know
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: an awful lot about Egypt. Yeah, it's popular, especially ancient Egypt.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Like I would wager that we probably know more about
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: ancient Egypt than modern Egypt. Yeah, most people in the West. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Is there a modern Egypt? There is, and it's undergoing
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: quite a bit of turmoil right now. Um okay, I
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: just wanted to make sure that you knew that Egypt
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  Speaker 1: was still around. Yes, okay. Um. Well, the reason that
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: you and I know a lot about Egypt is thing
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: to a soft science, one of the humanities. You would
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: call it, um called egyptology, pretty on the nose name
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: for the study of ancient Egypt. Yeah, it's a real
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: popular thing and has been for a while a while,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: but not too terribly long, I would say, about the
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  Speaker 1: beginning of the nineteenth century. Uh. And the reason that
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: all of it was foster than that all of it
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: came about and that we you and me know about
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Egypt was because of the discovery of a tablet known
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: as the rosetta Stone's right, but you can also go
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: back even further and make the case that if it
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: wasn't for Napoleon Bonaparte, we may not understand Egypt to
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: this day. Yeah, that little guy, he wasn't that little though,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Is that right? Right? He was the average height? Why?
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Why does why do people say that? Then? Where that
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: come from? Because some doctor wrote down I think upon
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: his death that he was five ft two. But what
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: a lot of people don't realize is that the doctor
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: was using the French inch, which is longer than the
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  Speaker 1: British imperial inch. So when you translate five ft two
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: from the French inch to the imperial he was about
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  Speaker 1: five six, which is average height. And uh. The other
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  Speaker 1: reason why he was called like the little Emperor by
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: his armies was because compared to most of his bodyguards
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  Speaker 1: and his people he had around them, he was shorter
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  Speaker 1: than them. Yeah. I guess when you're five six, he
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: wants some six four dudes around you. So, but the
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: idea that he was a very short man is is
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: not correct. Yeah, I'd always heard that, but I didn't
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  Speaker 1: know the story the French inch. There's your band name
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: for the day. Although I typically don't like rhyming names.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: French inch doesn't rhyme, it's just it sounds similar. I
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't call it a rhyme. French and inch. Yeah, French
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  Speaker 1: of the e and the eye. Yeah, that's nipicky. Well, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's the vowels that rhyme, that the content. Yeah, but
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  Speaker 1: if you're Steve Maltmous and you put French at the
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  Speaker 1: end of the line and an inch at the end
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  Speaker 1: of another, it would be it would be rhymy, and
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: you'd sell a lot of records. That's right. Yeah. Um, yeah,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: well there was our pavement reference episode. That's becoming a
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: daily thing too. So you want to get on with this, Yeah,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: let's do it. We're gonna be talking Rosetta Stone, not
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  Speaker 1: the language software, which neither one of us has ever used.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: We're talking about the the real thing, which is actually
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: bigger than I thought. You know, many things are smaller
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: for me, like when you see him in person, Mona Lisa,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: of course, Mona Lisa small. Like I went to England,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: I was like big Ben, that ain't so big. Yeah,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: I don't think I had the impression of big Bembo
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: just kind of underwhelmed. It definitely didn't seem big, whereas
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: the Eiffel Tower that was bigger than I thought. That
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: is where I developed a fear of heights that still
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: plagues me to this day. Like, it literally happened to
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: me on the Eiffel Tower on the way up. Never
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: had a few of heights in my entire life. On
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: the way down, I like was hanging on to the fence,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: and it took me forever to get down because I
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: was suddenly deathly afraid of it just hit me just
