Thinking Sideways: Tecaxic-Calixtlauaca head

about mystery, uh the text access Kalakadaka's head. Yes, I did pick a mystery that I can't pronounce. I'm sorry, but seriously, I'm gonna spell it for you guys, um in case you just you know, hit play and don't ever look at the titles or whatever, and then I'm going to genuinely try to pronounce it, and then that might be the very last time I try to say this word. Well, then refer to it as the head. Yeah, the TLC head. Yeah, Oh, the TLC head. Yeah. There's

no L in there. Though there's an L in there, there's two l's in there, so it's it's spelled t e c A x I C dash c A l I x t l A U A c A So I think it's Pennsylvania. Yeah, texts as waca look tex sas sasakaca perfect sounds great, well done than spot on. I think my a's are a little too hard, but that's pretty good for me. Um. The short summary of this mystery is that in the thirties some guys found a terra cotta head in a grave um and it

had no business being in that grave. Oh yeah, this one, well, I don't know I should have said yeah, but I mean that is genuinely that's the short thumbary of there that like, some guys found terra cotta head in a you know, it's an out of place artifact. You guys, congratulations, we're doing an artifact, out of place artifact episode. And this has actually been the subject of a lot of scholarly dispute. It has mostly in German. Yeah, so that's

been really fun. One of the one of the things about this head that's just really puzzling to being it was found eighty three years ago, and yet it's been around all that time, and it's been they've discussed so much and there's only two actual freaking photographs right in the whole world. None for scale exactly. Nobody's thought to put a ruler in there in there so you can or beer can. Yeah, I mean anything hand even would be helpful. I was very angry about that. Yeah. Yeah,

it was like text messages. Yeah, I mean it's like it almost at first it looks like there might be four pictures of it, but actually there's one picture that's been reversed. So yeah, there's two freaking pictures. Yeah, so let's some talk a little more in detail about this head.

In nineteen thirty three, a team of archaeologists led by Jose Garcia Paon I believe it's how you say his name, um found a pre Columbian slash pre Hispanic, depending on which term you'd prefer to use, grave site in the Toluca Valley, which is about forty miles out of current Mexico City, Mexico. The settlement was called Colleague Quaca, which translates generally to like house on the prairie, and that settlement was a pre Columbian post Classic era Mesoamerican settlement.

Words there on the prairie different, No, obviously, they ripped. Yeah, yeah, but the pre Columbian for those of you don't know what that means, that's prior to Columbus arriving. Yes, I know you probably know that Moore. Oh yeah no, but thank you for specifying that. I have dates, but for like other stuff, not for pre Columbian um. And you know, Columbus sailed the ocean blue in so for us dummies,

the post classic era of Mesoamerican settlement not not. And this is also pre Columbian obviously, is like um one thousand to see, I'm going to be using C E and B C E. I'm sorry with that trick. Yeah, I think it's a common era, but common okay, I see both ways. Yeah, but they're the like, you know, non denominational religious, non religious scientific way to say that. So, you know, one of one of the puzzles I've always pointed about that it's BC before Christ and then a

D after Christ. So does that mean that there's like a thirty year gap in between the two periods? You know what this is? This is right up there with me getting yelled at for saying year zero. We should leave that at Yeah. So Payon speculated based on the architecture of this settlement that it was probably like closer to the Middle Classic, middle to late of the Classic era, not um the post Classic era. And that was pretty much just the big structures, just based on the kind

of archaeology. And we'll talk a little bit about the area in a second. The building was kind of a zigarette, Is that right? Or was it not that he was excavating. I thought it was just the pyramid pyramid. Yeah. Yeah, Well there're seventeen structures, all said and done in this area, so, um, most of them are sacrificial altars or grave sites. Um. But this pyramid was a burial grave pyramid situation. So apparently people had actually settled this area since about fifteen

hundred BC, so a long time years. No, So they had started settling in fifteen thousand b c E. I'm sorry b c E. And then um, the structures that they were excavating were from like a thousand cekay, So that was about two thousand years yeah. And then at some point, at some point I think it was like this this this one structure that they excavated it. Don't they believe that the tomb itself could have been actually you know, filled up with stuff and sealed up some

somewhere around. They don't have a good date on this structure itself, um, and even more so on this layer of stuff that we're going to be talking about, but I do believe that, Yeah, it was in the earlier part of stuff versus the later part of stuff. You're welcome everywhere stuff stuff. Um. And as I said, there were seventeen monuments um or buildings that have been found in this area. Um, most of them haven't been explored.