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: my brain uh changed. How old were you? Uh? Seventeen? Is? Wow? Yeah,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: I didn't go up to the top. I probably missed out.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: I didn't either. It was the first level that got
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: me really man. Wow, alright, so um, anyway, where was
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: I going? Oh, it's bigger than I thought it was.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: It is um black basalt, and it weighs about three
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: quarters of a ton um inches high point five wide
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: and twelve inches deep. And it's it's large, it's heavy,
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  Speaker 1: it's um. You didn't write this, did you know? No? Um,
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  Speaker 1: it's about the size of a heavy coffee table. Were
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: you about to make fun of something? No? I was
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: just gonna say. Whoever wrote this reference referenced an L
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: c D TV medium size. Yeah, a medium screen l
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: C D television. Oh, by the way, thank you Teresa
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Dove fan request. That's who requested this one. Yeah. Okay, so, um,
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  Speaker 1: it's larger than I thought. And I learned a lot
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: about this. I thought the Rosetta stone because I'm a dummy, Um,
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  Speaker 1: was literally like, here's what our alphabet is, and here's
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  Speaker 1: what everything means. And now that you found it, you
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: can decipher everything. Yeah. I think I had the same
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: impression as well. Until I read this, I thought it
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: was like created as a key to hieroglyphics. Not at all.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Not so it was a government document. Basically, it's a
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: stella stella. Stella is the plural. And uh, it's not
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: just the Egyptians that use stella stella. Um, the minds
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: have largely been figured out. Their language has from old stella. Yeah. Um,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: well and that's it. Those are the two that use stella. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: In this case, it's an inscription carved in three different languages, Greek, hieroglyphics,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: and demotic t not demonic. Yeah, demotic. But since I'm
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: from the South, I saw fen my tea, so it
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: might sound like I'm saying demonic um. And basically it
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: was in the three languages to ensure that everybody could
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  Speaker 1: read it because it was an official government decree. Not
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: super exciting though. No, it wasn't basically what the Rosetta
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: stone says. And like you said, it's in three languages.
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  Speaker 1: There's a decree that says um, essentially that Ptolemy the
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  Speaker 1: fifth is a great ruler and he is a righteous
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  Speaker 1: worshiper of all the right gods, so he's okay in
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  Speaker 1: our book. And this decree was made by some priests
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: who gathered at Memphis, and they um inscribed the stoner
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: had and inscribed and dated March. And it's not It
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: doesn't actually say March. Hieroglyphics. It says eighteen must sure,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: which on the Egyptian calendar translates to something like um
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: March uh. And then they got the because somewhere in
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: there the references the ninth year of Ptolemy the fifth reign,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: which is about so that's where they got the date
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  Speaker 1: from the what we would in the West equated to yeah,
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  Speaker 1: so um, like we said, it doesn't say anything of
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  Speaker 1: particular interest. At the time, it was an important message,
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  Speaker 1: but it's not the Rosetta stone because of what is
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  Speaker 1: transcribed upon that stone. No, it's the fact that it's
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  Speaker 1: in three different languages exactly. Yeah. So there's, like you said,
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  Speaker 1: hieroglyphics demotic and Greek, and hieroglyphics were a sacred um alphabet. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: they used that for really important stuff. So I didn't
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  Speaker 1: know this either. I thought just any old thing they
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  Speaker 1: wanted to write was a hieroglyph Now that's what they
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  Speaker 1: had demiotic for or demotic that was kind of like
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: an abbreviated shorthand more vulgar version of hieroglyphics. Yeah. And
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  Speaker 1: in between that was hieratic um, which was slightly more
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  Speaker 1: complicated than demotic, but less complicated and not sacred like hieroglyphics. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it was like a kind of a transition between um
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  Speaker 1: demotic and hieroglyphics cursive, right, so you can um, so
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  Speaker 1: you could use um hieratic for like a business transaction.