I guess you know, which kind of makes sense. You don't necessarily need to like visit the sight of human sacrifices and stuff like that. It's kind of fun. Yeah, maybe tor stro Yeah, I wasn't. I was on the soul in like Titicaca, and there's some inca ruins on that, and there was this massive stone table that was there, and I was just thinking that had to have been for secon I'm sure. Yeah, But anyway, there's they're a bunch of sheep running around the island. So there was

this little sheep like rubbing us back on the stone. Yeah. He was usually to scratch. Yeah, I mean a lot of them were kind of sacrificial areas. Um some of them are like within a city limit, so you can't really investigate that anyway. This one was the kind of pyramid burial ground for it was the I believe it was like a more royal burial. They did not have us pyramids and stuff, you know. Yeah. So, and in the nineteen thirty three dig, the team was exploring this

grave site. Like I said, there are lots in that area, but this was not like a human sacrifice thing. This grave site was had floor so as a pyramid, and it had floors in it. And so this discovery was made on the third floor or under the third floor, and the third floor down right where the floor above it, and then there was a subterranean floor. Yeah. Yeah, so it was the third floor down and it was kind of you know what you would expect to be found in a grave site for this kind of a culture.

There's you know, lots of gold, copper, turquoise rock, crystal bone, shell, pottery stuff and in addition to a corpse, yeah and well yeah and a corpse yeah, and then there was a small terra cottahead um and that is our out of place artifact because it doesn't seem to have belonged there, but the they thought that the burial was UM fourteen seventies six to fifteen ten C. Yeah, not BC. Yeah yeah,

so later, so roughly about five years before the dig happened. Yeah, and um, I guess of note right, pretty well within a limit of like Colombian era. Well yeah, I mean it's this is when people are starting to explore the new world. It could have been as as much as eighteen years after the arrival of Columbus. Yeah, yeah, I mean it could have been earlier, but based on this time sale, yeah, based on this time stamp. So here's

what we know about the head itself. Um, though it was found in Mexico, it looks kind of Roman um, or at least a little European to me. To me, Steve's making a face already, he's not happy already. I would say it looks a little Roman. Yeah, I don't. As we were saying, like, I don't know why I have this impression, but I do. I think it's like the size of like a bubble head. It's I think it's small. It does look kind of small on the photos, but it could be bigger. But there I have no

size reference, and I have. No, I've not found any description of it, so I I always when I looked at it, I pictured it more along the size of a golf ball. To me, it seems just the definition and the grains of the stone. Yeah, I always That's why I kind of figured it must have big more of a golf ball size. Yeah, I figured around that size are a little bigger. But yeah, I mean, we're all we're gonna say, yeah, we're gonna say, we're gonna say between a golf ball and a baseball somewhere around

probably about somewhere around. Again, it's it's annoying because actually I looked at a lot of websites just to find one that says how every single website I could that, like, I thought, oh yeah, this one's gonna say no, none of them. That's why I want searching for pictures, because I thought somebody would have had half a brain and

put a ruler next to it. But no, it's just those two pictures, you know, all you get somebody photoshopped onto us the image of the ruins or painting of the ruins, I should say, yeah, because there's no helpful total scale right there. People think that it may or may not have been a part of a full body sculpture at some point. Again, that seems like the sort

of thing that you would be able to tell. But well, yeah, it would be like this the spot at the neck where it broke off, and that's why more pictures would be helpful, really helpful, or a scale. Yeah, anyway, about a third of the ball itself is its face. Would you say about a third you mean that that weird, pointy headed and hairy thing. Yeah, I'd say the lower third is a face, and then the middle third is hair, and then the top third is like a hat kind

of thing. And it's got a beard too. It has a beard, which is interesting because the Indians over here didn't have didn't have beer. Yeah, the eyes are closed, has a strong nose, I think a pretty strong mouth

as well. I mean, you know you're carving it, so you're not going to be like, oh no mouth, You're got carve lines for everything, right and overall, um, I think the impression is like very sever Severian severian Um, which is like a very distinct time in Roman history where they wore their hair in this kind of not like this grown out Julian Julius Caesar curly do um, and then they had like kind of longer curly beards. Steve, Okay, it works. He's nodding and shrugging, just for all home.

I mean, it's it's that. That's it's best that you can describe it without somebody looking at an image. I was, I was picturing it as you were describing it. That's what the face was obviously. Um, since we're talking about a thing that there's like two whole pictures of, you go find one of those two pictures, probably both. U see the episode title as your guide how to spell it? Yeah,

just just you know, highlighting, you know, search. Yeah. The thing to know about Severian, the Severian era in Rome is that that was actually like, um, two hundred c e give or take, you know, fifty years maybe after I think it was night one. It was a hundred and ninety five to like two sixty something, Yeah, which was which will kind of apply that sometime and then you know, between then and maybe it made its way over here and got into a tomb. Yeah, yeah, which

is kind of weird. Well yeah a little bit. Yeah, it kind of applies, and maybe there were people over here from from the you know, the Old World to the New World long time before before Columbus. Right, yeah, so we're kind of at theories are dune dun dum. I know, it's it's crazy that we're at theories. I'm sorry, but we're a theories because actually the theories are like the most interesting discussion part of this episode to me

at least. And you've got this broken up as at least into two different parts of theories, because I think that's what's warranted here. So there's two theories. Either this is like a Roman sculpture head or it's not. And then there's also the other part of this theory section is um, either it's a hoax or not right, because, as our listeners may be thinking, um, this sounds kind of fake. So it sounds like it's totally made up. Who finds a Roman head in a Mexican burial ground?

You know? Thousand years later? Did you never watch Lost? Actually I didn't watch Lost, but turn off the computer. Now we're done, done forever and until you watch all the seasons of Lost. So we'll see you in like a week. Okay, I'm back. Wow whist Oh my god. I love the smoke monster man in lock so so we start. We're gonna start with like, yeah, where's the origin basically right, so let's say it's Roman. Okay, Okay, let's say it's Roman. So okay, done, It's Roman. Great,

we all agree. Great. No, So there's actually been a lot of research done on this. Bernard and Drea is a guy from the German Institute of Archaeology in Rome. And I know that sounds kind of like one of those like, um, you know, I t T Technical Institute, School of Design. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to offend anyone, but those kind of you know, not maybe totally accredited university places. But no, this is like a real thing that has a lot of really great peer reviewed stuff.

So it's a totally credible source. Um, here's what he has to say on this. It's translated to through two different languages, so I'm sorry, but it's a direct quote. So it's translated from German to Spanish and then Spanish to English. Good. Are you going to read it a German accent? I'm not, actually, but you might. Eat. I'll read part of it the German accent. This, Okay, let's do. Let's do. Let's do just normal English Joe, you want

me to read it? Okay? Uh? This result quote, This result clears up the doubts the colonial manufacture of the artifact and makes the hypothesis of Roman origin, among other possibilities, applicable. The identification of the head as Roman work from the second to third century a d. Has been further confirmed by Bernard Andrea, a director emeritus of the German Is to the Archaeotology in Rome, Italy. According to Andrea, the head is without a doubt Roman. The lab analysis is

confirmed that it is ancient. Oh god, this is such who we The stylistic examination tells us precisely that it is a Roman word from around the second century a D. And the hairstyle and the shape of the beard present the typical traits of the Severian emperor period eight, exactly in the fashion of the epoch. So, okay, so that's when that period was was one. You're pretty clive, that's pretty close. That was good for just like off the cuff, remembering. Yeah.

So it means either it was actually produced by the Romans at that time, or maybe coincidentally somebody else produced it and just sort of mimic their style. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's small. It does look it looks I don't know, it looks Roman to me. I know that I'm probably biased, but it looks Roman to me. Yeah, I'm going to say you're biased. What do you What does it look like to you? It looks like something that somebody carved

out of stone. Know what I mean is if you take ten people who know how to work clay and fire it and make pottery stuff like that today, and you said, each of them, I want you to make a uh terrakan ahead that looks like Joe, you would get five that would look kind of similar and five that would be wildly different from the other bunch. And it's all a matter of style and personal style. Because the thing that really bugs me is that the in this region, it's not as if they were locked into

a specific style as far as I'm aware. In Mexico, I mean, there there was a predominant style, but there wasn't anything that said you can't deviate from that. Like in Egypt, there was a thing where you had to stay within the style or they cut your hands off. You know, you you didn't you didn't deviate from that. That. While there was a strong influence to do that didn't require that you had to, and they got very creative

with things. So now I see that. But you know, one of the things about this one is that stylistically it's very different from what is produced in that that it is. But like as you say, it doesn't mean somebody can't just deviate from the rules and do something differently, you guys. I mean, there's there's always innovation, but we should have found more works like this in the area. Well unless and I've made this argument before for other things,

unless everybody hated it. Unless you know, this person created a whole bunch and out of a hundred were thrown against the wall and destroy because they were terrible, and there's nobody liked and nobody could buy them because they didn't have money. Yeah, you know, people use something balancet in a boat, so they're all on the bottom of the river. I mean, there's a million reasons why. So that's why I admit I struggle with the whole Roman thing.

It bothers me. Yeah, I mean, so the things for me, okay, maybe not Roman, but probably not meso American, because by and large Meso Americans didn't have facial hair at the time. Or if they did, it was really straight, as was their hair. You don't see a lot of like curly hair Indians. Yeah, I mean basically that's you don't. But I don't think this is curly hair. It's totally curly hair. No, it's it's it's it's wavy. It's wavy. And you don't see a lot of mess Americans with wavy hair either.

I mean, I'm just okay, you know, we could, we could go down that rabbit hole for hours and achieve nothing. I disagree, but I'm just so there. There's a couple of the things that back this up from being maybe Roman maybe not. At the very least, it backs up about that time period kind of Um. They did this testing that I'd never heard of before. This is totally new to me, and I have a coworker slash friend who is actually trained archaeologist, and I was like, hey,

have you heard of this? And she was like, I have no idea what you're talking about, but it's ounds really interesting. And this is uh, thermo luminescence dating. Through testing of thermo luminescence, that's when you take a flashlight and you try to find a date on it. Yeah, yeah, Yeah,

it works really well, especially link. Yeah, So as I understand it, basically, what this does is it it measures the amount of radiation or radioactivity that's been accumulated um in the object in the object from background radiation, right, divided by like the dose that you would like typically see by year, and that equals the age. And this only works on things that have been exposed to intense heat, So terra cotta that's been fired, for instance, you can