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  Speaker 1: But if you were saying the king is a very
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  Speaker 1: righteous ruler and you mentioned the gods, you're going to
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  Speaker 1: use hieroglyphics, so to have it written in Greek uh demotic,
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  Speaker 1: which was an offshoot of hieratic which was an off
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  Speaker 1: shoot of hieroglyphics and um, hieroglyphics. These priests that gathered
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  Speaker 1: and issued this decree that was written on the Rosetta Stone,
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  Speaker 1: they made sure that everyone in Egypt two was literate,
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  Speaker 1: could read this one way or another. Yeah, And it
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  Speaker 1: was sort of not a stroke of luck. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: it was just smart thinking at the time, but ended
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  Speaker 1: up being a stroke of luck because the three languages,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, without that, I don't think we we may
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  Speaker 1: have never been able to figure out hieroglyphics. No, agreed,
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  Speaker 1: and I've been lost forever exactly. Um. And that's that's
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: not the only way that the Rosetta Stone was kind
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: of a bit of fortune. But um. So the reason
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  Speaker 1: that it was lost was up until the fourth century
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  Speaker 1: a d any average Egyptian could have read the Rosetta
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  Speaker 1: Stone one way or another. But after that the egypt
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  Speaker 1: it left the pharonic stage. Cleopatro is the last pharaoh
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  Speaker 1: of Egypt, and then it came to be ruled by
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: the Greeks. Later on the Romans, the Tlamites, um and
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: a bunch of different foreigners or different groups, and with
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: these groups came the introduction of new gods and the
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: suppression of old gods. And since hieroglyphics were um very
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  Speaker 1: much religious nature. They're sacred or holy, but associated with
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: those old gods, hieroglyphics itself came to be cut off,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: stop suppressed. Yeah, especially Christianity. Um. They tended to want
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  Speaker 1: to get rid of other competing gods and languages that
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: are tied to those gods a right. But luckily we
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: still had Demotic, that's right. And Demotic wasn't taboo. Um.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: That eventually became what's known as Coptic, and Coptic used
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: um some Greek um and then a little bit of
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: still of the hieroglyphic symbols. So there's still like this
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: is just a little bit, very tenuous link between Coptic
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: and hieroglyphics. But then Coptic is lost, it's pushed out
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: by Arabic. Yeah, and then that was like way gone,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: goodbye hieroglyphics. That's it. That was like the hieroglyphics is
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: no longer understood by anyone walking planet Earth. And that
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: means that all of the ancient Egyptian civilization itself was lost. Yeah,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: that and years aside from its structures. Um, the the
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: thought put into it, the reasoning behind it, all the explanations,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: all of the inscriptions, all the writing all over these
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: ancient buildings are understood by no one now, and then
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: as a result of that, the buildings themselves, the last
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  Speaker 1: vestiges of this ancient civilization, are deconstructed and used for
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: the next wave by new rulers, and so ancient Egyptian
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  Speaker 1: culture is lost to to the mists of time. Yeah wow,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: thanks very nice. Yeah, there was no love lost. They
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: were basically like, we don't need this language anymore, we
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: don't need these sacred buildings anymore. They're paying anyway, Let's
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: tear them all down, build up new ones. And oddly,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: the Rosetta stone was actually used as a buttress in
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: a wall of a new building. Yes, so part of
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: the construction, right, that's how. This is another way that
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: this is all the stroke of luck after strokes of luck.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: So the first stroke of luck, as you pointed out,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: is that they just happen to decree that this thing
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: be written in three languages. Yeah, okay, same message in
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: three languages. Then it's used for a building a wall, right, Yeah.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Then it happens to be discovered by some French who
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: are marooned in Egypt because they got crushed by the
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: British right when they tried to invade. Yeah, I guess
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: let's talk about that person. The French thought, hey, we
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: need to we need to get a stronghold on India eventually,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: and Napoleon said, I think a good way to do
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: that is to start a little further away, and let's
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: say Egypt. Let's cut off the the Brits access to
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: the Nile River and that will really help our cause. Unfortunately,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: the Brits at a great navy and pretty much destroyed
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: all their ships and stranded them in Egypt for what
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: nineteen years? Yeah? Yeah, And so for the French, whose
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: ships were now at the bottom of Abu Here bay Um,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: they decided that they really kind of needed to set
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: themselves to creating forts, like since we're here, right um.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't just military that was there part of
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: this invasion, this um strategy that Napoleon had come up
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: with to take over Egypt, it was kind of a