age in this process kind of the catches. It's not I actually like asked our Twitter followers to like explain, like I'm five, and Liam did a really good job of this basically like what he said, and I think this is probably true from the research that I've seen, is that it's not like, hey, is this um from two hundred and fifty or four hundred and fifty BC. It's more like, hey, is this something that what that was made like a thousand years ago or was it

made in the last hundred years? What? What radiation? Do you know? Off? Type? What radiation? It is that it's measuring background radiation that everything accumulates. Well, there's there's certain certain radioactive things that are measured, Like I can't remember what it is that went out when they let off all the nukes back in the forties, And that is something that is in the atmosphere and is measurable, and you know, you can tell how long things have been

exposed to the air because of that. So I was trying to figure out what it is because my reason to ask something like that is if it is exposed to background radiation, My next question is how much background radiation can set object absorbed when buried three stories underground. Well, it's still background radiation even buried underground. Yeah, I understand that, but it's it's I would presume that there are going to be other things that are going to be absorbing

some of that as well. So it's after three floors, it's not going to get as much maybe not. And the thing about it, and I don't know exactly what it's measuring, so I'm I'm spitballing here and I admit it. But and the thing. The thing, the other thing too, is that after this thing was made and fired and everything, then it could have been moved all around and background

radiation varies a lot from place to place. I understand why that would make it impossible that as people said on Twitter, like, Okay, it's pretty accurate, but you have to be absolutely certain that like that that was the only time it was exposed to heat was when it was fired, right, So like if it had gone through a different fire or like exposed to intense heat in some other way, that will totally throw your dating off.

And in fairness, the thermo luminescence testing said that this this head was anywhere between was created any where between UM eight hundred BC and twelve hundred C, so not exactly like a small range. Okay, yeah, but also like realistically we can accept that this is an ancient object, right, It's not like somebody in the last It's not a couple hundred years carved it and just like you know, toast it. Yeah, planet, it's not. It's not a modern

day hoax basically, So that helps to kind of satisfy. Sorry, that just kind of helps to satisfy for me that like it wasn't somebody saying, oh, this is a nice recreation of the Italian you know, in the eighteen hundreds, and so I'm going to make it and then it found its way in. It's reasonable to assume that if we are to believe the experts in this area that it is actually inspired by that period of time in Rome that it is it was probably that was when

it was made, was about that time? Okay. Yeah. One of the questions that I never saw on the eating, which is, did anybody ever analyze the material that this thing was made out of to try and figure out where it was from? Steve? They took two pictures and didn't measure it. So there's the answer to not as far as I know, okay, and I presumed as much this whole thing is. The research on it has been a little lackluster, but it has many You would think

they would, they would scrape a little something somewhere. We should and we should clarify. That's like from the experts, not from us, Like we did a pretty good job of researching within resources available. Yes, yeah, alright, well let's let's keep talking about this golf ball. So, Steve, Yes, if it's not Roman, what do you think it could be Atlantean? Okay? But in real life, what do you think it could be? I mean, like, there are other

theories out here. Do you subscribe to one of those theories? Do you do? I subscribed to the last one that you have in this grouping. Okay, there are, but I mean, like in terms of like Roman blah blah blah blah blah. What you mean by Roman blah blah blah blah blah blah. It's origin? You think it's the last bullet point on this list? That one? Okay, fine, let's talk about different thing. Then. Well,

now let's talk about Roman for a second. Mean there, I mean there is a possibility that somehow some objects from the Mediterranean could have made their way across the sea to the America's agreed? Can we save that and tell hoax are real? Because I promised we'll talk about that in a minute. Yeah. I just want to talk about the origin of it right now, Okay, and then we'll decide how something like this could get across the

ocean or not, depending on what you believe is that okay? Um, yeah, there could definitely have been you know, originated right there by a local artist. Yeah, so, I mean it could have been Mexican. It was found in Mexico. It would explain the dating. The only thing is that it would be a pretty atypical style for that era. But I mean that's not unheard of. The other theories out there are that could be Vikings or Celts, but more strongly

Vikings because they were more you know, seafaring whatever. And then they definitely there's much evidence that they were here ye back when. Yeah, there's some good evidence for that. Um. And you know, I guess the thing for me is the only thing that doesn't look really Roman is that hat. It looks weird. Romans didn't really wear hats like that, but Vikings did. They were like little hats like that, and it almost does. Yeah, okay, it's terra cotta. It's

kind of like Turkish. Yeah, it could be shriner's head. Oh god, no, but it is. It doesn't look Roman, that hat. It does look a little like the Vikings warm way more hats than I think like the Romans. Really they lived in a climate they did. Yeah, the Celts definitely wore hats kind of more like that as well. But you know, people in Mexican war hats like that too, Like the Aztecs certainly war hats like that. And you know, this was at the very end of its existence. This

was an Aztec settlement. So did the Aztecs kind of invade They did at the very very end yeah, and then they were like, oh, just kidding, we can't be here either by um, so that worked out pretty good for them. But yeah, I mean it's hard to tell. Most of the people who have done research on this head don't think that it came from Mexico, But I don't know. I mean, I think Steve seems to think that it did come from Mexico. Yeah, I feel like it's just there's there's too many things. Do you think

Mesoamerica do you think I think in the region. I think that it had to originate in that that in the larger region of where it was found, you know, something to have made its way across the Atlantic or the Pacific. It's it's too many things have to line up, whether they have to happen so fast after the rival of Columbus, or just the perfect chain of events for it to have made its way there from some earlier

unknown visitors. Well, there is you know, I mean, the Vikings were here quite a bit earlier than a lot earlier, and there is strong evidence that there was there was

extensive trading all across the North American continent. I mean, they're going way way back to ancient times and so I could totally picture the Vikings coming over with some little some little bobbles and stuff like that, in trading them off to the locals, and eventually it's traded back and forth, and eventually some objects make their way all the way down to Mexico City. Yeah, it's entirely possible. Yeah, yeah, and that's that's kind of one of the theories as

to like how it could have gotten there. I tend to agree with you. I think of of them, I'm willing to say I feel obligated to make the strong argument that it's Roman, but I'm much more inclined to say it's indigenous in some fashion, or or Viking some not Roman. So you don't like the Romans, say I love the Romans. I am culturally obligated to say that I love the Romans, but I don't. I don't necessarily think this is a Roman origin. But yeah, and again,

it could be of Roman origin. It got traded all the way up to Viking Land. It's totally Rome did conquer Brittany, I mean, they conquered really far up and so it's possible that it came all the way up. I guess my argument against that, though, is that it's terra cotta, and it's little. It doesn't look like it's particularly hardy, but it's also not really Yeah, but it's also not particularly dinged up. You know, it's still got its nose. For instance, on most of the sculptures you

see the chip off, they chip off real fast. It's still got a lot of the definition in the hair and the hat. Even you can see some stroke marks. And you would assume that if this was something that was being traded hand to hand to hand to hand, it's going to lose a lot of definition just by being handled all the time. That's true. So I guess that's my only argument against it being traded on a lot of different ways. But that's also my argument against

something we're going to talk about a minute. Okay, So I guess we can kind of agree we don't know where it came from. Yeah, let's say, most likely, it probably came from somewhere in the in the area. That would seem like the most likely it would, although it's it's weird that it came from that area, but yeah, you know, stylistically, yeah, way different than anything else. And the discount be at the local It wasn't because it was buried with like a rich purpose and stuff. That's

where they got it, was the discount. So okay, let's let's attack this now. Is it a hoax or is it real? Okay, let's let's go ahead and say it's real. It's a real deal. Since we've thrown our chips on that so far, let's kind of just like keep talking about it being the real deal. So there are three

kind of sub theories here. For me, one is the Joe theory, where like some European group brought it with them and I guess, you know, it could be Vikings, could be Celtic, could be Italian, I guess even Yeah, I mean there were people actually in the window between Columbus and fifty and ten. There were people coming over here, not not just the big ones you've heard of, and so it could have been brought up. Well yeah, and there are people that we don't know of who made

it here and never made it home. Well yeah, you know, I mean there's a book that came out quite a while back. Actually, it's called The Last Voyage of Columbus, and I loaned it out to somebody and never got it back, which is annoying. But it's a good buck though. I can't but I can't remember the author's name talking to you, Dave, Yeah, if you got if you google it though, it's about columbus fourth voyage and he came across it and they went to an incredible amount of adventures.

It's an amazing book. But the ships picked up this parasitic worm in their holes. There were wooden ships obviously, so even though they made it all the way across us, well, their ships wound up taking on water faster than they could bail and they finally had a ditch on a deserted island and they spent about a year ruined on this island. Is this a real story? Yeah, this is Columbus's fourth voyage. Oh, they want to do some incredible adventures.

But you got to read this book, and so I could totally picture somebody making it all the way over here, making out and then oops, our boats are boats, Yeah, we can't get back. And so they were. They're made very well done. Lots of explorers that made it all the way to the America's made it back or made it here and their boats were perfectly fine, but they didn't survive the locals. Yeah, they killed them. That's entirely possible. They made it here. Their boats were fine, but they

were like, let's just stay because they think I'm a god. Yaues. I have this beautiful flowing beer. Yeah, and so stroking it flowing beard. You gotta start working on that before

people come, you know. See, you know, I mean that's kind of that's that's similar to one of the theories that's out there right now, which I think is a really interesting and compelling theory, and that is that this is just like somebody found a shipwreck, you know, that like some maybe Italian or Spanish ship was trying to make it across they didn't. It was a shipwreck ship. Yes, some European ship had this among a lot of stuff

on it and it shipwrecked on an island. And you know, somebody was out there kind of pillaging and found this thing and brought a bunch of stuff back and it kind of made it into the hands of the rich and powerful because they were prized trinkets from some unknown society.