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: hearts and mind strategy too, and so he created something
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: called the Institute of Egypt, also known as the Scientific
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: and Artistic Commission UH. Mineralogists mathematicians, art historians, of engineers, chemists,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: all like all of these people from the letters and
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: sciences um brought together to understand and study Egypt. Yeah.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: They were actually given military rank, but they weren't. I
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: think that was just more of a here, just so
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: we'll call you military, Like they weren't from military backgrounds,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: so they're thinkers. But they were among this invading force
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: that was less ended in France, so as the real
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: military guys were billing the forts, the people from the
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Institute Egypt starts studying Egypt. Yeah, I guess they were
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: the first Egyptologists. Yeah. Boy, it was close. Uh, they
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: definitely were. Uh, and it was very covert operation, Like
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: they weren't really allowed to talk about what they were
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: doing that much except to just say, hey, we're following
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Napoleon's orders, acting on behalf of the good of the
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: French Republic. This is what we're doing. Don't ask any questions, Yeah,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: that's what. Don't ask why I have this measuring tape
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: out or why I'm transcribing things from papyrus. But they did, um,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: they did become I guess, embedded with the local population
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: as well to help learn as much as they could.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: And so it's under this climate that French soldier one day,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: UM finds this very polished black stone that's inscribed and
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: something about it told him that it was pretty important.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: So we took it to these um early gyptologists, the French,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: and said, you guys think this is important and they
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: said yes, yeah. That was Lieutenant Pierre Francois Bouchard, and uh,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: he took it to his boss and they they said, okay,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: this is weird that this is built into a wall,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: but it's clearly something of note and maybe we should
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: take a closer look at it. And um, immediately they
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: started to get to work on trying to transcribe it.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Super difficult at the time, um, and would prove to
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: be difficult over the years. UM. It eventually ended up
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: in the hands of England, of course, but luckily these uh,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: the Institute of Egypt people made copies of it. Yeah.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: I think that like etchings or the plaster molds and things,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: I'm sure, yeah, but they had readable copies of the
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Rosetta stone, so when they did give it up to
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: the British, it wasn't entirely lost to them, that's right,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: and give it up as in not here have this.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: It was more like here, we're making this in the
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Treaty of Alexandria. We're gonna take this in a bunch
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: of other stuff. So now basically you have the French
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: and the British both have the Rosetta stone. The one
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: group that doesn't are the Egyptians, but we'll get to
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: that later. Both of them recognize that this is a
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: very very important something. They know that it's some sort
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: of decree. They recognize that it's in three different languages,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: and I think it becomes obvious to them that this
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: could be the key to understanding higher glyphs, which people
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: have tried to understand. This is not new people going
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: back to a fellow named um Hoopolo who was a
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: fifth century scholar. Supposedly he may not have actually existed.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Um he created basically what was a translation for hieroglyphics, right,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: but it was a false translation, as we'll see. But
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: you know, dating back basically from the moment that hieroglyphics
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: were lost to history, people have tried to understand them.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: So these this this was the British and the French
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: were aware of this, like this may be the key
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: to these mysterious hieroglyphics and this is important, so we're
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: going to try to translate it. Yeah. Well it became
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: a race really because they didn't like each other very
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: much and they both wanted to be the first ones
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: to to figure out what these hieroglyphics meant and how
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: to unlock this history and um, so they sent their best,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: in their brightest. On the English side, the British side,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: it was a scholar named Thomas Young, and then on
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: the French side we had Jean Francois show Polion, who
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: he was sort of born to do this. Apparently he
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: was way into Egypt as a kid even and as
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: a young child said I'm gonna I'm gonna figure out
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: hieroglyphics one day. Yeah. He was even called the Egyptian
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: because he had dark skin and dark hair. And um,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: I think a magician like foretold his fame one day. Yeah,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: when he was born. Supposedly a magician said this guy
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: is gonna be famous, and and he was and um, yeah,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: he was a very talented linguist. He studied under a
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: guy named um Sylvester de Sassy. Yeah, Antoine Isaac Sylvester