Unique Yeah. So yeah, yeah, I mean that's interesting. And then that also helps to kind of alleviate because the big problem with this, right is that people just assume that this head signifies human contact and interaction between cultures that were was previously undocumented. Whether we totally buy into the like Columbius Cortes store Columbus Cortes story of like these are the two people who made the first contact,

I don't. I mean, I don't think anybody in this room does, and probably most of the people who listen to the podcast don't buy into that. There's definitely European contact, whether it be Vikings, whether it be Celts, whether it be whoever you know that happened that had to have happened before. There's some mysteries that I know we want to talk about that even helped to kind of prove

that a little bit. Well, there's there's some mysteries that sort of kind of indicate that there was regular trade between the Americas and the Mediterranean, like, for example, the cocaine mummies, you know, which I'm sure you've heard of, but just for our listeners, researchers were testing tissue samples from various Egyptian mummies and they found traces of cocaine

and nicotine in them. And of course the coca plant and the tobac co plant didn't exist anywhere in the Mediterranean back when those mummies were mummified, and so there's an honest and gotten mystery there was there actually trade between the Mediterranean and the America's and there's other alternate explanations for how that stuff got there, Like everybody smoked in the museum and they did a light line of blow off of the well. I mean, there there are

lots of stuff. We'll do an episode Sunday about this because I have I have all kinds of theories about it. Well, another thing that will do an episode on probably is the period Reese. Yeah that is you know, a really interesting map from fifteen thirteen or something like that based on two years of other maps. Yeah, that like show

some stuff that technically it shouldn't show. I mean, I think they're strong evidence for their being trade, whether it was like Roman or otherwise between Europe and the Mediterranean and America. Maybe that's That's one of the best sad things about the ancient world is that they were always I was having wars and they were always sacking cities and leveling them and burn the libraries, like the everything

was lit with fire. I know. It's like it's like there could be there could have been ancient records and say in the Library of Alexandria, for example, you know that tell the whole probably yeah, and then it all got it all got just vanished. It's the shame. So one of the other ideas is that it could have been this head could have been traded in Asia, um, with the kind of European Asian trade, and then brought through trade routes with Asia and then across the Pacific Ocean.

I don't think that's particularly viable. Shipping is still an issue that. Yeah, that's quite a distance for this thing to have been bat never do Yeah, we're talking to need a longer distance than you know, the whole Grome to Viking Land and across and then and then I can't get anything from the pottery barn to my house without a ship. Well that's because you're buying pottery barn. Hey, I got, I got good taste. Okay, it's quality. You

got a good registry, is what you got. Yeah, um, no, I mean kind of back to the the shipwreck thing. We do know that Rome had you know, stuff in the Canary Islands, stuff like that, so they were further out than originally anticipated. So something could have floated over there. Originally thought, you know, like fifty years ago, we thought whatever, No, they weren't nowhere, and then now we're like, oh, they were everywhere. Yeah, they were definitely under from the Canary Islands.

They had a trading post out there. Yeah, And I could picture even even if they didn't intentionally, maybe they got caught in a storm and driven across the ocean. Yeah, exactly on the shores of the New World. Yeah, or even on an island kind of close to the New World. I mean, you know, you get like slammed on the Bahamas or something like that. You know, it's totally possible that people are going out there all the time and then there's trading happening there, you know. So Okay, interesting

discussions about it not being a hoax. Right, let's talk about maybe this not being totally real. I kind of like this one. This one really cracks me up, and I think I just wanted to reiterate that it could

actually have made its way. Again, we had an eighteen year window there possibly that this this tomb was sealed up possibly his latest so but totally could have just come across someone with Colombus or somebody else and then yeah, yeah, yeah it could have come It totally could have just come across and then you know, been a gift like one of the first gifts, because this was a tomb of a king, right, I mean, this was a tomb of a person who was in charge of this area,

and so it would be something that you would expect a European to give, you know, hey, here's our gift of offering or peace offering. Yeah, and it's totally weird and cool, but also I guess it doesn't explain realistically why you know, they have this piece of from two hundred have been painted, you know, I mean it's a lot of pottery. You know that the thing is a lot of that kind of stuff was painted, and that the thing is not all that impressive in its current state.

But if it had been painted well and you know, gaudy colors or bright colors, it would have been quite interestingly for something something like that. I mean, you know, things that rub off when it's wet and in the ground. But I mean it's like, I gotta describe this thing. It looks to me like the head of a lawn gnome. Yeah, has a shorter hat, but yeah, it kind of does. Yeah, so okay, so let's talk about let's talk about this being a hoax. And we're not saying like it never existed.

This is a made up story, to be clear. We're just saying like there's some internet it's a real thing. So it might not have been. It is actually in a museum somewhere. It is, and it's been you know, a subject of pair of view studies, I guess. But according to a informal declaration by a guy by the name of Paul Schmidt, who's an archaeologist at Union, the National Automatical Autonomous University of Mexico, we've talked about Union before, UM, we talked about NIAM when we were talking about the

Bermeja island. Yeah, so sorry for assuming that you would remember what Union was, but UNS talking about uh So, according to Mr Schmidt, the head was planted in the site by UM they call it participating archaeologist Hugo Madonno, who I understand was kind of like an under is a student or a low level yellower level Yeah kind

of yeah, um the buster blue chink. Anyway, according to um Schmidt, Hugo wanted to play a practice joke, and he placed this head in this sight to be discovered and it kind of backfired on him because they were like, oh my god, this is so cool, Like everybody was ha ha ha, there's no way that's real, and instead of everybody's like, oh my god, my career is made. That is part of the part of the reason. Apparently you just didn't have the heart to break it to

the break in two. What's his name? Morano was Mono that, Yeah, I just didn't have the heart because he was so enthralled by his fund um. Well, according to a lot of other people, these are like totally fake allegations. There's no way to confirm it because confirm there's no way to confirm it because everybody involved his dad at this point, Right, you can't just reach out and I know that you've got some stuff about this, but the process of documentation

left a lot to be desired. Yeah, we'll talk about that a minute. Let's talk about that. So I guess for me, the only thing is that seems like a really like to take an artifact right that is genuinely old, Like there's no doubt in anyone's mind that this is like a genuinely really old artifact to somehow have this artifact where the do you get it? To begin with? Right, So to somehow have this seriously old artifact and just

be like, oh, I know what, we'll get them. I'll sneak in in the night and place this in the dig site and they'll like, then they'll see you know. For me, I keep picturing like somebody just being like and like tossing it like on lunch break, like talking into I know that's probably like not how everybody's picturing is just like that episode of The Bradies where they find the tiki heads they're walking along and trip over huh excolutely yeah, But I mean, like, why why would

this student have this head? To begin with? We must have comforted out of the archives, I mean must have, right, But then but then it was like but then it was never documented that it was missing. Well, you know a lot of museums have tons of stuff that's not on display. It's just buried and creates, you know, to be ordered later. Yeah, and so I can see what

you could you could totally swipe something like that. So the other um, the other thing that could have happened is that a student could have accidentally placed this head into the collection with the stuff from the Mexico city that was in the museum, accidentally placed it because I didn't mention this before. Oh the misfiling, is that what

you're getting at? It was misfiled essentially. Yeah. But so the thing I didn't say before is that although this was reportedly discovered in the nineteen thirty three dig Um, pay On didn't actually ever say anything about the head until the nineteen sixties. So there's a total possibility that he just went to look at his collection and was like, Oh, that's weird, there's that head there. Huh. Because in the nineteen thirties, to quote my coworker again, Um, as soon

as I said, she said when was this discovered? And I said three, And she said to me, oh, archaeology in the nineteen thirties was shady. Yeah. Have you never seen an Indiana Jones movie? Yeah? And just steals all the gold runs? Yeah? Yeah, I mean for her especially, you know. And I'll tell you some more stuff that she was kind of talking about later. But pay On wasn't on site of the time he had his students working on this dig, and because of that, there's almost

no documentation that happened around this dig. There are there's not a single photo that I can find of this dig site. There's no documentation as far as I can find of this excavation. You know, usually when you're doing an excavation, you're drawing detailed diagrams. That's why the streaming grids. Yeah, you're like making note of everything, everything you're finding. You're taking picture. Is every time you find something, every time you destroy something, you're taking a picture so that you

can say, here's my proof that I found this. That's sites that are like only like one or two excavating. Yeah. The quote that she said, which I think is like great, right, is she says, um, the number one thing you have to know about archaeology is that it's destructive. In order to recover artifacts, you have to tear through the land. And if you don't document and draw and photograph every last speck of the site, you can't argue anything. There's

no doovers in archaeology. Context is everything, and an artifact isn't important unless it's found in relation to things, which is so true. Totally makes sense. Right, So we're saying we're taking on faith pretty much, we're taking on the word of students in the ninety thirties who may or may not have been actually students, that they found this

head with all this other stuff. But it's totally possible this head was found in Italy for all we know, and it had been misspiled and placed with this collection. But since there's no pictures, no documentation, no nothing, and Payon didn't talk about it until the nineteen sixties, that leads to me to believe that he didn't even know what existed until he went to go view the collection and thought, that doesn't seem right. Maybe they did find it. Okay,

that's interesting, weird, let's talk about that. You know that this makes me think of what, So you guys know this that you know, I grew up in southern Oregon and there is a lot of Native tribes that lived in the area because it was just chuck full of rivers and it's all silty ground and if you go to the right areas, for years, people would always be digging around looking for arrowheads. Yeah. I did that the kids.

And what really cracked me up is it was a known thing to go to, you know, the areas where we're just outside of it. That the tour would be and say, oh, well, this is this is an m qua arrowhead found at this side, and this is this kind of arrowhead found at that side, and blah blah blah, And for a dollar fifty it can be yours and see this is where they tied it on, and and people will be like, oh wow, this is great, and they tell their children and they'd be passed down through histories.