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: de Sassy. Uh, he um, who would take a crack
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: at the Rosetta stone. But he trained Uh Shampolion. Is
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: that how we're saying it? Well, yeah, sure he trained him. Um,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: but Champoleon quickly became went from student to master. He
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: applied for he applied to be a student at an
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: institute in Paris, and they were impressed enough with his
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: application that they said, how about you just skip the
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: school part and come beyond the faculty. That's pretty good. Yeah,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: that's a talented linguist. Yeah. They said the same thing
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: when I applied to Georgia. Is that right? Like you
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: just want to go and be an English teacher? Yeah? Na,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: oh really you turned down? Huh sure I wanted to
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: be a student. Oh gotcha. Um. So before all this happens, Um,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: we we have the Greek inscription transcribed, which that was
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Reverend Stephen Watson in eighteen o two. And I don't
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: want to say it was no big deal, but there
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: were quite a few people that could have done this.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: It wasn't like unlocking hieroglyphics, but it was a necessary
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: part of the process. So we want to give him
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: his due. So we have a we have a translation
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: and accurate translation of what the says exactly. So that's
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: step one. And if you have one translated, then if
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: you're a linguist, I guess. I mean it sounds really
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: difficult to do too. I mean it's I can't imagine
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: the painstaking the process of figuring out and alphabet. Yeah,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think about how hard it is to
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: translate a well known language in a language that you speak.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Imagine translating uh, language that's totally lost into something understandable. Um.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: So we had the Greek and then eventually we had
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: the Demotic as well. Um. Yeah, thanks to Yeah Antoine Uh.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: And that same year, at the same time, a Swedish
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: diplomat named Aker balade Um also translated the demotic um
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: and they both went about it two different ways. I
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: thought this was pretty interesting. Yeah, So do saucy Um
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: figured out that there were two proper names at least
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: in there, Ptolemy and Alexander, and he used those to
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: match up sounds and symbols. Um Aker Blade probably had
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: the bigger breakthrough. He used a different technique. He recognized
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: that there was something similar between Demotic and Coptic, and
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: he was well schooled and Coptic, which helped obviously. Yeah,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: that that was his big breakthrough. He he figured out
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: what words spelled love, temple and Greek, and he used
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: that to form basically this rough uh structure for Demotic
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: based on his awareness of Coptic. Yeah, that's only eleven letters.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: That's pretty impressive. Yeah, but I mean, if you've got
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: eleven letters, that's a decent I think they called it
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: a skeletal outline. I guess that's what you'd have. Well, yeah,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, especially since Coptic was only what twenty two
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: plus a couple more from hieroglyphics, it's like a big
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: wheel of fortune game, yes to that, right. So the
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: thing is, though, this established connection now between coptic and
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: Demotic and then Demonic and hieroglyphics, since they're side by side,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: that kind of opened up this mentality that would be
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: needed to finally crack the hieroglyphics for for um, the
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Rosetta Stone. And Thomas Young was the first to really
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: try it. He was the British guy, and he got
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: somewhat far, but he gave up. Yeah, he in eighteen fourteen.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: His big breakthrough was figuring out what a cartouche was,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: and that is Um, it's they say oval, but it's
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: a little more squared away with round edges. But it's
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: a loop basically with hieroglyphic characters in it. And he
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: figured out that these are not only proper names, but
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: royal names. Anything containing containing a cartouche is a royal name,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: which was a big breakthrough because he identified tolem Me
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: the pharaoh's name in one of the car cartouches cartouche cartouches,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: and uh, his queen Baronica was in there as well,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: So he said, you know what again, I've got these
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: two names now to work with. Um. But he was
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: still working on Haro Polo's false premise that hieroglyphics was
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: not phonetic in nature and that it was based just
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: on symbols. Right, That's what Harropolo's big contribution was to
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: confuse a centuries worth of scholars. It's not bad for
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: young because he was onto something. And if he wasn't
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: using that the fake or or not fake but just
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: the poor system, then he might have figured it out. Right.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: So this is the thing, like everyone believed Popolo. Because
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Roppolo claimed that his translation was a direct translation from hieroglyphic.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: It was written in the fifth century a d. Right
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: around the time we lost hieroglyphics, so it was considered
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: to be a primary source and basically completely reasonable. But
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: it was wrong. It was wrong because it said that
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: hieroglyphics are symbolic. So like, if you see a cart
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: a picture that looks like a cart next to a
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: cat and then a lizard, what that should say under
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Hiropolo's translation is cart, cat lizard. This kept throwing everybody
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: off because it didn't make sense, especially right, especially when
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: compared to the Greek translation. In the translation of Demotic,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: it didn't make any sense whatsoever. So, like you said,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: Young gave up, but he published his findings, and you
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: can really strongly make a case that had it not
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: been for Young's breakthrough, Uh, Champolion would not have cracked
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: the Rosetta Stone. No, which uh we should mention here
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: that like they should just accept each other as as
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: co workers and colleagues and get along. But there was
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: a competition that exists to this day of who what
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: country claims that they translated the Rosetta Stone. The French
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: still say that champaign was really the one. The Brits
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: obviously say, no, it was really young, and even when
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: they displayed it in nineteen seventy two with the one
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: of the few times it's left England or maybe the
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: only time they let France display it for like a year. Um,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: they argued about the size of the photos of the
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: two on both sides of it, when in fact the
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: photos were the same size of Young and Champollion. Yeah,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: not photos but portraits. Yeah, But the French were like, well, no,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: Young's is bigger. The Brits were like, no, his is bigger,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: and they were the same size. So they were really
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: just they never came to a common ground on who
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: did it, when in fact they both did. And there
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: were rumors apparently during that time that France was going
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: to to steal the Rosetta stone and keep it and
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: not turn it back to England. And this is in
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies, so it's not like a long time ago. Um.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: So Champagnon picked up in eighteen fourteen where Young left
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: off and started to think, you know what, I need
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: to think more about this this simple thing that Harapolo like,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know if he he was on base after all,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: And that was actually the breakthrough he um he got
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: some old cartouches, and he figured out, um, that the
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: last two letters and one of them were identical. So
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: that's a good thing because you know that it's the
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: same letter. He figured out that it was the letter
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: S and um. Then the first character was a circle,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: and he said, maybe that's the sun and in ancient Egypt,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: the sun god was raw and Coptic. Yeah, and so
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: basically figured out that that name was Ramsey's. Yeah. Then
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: that was a huge breakthrough. He figured out the the
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: identical letters, the last two were sas first one was
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: raw and since he knew that it was in a
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: cartouche that it was a royal name from that era,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: the only person it could have been was Ramsey. So
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: that's how we cracked the code, like you say ye
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: and cracked it in like, hey, this is a phonetic thing.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: He was wrong the whole time, and apparently he fainted
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: on the spot, which is dramatic. Yeah, I'm kind of cute.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: He was French. Sure. Um. So out of that moment,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Egyptology was fully born, Like now we had a way
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: to understand all this stuff that hadn't been destroyed and
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: reused as building material. Just took a long time though.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: It wasn't like they could just read it. It still
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: took a lot of translating. Oh yeah, but they had
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: the basis. Um. Yeah, all they've done is transcribe one
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: single stella. They had millennia worth of things to like
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: papyruses and or papyri um and building inscriptions and sarcopha
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: guy and all the letters. Yeah, whatever you know. Um,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: And so Egyptology is born, and now that it's understood
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: at that moment, there's also a great desire to protect
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Egypt and all of its treasures. Yeah, and to get
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: things right because previous to that, in Napoleon and Gang
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: did a pretty good job. But they also speculated a lot. Yeah,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: because they couldn't read hybrid glyphic. Yeah, so they ended
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: up correcting a lot of things about what they thought
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: about Egypt. And Um, like you said, they wanted to
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: protect things because Egypt at the time was I mean,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: they were selling these things off to collectors left and
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: right because a they didn't know their true value and
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: be there was a market for it. Sure, doctors during
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: the Middle Ages who were just dummies would use mummies
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: from Egypt. Uh, they grind it up and use it
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: to cure disease, which didn't work, um, And so there
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: was this move to protect Egyptian antiquities from Egyptians. There