Look at this great arrowhead that I bought that was found from this side. And really what it was is it was Jim Bob down the street with an angle grinder and some rocks and he was grinding him and chipping him and making fakes that dated correctly if you just dated the material like it makes me think of oh wow, this would have just been so easy to just throw in the mix. And I guess there for me, from all of the things that I've seen, people pretty

much agree that this is a genuine ancient artifact. And that's why I say throw in the mix. I'm not saying that some guy made it with an angle green shop, but it would be pretty easy. For the amount of oversight and like a burden of proof that we've got with this thing, it would be so easy for somebody to just be like, I know, or somebody to be like, I don't know, it's in the box. It's probably part of it, I am I only yeah, yeah, But the thing about it is is that it's not it doesn't

appear to be a native artifact. And so how did how did it wind up in the museum where you actually get accidentally mixed in with these objects from that tomb? Yeah, I don't know collection. Yeah, I mean I could have been it could have been left over from something from some of the museum that they just didn't happen to return. I mean maybe, I mean things you gotta remember, you know that that era was kind of volatile for institutions.

You know, things would spring up and collapse pretty quick, and so somebody could have amassed a collection and said, I'm now going to donate it to this museum because that's in my will and testament, and then it goes to that museum, which in that museum instantly folds and their stuff is just then shuttled to some other museum. I mean, there's that's an easy process, and that kind of stuff happened all the time. Yeah, yeah, I know, it's a little easier in this case to suppose that

it was just human incompetence or carelessness. Yeah. I mean, for me, like, the thing I keep picturing is, you know, you've got your like, you know, minimum wage assistant helping to set up this exhibition, and they've got their gloves on and you know, they're placing stuff, and they think, Okay, I gotta take that head away next, right, and then they're like, oh, I'm just kidding. It's five Okay, I'll do that tomorrow. But tomorrow comes and they're not there.

It's the other hungover or yeah whatever, or they just like forget right and that head they're like, okay, yeah, that's probably part of that's probably part of it. Yeah, I mean, there's lots of other stuff here. It's probably part of it. But I guess, you know, for me, it's just it's so hard because there's just no documentation on this thing, and I really wish there was, And that's why it's an unsolved mystery. The reason for this

being an unsolved mystery is not because we couldn't. This is one of those ones right where it's like they had just taken a couple of dang pictures of that site, we would know exactly what was happening when you originally pulled all the all the many many things out of this grave. If they had just made an inventory, Yeah, you know that we could even know if it was even in the original grave or not. That's one huge question.

And then of course it opens up some other questions of like, well, how to get there if it was a part of that grave. But by and large, for me, it's just there's so many questions, and I just it's frustrating because if do course or do process had been followed, Yeah, the so there are many ways it could have gotten into that grave or gotten into that collection. We just don't know where it got in along the line. Okay, well what I mean, what do you think, Steve? I

I still think that it was probably local. Yeah, it's I still think that it's probably from the region and it was part of the original burial and they totally found in. Yeah, I don't. I feel like it probably wasn't inserted just because of the age of it. It just seems like it's in too good of shape to have gone through anything else, because most artifacts that are dug up are not in good shape. Yeah, but you gotta, especially you're like Roman and European based stuff like that.

It's never in good shape. It's rarely in good shape because their city has always got sacked, Their stuff always got tossed around. Oh yeah, of course. The thing is if it was made locally, it must have been kept in something the equivalent of the museum itself to have survived so many years. I mean we're talking a long long time before the thing finally got put into somebody's grave. Well, we might be according to that thermal luminescence dating, it

could have been as late as like twelve. The thing that the thing that we haven't talked about though, is that it's possible that it wasn't the first time that it was put in somebody's grave. I mean, robbing is an old practice, and it could be that somebody said, we don't have a big enough hall to honor the king. Uh, well, bob down the down the road. Nobody liked him anyway, he was bobbed the jerk rulers, so we're going to

go ahead and rob his stuff. And then they just they went in and carted it all out and dumped it the new one. And I mean I guess. The other frustration for me is that since we don't really know how this was, like, was the head a little

more buried than everything else? And if so, is it possible that that it was, like we well, maybe it was even like a child's toy that got buried like years before this newer civilization came in and they built their pyramid above it and then used it as a traditional You know, there's there's so many possibilities here that just like kids leave their toys everywhere you do. Yeah, so I don't know. I think it's going to have to stay in history. I think so too. So we'll

post probably both of the pictures stuff this. Yeah, well that's that's a lot of searching as long as well as some of our research. And I'm gonna just preemptively apologize for like the background color of some of these websites that I'm gonna post, by the way, in the pictures, I will I'm gonna photoshop a ruler into that. Yeah, just so you can get us some idea, just photo shopping about five of them. Yeah, yeah, different scales just rotate and well, yeah, or maybe I'll photoshop like a

beer can or something something like that. Yeah, anyway, you can find all that stuff on our website. That website is thinking Sideways podcast dot com. You can obviously listen to us on iTunes. UM. If you're listening to us on iTunes, you should, um, you know, subscribe and rate and or review not comment review you are probably you may be listening to us on some other you know,

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