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: was kind of this patriarchal mentality, especially among the British,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: that we need to get everything out of Egypt and
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: into museums and into like the hands of us, who
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: will preserve them and not sell them to Middle Age
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: or Middle Middle Ages doctors for cure alls. But to
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: his credit, in my opinion, Champoleon argued very strongly in
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: favor of keeping them, in founding a museum in Egypt
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: to store these, keeping them in Egypt. Yeah, I think
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: he was a little bit of a control freak, Like
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: he knew that he could care for things in the
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: proper way, and he I don't think he trusted even
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: other museums at the time to care for things in
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: the right way. And he was kind of right because
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: a lot of it was destroyed. Yeah, Like apparently to
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: preserve an ancient papyrus you have to store it in
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: a low humidity um area. Yeah, in a chamber, in
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: a in a bamboo box container. And they didn't know this,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: and they shipped them by seed to the UK, and
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: they all like crumbled the nothingness on the way. Um. Yeah,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: So the Rosettason still sits in the museum in London,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: where it's been since eighteen o two, except for the
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: time it went to France briefly. Uh. And in two
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: thousand three, egypt I was like, you know what, I
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: want this thing back, not I, we want this thing
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: back and it's ours and it's I don't care who
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: found it, it's ours. And England said in two thousand five,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: took him two years to build a replica and say, hey,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: how about this, this is just like it. I guess
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: at least they didn't try to pass it off as
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: the real one. Well, yeah, that's true, um cinema replica
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: and they're like, I appreciate this, this is nice, but
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: we really would like the real thing. And England said no.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: And not just England, but a lot of the big museums,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: the Louvera and um, a bunch of the world museums
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: kind of all got together in support of one another
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: and said, you know what repaid repatriotation is. We're not
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: into it. We're just not gonna give things back anymore
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: because we can care for it best. It belongs to
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: the world now. And they just sort of banded together
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: and said, we're keeping our stuff. And that's I think
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: we're it's probably gonna stay. They are trying to get
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: it for a I think in two thousand twelve they
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: tried to get it for a the grand opening of
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: the Grand Egypt Museum. It sounds like it didn't happen,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: But even then they said now they wanted for like
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: three weeks and they said nope, under the guys of
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it's guys, but they said, would
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: be too dangerous to transport it. That's the story they
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: have at least. Uh. So that's uh how museums work.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: Pill and deny village and deny Um. You got anything else, No, sir.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: That is the Rosetta stone, everybody. If you want to
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: learn more about it, you should type that word. Those
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: words are O S E T T A stone in
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: the search bar house to works uh and it will
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: bring up this article. And since I said search bar
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: means it's time for a message by m h uh, Now, chuck,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: it's time for listener mail. Oh no, how about instead? Okay,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: all right, for those of you don't know, this is
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: at the point where we read off the people who
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: were nice enough to send us little gifts and trinkets
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: and music and letters and all sorts to things, and um,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: here we go. Go ahead, all right. Sarah send us
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: some cool graphic prints, one of which was you Can't
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: Take the Sky from Me from one of my favorite shows, Firefly. Yeah,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: very cool prints. Amy sent us a lovely carved wooden
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: cicada from Timber Green Woods. Yeah, yeah, it's very cool. Uh.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: And McDonough sent us a snoopy postcard and a handwritten
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: letter of thanks. Very nice. Uh. Liz from New Zealand
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: sent us a lot of stuff that's New Zealand candy,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: New Zealand chocolate, New Zealand chips, surfboard, postcard, really lovely
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: frame photos from her dad, Rudy Goldstein photography that's on Facebook. Uh,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: it's our Goldstein photography, so check it out. Yeah it's
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: very cool. I have those on my desk. Um. Sean
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Antonia sent us some custom vinyls some stickers from eight
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: one one Graphics dot com. He and his brother. Yeah,
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: I had this company and that cool stuff like skater
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: style stuff. Right. Um, buy costumes dot com. It's buy
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: costumes dot Com sent us a full size adult gremlin costume,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: which Ben Bowling wore all day yesterday in the office here. Yeah,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Ben Bowling from stuff they don't want you to know
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: and car stuff. He's weird. Did you see that? He
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: emailed me they did that? Did you actually see that?
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen a picture of them yet. I put
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: on the hand one day and try to creep out Strickland.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: But he was like, that's not the first gremlin hand up.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Haddam my shoulder. Uh cat TP. Megan sent a cat
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: tpe my way because I have two cats and uh,
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: my big boy Lauren gets in it now. We call
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: it his spirit tent and he just hangs out in there,
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: and uh it's pretty neat. I mean it's what you think.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: It's like a little small TP for your kiddie that
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: it's very cute. So if you have a cat, I
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: would suggest you buying one. Um, let's see, Susan sent
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: you a birthday card. It's a dog drinking beer. Yeah, yeah,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: that was nice. Yeah it was Kellum Clark sent us
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: some T shirts. Um and he is a handyman in
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: Brooklyn and he gifted us two hours of handyman work
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: to give to someone. We know in Brooklyn. That's very
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: really cool. So I've actually texted our buddy Joe Randazzo said, Hey,
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: you need any work done? We have two three hours
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: of handyman work. So if you're in Brooklyn, you can
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: go to not just Handyman dot com and uh, give
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: kill him a call. He'll fix your sink or do
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: whatever what you need around the house. I guess what's
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: he gonna do for Joe. I don't know. Joe didn't respond.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: What We'll go to Hodgeman next, I guess, and just
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: work our way down the lithu all the Hodgeman he
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: can afford to pay people, we should give it to
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: like some else. Okay, all right, I'll figure it out. Uh.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: Clive Fantasy gave us some really cool Panama Canal postcards. Yeah,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: that's her name, Rachel from Uber. Have you heard of Uber.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: It's a it's sort of like a taxi cab service
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: now but it's town cars and they have an app
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: and you can like say just come get me now, right. Yeah,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: he was telling me about that. Yeah, they sent us
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Uber gift cards. Um, and I will send you your
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: gift code for us, like a hundred bucks and free
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: a lot. I know somebody's going to be going to
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: the airport for free. Yeah. Kristen Curran has been taking
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: us along with her on a tour of Europe. It
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: seems like we've got postcards from her from Edinburgh, Bruges, Amsterdam, Slovakia,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: Berlin all over the place. Yeah, so thanks for those. Um.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: We also got something from Threadless self designed t shirt
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: bigfoot cradling and alien lockness monsters in the background. Yeah.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: There was also like men in black and an abduction
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: going on, all sorts of stuff. Very cool. Uh. And
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: then Kira Newron sent the wives some jewelry um and
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: you can visit her store. Thank you very much, Kira
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: at um Cariboo Classics dot Etsy dot com. So that's
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: that's our administrative details for now, right. Yeah, part one.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: We'll have a part two, I guess on the next episode. Yes,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: we will, where we'll cover music in books. Nice. If
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: you want to get in touch with us, you can
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: tweet to us at s y s K podcast. You
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: can join us on Facebook, dot com slah Stuff you
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: Should Know, and you can join us at our home
• 37:02
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• 37:07
  Speaker 1: you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio's How
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit
• 37:12
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• 37:15
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